How Bell Helicopters Turned The HUEY Into The COBRA

About 60 years ago, the first prototype of the AH-1 took off on its maiden flight, the first helicopter ever to have been designed specifically for combat, and six decades later, new AH-1 helicopters are still rolling off their production lines and into frontline units all over the globe. The Cobra set the standard for attack helicopters just as the Huey had set the standard for utility helicopters, and today we're going to take a look at why this aircraft is so special, and how Bell engineers managed to take the humble UH-1 design and turn it into the greatest attack helicopter to ever fly. This is the story of the AH-1 Huey Cobra. You can deploy your own attack helicopters in Conflict of Nations, who have been kind enough to sponsor this video. Conflict of Nations is a free online PvP strategy game in which you choose a real country to lead in modern global warfare. You'll fight up to 128 other players in real-time games that can take weeks to complete, crafting your army from hundreds of different units, tanks, jets, helicopters, or even nuclear submarines. You can use diplomacy to forge alliances, or use brute force to take your objectives, using your strategy to wage epic battles and take over the world. I love that moving your troops, launching airstrikes, or building infrastructure takes hours to accomplish in real-time, so it adds a much deeper level of strategy to the game. You can play with the same account on both PC and mobile, and by using the link in the description below, you can get an exclusive gift, 13,000 gold and 1 month premium subscription, completely free. This offer is only available for 30 days, so make sure you don't miss out. But anyway, back to the Snake Helicopter. Helicopters as a concept only started to appear on the scene in the late 1940s, becoming a popular idea in the 50s after their huge success in the Korean War. At this time however, they were tiny, fragile machines, didn't have the engines powerful enough or flight characteristics stable enough to be used in anything but auxiliary roles. If we fast forward to the early 1960s though, the helicopter had become a hugely important tool in most modern military thinking, largely due to the success of Bell's UH-1 Iroquois, the turboshaft-powered workhorse of the US Army. I go into detail about the UH-1 in a video I made earlier this year, so assuming you've watched that already, we can skip ahead a bit. By the mid-1960s, America was hopelessly entangled in the Vietnam War and was deploying UH-1 helicopters as gunships, strapping M60 machine guns, 40mm grenade launchers and 2.75 inch rocket pods to the Huey and using them to suppress the enemy as troop transport aircraft dropped off their own valuable cargo. And this worked, but even the newest UH-1C was struggling to keep up with the unarmed UH-1Ds carrying the troops. Armed Hueys could only reach 90mph, whereas the Slicks could get up to 104mph. This issue was even more obvious when the gunships were deployed alongside CH-47 Chinooks, which could fly up to 50mph faster than their escorts. The troop transports either had to slow down significantly or make the decision to abandon the gunships, both of which resulted in much higher loss rates. But a solution was already on the drawing board, the Advanced Aerial Fire Support System or AAFSS or AAFSS or whatever, which began in August of 1964. Initially the plan was for an interim solution based on existing designs, which was to be capable of reaching at least 140 knots while carrying a payload of around 1500 pounds. This idea was rejected in favour of a completely new design, with Army Top Brass arguing that there was no point in trying to tie themselves to an inferior weapon system, they wanted a new state of the art helicopter and so AAFSS was born. The program would be narrowed to two designs by 1965, the Sikorsky S-66 and the Lockheed CL-840. The Lockheed design, officially designated the AH-56A Cheyenne, would end up winning the competition and would first fly in 1967. But the Cheyenne, as you can tell, was an incredibly complex design, and while hugely impressive, was plagued with cost increases, accidents and technical delays. These issues eventually led to the program's cancellation in 1972. But far before this, it had become clear that the Cheyenne was not going to be ready soon enough to keep up with the Army's needs in Southeast Asia, and in 1965, while the AAFSS program was still in progress, the Army admitted that an interim solution would indeed be required and so the search commenced. They returned with five designs, the Kaman UH-2, the Sikorsky S-61, the Piasecki 16H, a gunship variant of the Chinook and the Bell Model 209. All of these were based on existing helicopters, but unlike the other competitors, Bell had been working on