Flying the Bell AH-1 Cobra Gunship

[wolfpack076]

My sincere heartfelt condolences for your loss Sir...I will keep him in my Prayers...

 

[Kyle Bayless]

Interesting article on the cobra. The armed H13 was mentioned as a first attempt at arming helicopters. My Dad, CW4 Jack Brown, was the lead pilot during work to first arm helicopters. There were some attempts at Ft Rucker to arm H13s but, they were trying to use them as not much more than elevated machine gun firing platforms. Most of the development, including the first strafing runs and rockets fired by a helicopter, was done in 1957 at Ft Benning by a small group that was part of the 4th Transportation Co. They armed H13s, H23s and finally ended up with a heavily armed H34. The final version was nicknamed "The Bad Mother" and it had an array of armament. I can't recall the entire list but, it included several fixed and flex mounted 30 and 50cal MGs, fixed 20mm, somewhere around 40 2.75in rockets and two 5in holy moses rockets. After their initial experiments, they took it to the Sikorsky factory where they designed some better gun mounts and firing systems. I will try to find some of the pictures and share them.

A further note to your missive. I don’t know what model copter was the first with weapons but I’ll offer details of on test I observed. In either 1952 or 1953 my father, at that time Maj Harry K. Bayless, was stationed at Ft. Meade , MD. He spent his whole adult life and WW-II with the Army Air Force and Army Aviation ending up as a full Colonel in charge of all Army Aviation in US European Command. Now for the story, one day my dad asked if I would like to accompany him to observe a test on the Ft. Meade reservation and of course I jumped at the chance. We went to one of the live fire ranges. When we got there he, and a number of other officers inspected a helicopter ( I think it was of Korean War vintage, something like on the MASH tv show, maybe OH-1 ?). They had mounted a Browning .30 cal. Machine gun on each skid And jury rigged wires to allow the pilot to fire them. It took off and circled down and out of sight to our right, then popping up and sweeping toward an old vehicle hull about 200 yards down range. The pilot had to point the helicopter exactly where he wanted the guns to fire and he obliterated the vehicle in a couple of runs.
Afterward he landed and everyone inspected it I overheard my dad say “ I think we may have something here”.
If you have any way of forwarding this to Will Dobis please do.
Kyle Bayless

 

[KillerFord1977]

I always wanted to fly Army Aviation. Most notably the AH-1 Cobra or OH-58 .
I was fascinated with helicopters and wanted Army after High School.
Bad eyes prevented that in the late ‘80s and the DOD wouldnt take me even though at 19 yrs old I was a private pilot/ instrument rated and flying since 14. Pilots license day I turned 16.
Every branch of service said NO to me flying helicopters with my eyesight.
So I went commercial… for a few years.
Still bummed to this day about never being in service to fly helicopters.

A man named Hugh Mills inspired me. A Loach and gunship pilot in Vietnam, I had all the books about him. Shot down, decorated who wss Low and slow looking for trouble in a snake or loach. I wanted to do that sooo bad.

Still have the books from childhood.
This one was printed in 1974. Gone are the days I could join the service even under the 2000’s relaxed rules.


Mills being reacued from a Jolly Green with a CAR-15 was when I had to have a short M16 when “I grew up” .
Still my favorite

 

[CEW]

In Iran I made it a mission to teach the maintenance/troubleshooters/crew chiefs to be able to fly the aircraft.

I know one for sure went home to Atlanta arranged to rent a Jet Ranger and get his rotor-wing certification.

In return they let me do some of the maintenance.

Actually we had a great time over there, until Kohmani returned and eventually we were evacuated.

A note thrown up on our balcony. For the most part the citizens were very helpful.

Great memories!

Scary World and not much better, but strange as it makes the best memories...

 

[DavidDSmith]

Finally something we have in common, From HS to Flight School 1978, Fort Rucker, AL OH-58A Graduate and on to Ft. Hood, TX, 11 years and 3000+ Hours later of Military service all over the world. Mainly Scout operations for the Cobra's. And finally maintenance officer before getting out.

 

[CEW]

In Iran I made it a mission to teach the maintenance/troubleshooters/crew chiefs to be able to fly the aircraft.

I know one for sure went home to Atlanta arranged to rent a Jet Ranger and get his rotor-wing certification.

In return they let me do some of the maintenance.

