UH1 Cobra Vietnam

In mid-1968 the first AH-1G Cobras began to appear. I was on the UH-1 committee as an instructor when the first prototype was being tested and everyone summed it up with one word cool. The prototype had a really neat front cockpit collective in the shape of a cobras head. When the assembly model started arriving, it stood a little taller off the ground than the prototype, the collective was more traditional and the armament possibilities were unreal. Under the nose it carried two weapons, either M-5s, mini-guns or a combination of the two, although it carried only about 100 M-5 rounds and about 1,000 mini-gun rounds. On the stub wings you could mount mini-guns or 20 mm guns in individual pods, 19 shot rocket pods or any combination of the above. We felt the real advantage the Cobra offered was that it was only 36 inches across the fuselage making it a very small target when it was coming at you. A really cool feature that never made it to the production model was the sight that mounted directly to the gunners helmet and by using a pinky switch on the cyclic, called a dead man switch, the nose guns would train to where he was looking. It also had retractable skids, but they took up space and needed hydraulic pressure that might be in short supply in an emergancy, so they never made production.

Rotorwash I found this photo in one of your Forum posts found here.

http://www.militaryimages.net/forums/showthread.php/11732-UH-1-Armament-part-1

I have uploaded it to our Galleries because I thought it was very informative. it has been uploaded in your username and as you can see a link back to the thread has also been provided.


Many thanks