their design for the best part of seven years. As early as 1958, Bell Helicopter had been working on combat helicopter designs, first adapting the Model 204 to serve as a combat recon aircraft, known as the D-245. They received little to no support for this project however, as this was before America had entered Vietnam and realised the need for such a design. The company continued to plug away at the D-245 project at its own expense, presenting the D-255 Iroquois Warrior in June 1962. As the name suggested, the D-255 used components of the UH-1 Iroquois and had a number of innovative features that would later appear on the Cobra, such as the extended aerodynamic fuselage, tandem cockpit and stub wings, as well as the forward machine gun turret. The D-255 was probably the world's first true combat helicopter, and later versions would see the stepped tandem cockpit replaced with a one-piece design, but the D-255 was only a mock-up and would never fly. It was impressive enough to warrant more work, and Bell would soon expense a low-cost test bed for the helicopter concept, testing as many aspects of the D-245 and D-255 as possible, just on a smaller scale. The result was this, the Model 207. This aircraft, based on the Model 47, was also then known as the OH-13X Sioux Scout. It kept the landing skids, sensor fuselage, tail boom and tail rotor of the Model 47, while using the rotor and power plant of the military OH-13S. Unlike the Model 47 or the OH-13S, the Sioux Scout had the tandem cockpit, aerodynamic fuselage, stubby wings and chin turret of the D-255, and was the first of Bell's combat helicopter designs to actually fly on the 27th of June 1963. For the next 16 months the aircraft would be tested extensively, logging a total of 304 hours in the air and being flown by 340 pilots. It was a huge success. Testing done on the Model 207 by the 11th Air Assault Division concluded that a similar helicopter should be developed, but with a larger payload and a turboshaft power plant, but this was going to be expensive, and at that time there was still no requirement. However, Bell was receiving detailed reports from its technical representatives about the escalating war in Vietnam, and they became convinced that the US military would soon the need for a combat helicopter, and they wanted to be prepared. On the 16th of December 1964, work began on the Interim Combat Helicopter. Naturally it was to be based off the UH-1, in order to reduce cost and development time. Bell also embraced the idea of offering the new aircraft as a variant of the Huey, easing the purchase and introduction into army service. Construction began in March 1965, aiming for an October 1st maiden flight so that they could demonstrate the new helicopter to the bushboard on November 1st at the very latest. Work was done in secrecy, with a new work area being constructed known as the Green Room, in a far away hangar, and only a select few given access. The room would often be referred to as the steam room by those who worked inside it, as it got almost unbearably hot during the summer months. Anyway, on the 3rd of September 1965, the Model 209 was rolled out of the factory and revealed to the public, bearing the civil registration N-209J. N-209J first took to the skies 4 days later, reaching a top speed of 104 mph a day after that, 184 mph a day after that, before breaking 200 mph on the 25th. Safe to say this machine would have no problem keeping up. The Model 209 was largely an amalgamation of all the projects Bell had worked on before, the UH-1, the D-245, the D-255, and the Model 207. It was almost unbelievably sleek and aerodynamic for a helicopter, with recessed rivets, flush mounted antenna, fibreglass fairings around the swashplate, and even retractable landing skids. Despite looking nothing like the UH-1, especially from the front, the Model 209 used the tail rotor, transmission and propulsion system of the C-Model Huey, the Lycoming T-53L-11. In fact, Bell claimed that 85% of the mechanical components used were identical to those used on the UH-1C, making the design much more attractive from a spare parts and maintenance point of view. The narrower fuselage had a two-man tandem cockpit, with a pilot in the rear and a gunner in the front, operating his M134 machine gun turret, which was paired with his own computer, that helped compensate for target deviations and calculated lead angles. The 8000 rounds of ammunition for the 7.62mm Gatling gun were stored in these boxes under the cockpit, which folded out quite nicely for access. You can see in this photo the ammo storage, as well as the flaps for the retractable landing skids, and the Chevrolet brand cockpit strut that they sourced from a Chevy dealer in Fort Worth. The pilot could fire the turret as well, but only in the locked forward position. His main