Actually we had a great time over there, until Kohmani returned and eventually we were evacuated.

A note thrown up on our balcony. For the most part the citizens were very helpful.

Great memories!

You teaching the techs to fly, was a wise one. Working for a Company that surmised it would more cost effective to allow them to do starts and run-ups, not knowing how to fly was okay. Some of us old grays thought, hmm, how long till... Not disappointed in our concern, one Tech got to solo shortly thereafter, with the expected results. Fortunately, he did get to walk away with some minor cuts. However, the chopper, hangar roof and aircraft stored within, not so lucky. The practice was immediately stopped.

I remembered during a Chief Pilot stint the insurance companies' division of blades in motion or not in motion within a policy as I am sure it wasn't the first...

 

[mikegc]

I was a combat photographer with the Big Red One in '69 and one of 1st Aviation "Snakes" helped us out during a fracas. These two aviators with "The Rebels" really made a difference! I was trying to get a photo of the shell casings raining down outta that mini-gun but didn't quite get the shot I wanted:

Long time ago!

Mike

 

[DavidDSmith]

I was a combat photographer with the Big Red One in '69 and one of 1st Aviation "Snakes" helped us out during a fracas. These two aviators with "The Rebels" really made a difference! I was trying to get a photo of the shell casings raining down outta that mini-gun but didn't quite get the shot I wanted:
View attachment 49402

Long time ago!

Mike

Beautiful picture of another life.

 

[rcurtner]

The first Huey gunship was the B model, followed by the Charlie model, and then the Mike model. Flew the Charlie model in Vietnam 69-70. In II Corp we flew most often with 14 rockets and two miniguns, as well two M-60’s used by the crew chief and door gunner. Occasionally we would have a hog with 38 rockets but no miniguns. We were always overloaded and usually had to make a bouncing, running takeoff as we had L11 engine with 1100 horsepower. The Mike was basically a Charlie model with the H model L13 engine with 1300 horsepowe.

Was a door gunner on D model slicks 67-68. Very well remember C model gunships prepping lz's for troop insertions.

 

[Redryder]

Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Flying the Bell AH-1 Cobra Gunship” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/ah-1-cobra-gunship/.

I flew the Cobra Gunship from 1969-1970 and had 754 combat flight hours. The gunship pictured in the article has a three-barrel 20mm gun in the chin. When fired, it slowed the Cobra significantly.

 

[USMC6094]

Back in 2002 I was a student at Parris Island, Weapons Battalion, becoming a rifle a pistol coach.
Unknown to me until the day before graduation was that the Battalion C.O. was a Cobra driver that got shot down when we went into Grenada.
More specifically, his front seater was killed, and he lost one of his arms from the ground fire that shot his bird down.
When he presented us our certificates, we shook his left hand.
Of the officers I met in my time in, he was probably the most laid back for a full bird Colonel.

 

[Ascout]

My son flew the AH 1 W- HMLA 267 USMC. I got the chance to put in a couple of hours with him in the simulator. I was all Grins, it was so realistic (only crashed a few times).
Further, I had the chance to spend time with him on board the USS Boxer, LHD4.

These were called "Tiger Cruises" and mine was from Pearl Harbor to San Diego. Yes, I got to watch him put the "Snake" through maneuvers, blow up pallets in the water. and, get a friendly chewing out by the aircraft mechanic: Apparently he borderline over torque'd the thing on a "flyby." We were two days out from San Diego on 9/11.

We are approaching a plateau of sorts this month: 20 years ago OIF was launched. Another plateau is just around the corner (for me); 5 April, the date my son was KIA during combat air support operations.

Not many Dads get the opportunity to share their kids life log dream as i had. He often said: "The government actually pays me to do this."
Reading the article and other notes, offers so many memories.

In another life I performed a lot of technical service to medical laboratories around the U.S. This included government facilities like the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton when I was living in San Diego. In even the life before that I was with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, both Air and Armored Cavalry. This put me in the position of responding to downed aircraft in our AO, both ours in 2/17th Air Cav and of course, other units of the 101st Abn. that we supported.
Some of this came to light in the performance of my later duties in SoCal and a "snake driver' with HMLA 267 gifted me with a unit T-shirt for the unit which I prize to this day. Doggies don't get a lot of acknowledgements from the jarheads, so that makes it that much sweeter. My sincere condolences for the loss of your son.