Good question – Is it possible to get stuff on and off a flying airplane without the airplane landing?

Let’s imagine that you would like to do something like mail drop-off and pickup in a remote area where no landing strip is available. Or imagine that you would like to extract a soldier from a remote area where there is no landing strip. The traditional way to solve this problem is by using a helicopter, as shown here:

The advantage of a helicopter is that it can hover in midair.

Is it possible to do the same thing with an airplane? It would seem like it would not be possible, since planes fly through the air at a constant speed, typically 100+ MPH.

But in the following video, you can see a technique demonstrated that allows an airplane to fly in a circle so that a bucket connected to the flying airplane can remain stationary on the ground long enough to affect a transfer of material in and/or out of the stationary bucket:

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