armament was mounted on the stubby wings either side of the aircraft, mounting rocket or machine gun pods. These wings also provided lift, relieving stress on the rotor, and allowing for a much more manoeuvrable aircraft. Experience in Vietnam had shown that helicopters get shot an awful lot, often by 7.62mm rounds. To address this, Bell spent considerable effort armouring areas of the aircraft in order to protect the pilots in other key areas. The bucket seats were made of a quarter inch steel, the gunner had a nose plate and a 1.125 inch armoured windscreen, the hydraulic system, engine compressor and fuel control system all had armoured plates, and the fuel tanks were armoured as well as being self-sealing, and as it was the 1960s, the crew of course got their own ashtrays. In November 1965, N209J was shipped to Edwards AFB for testing against the other interim helicopter designs, and by March 1966, it was abundantly clear that the Model 209 was the superior aircraft. However, it did take until April 1967 for Bell to get the $23 million contract for the first 112 aircraft, including two pre-production models. N209J would fly on, serving as a testbed for modifications and weapon loadouts until 1971, and going on a tour to showcase the exciting new design to the world. Bizarrely, during these demonstrations, the gunner's control stick mounted the taxidermied head of a King Cobra as a marketing gag, with the head inexplicably getting lost during a display in Munich in 1967. But we're ahead of ourselves. When the aircraft won the contract, it was still only known as Model 209. It was even meant to be adopted as the UH-1H, to further hit home how it was simply another variant of the Huey. But in May 1966, it was changed to the AH-1G, Attack Helicopter I. The pre-production models were given the designation Y-AH-1G, and the first took off October 15, 1966, undergoing rigorous testing at Fort Hood. In May 1967, the first production aircraft began to leave the Bell factory, boasting a number of modifications compared to N209J. The most obvious is the lack of retractable landing skids. After a lot of testing, it was discovered that the complex, expensive, but very attractive, retractable skids only gave a speed increase of around 3 mph, and the engineers knew that in combat conditions, fixed skids were a much more reliable option, and so they were removed. The production AH-1Gs also mounted a larger diameter XM-64 machine gun turret. This turret still only had one Gatling gun, but a later installation of the M28 turret of the same diameter allowed for the installation of two miniguns, two 40mm grenade launchers, or a combination of the two, effectively doubling the gunner's firepower. In addition, the wingspan was increased slightly, the wings themselves were reinforced, the seats were replaced with spaced armour versions, and the more powerful L-13 powerplant was fitted, boasting 300 extra horsepower. The last significant change was the removal of the bulletproof windshield after calculations revealed that the hit chance was less than 4%, but you know, try telling that to the pro-gunner. After these first two contracts were fulfilled, the military quickly placed another, and by March 1967, contracts were in place for 530 aircraft. Safe to say that the AH-1G was here to stay, and it was only getting started. AH-1G is a long name though, don't you think? Helicopters in the US army usually got named after Native American tribes, the Sioux, the Chickasaw, the Chinook, etc, but this convention wasn't used for the AH-1. The army was in a legal dispute with Piper, who used the same names for their own aircraft, and even though the UH-1 was technically the Iroquois, nobody in the US used the name anyway. And so, adapting a nickname that was already in use for machine gun wielding gunships, they called the new aircraft the AH-1G Huey Cobra. Of course, this is just the beginning of the Cobra's story, but is unfortunately the end of this video. In the next instalments, I'll take you through the Cobra's service in Vietnam, and guide you through the hundreds of variants of the helicopter, stretching from the N209J back in 1965, all the way up to the AH-1Z model still flying today. Clearly there's a lot to unpack between these two. Thanks again to Conflict of Nations for sponsoring the video and supporting the channel. To refresh your memory, Conflict of Nations is a free online PvP strategy game with a focus on modern global warfare, in which you choose your own strategy to take over the world. Click that link in the description for the exclusive free gift package, choose your country, and fight your way to victory. Thank you so much for watching, please do consider subscribing if enjoyed, and of course a huge thank you to my Patreon supporters and my friends on Discord. I'll see you in the next one.