Click to play videoIt’s a role that it wasn’t designed for, but urban warfare of the sort seen in big budget Hollywood films is what the modern offensive helicopter was designed for. Somalia, Afghanistan, or Iraq-their speed, adaptability, and now deadly armoury make the modern helicopter a truly lethal weapon.
The very latest helicopter to join the US Marine Corps is the Cobra Zulu. At a Naval Base in Maryland they develop, test and push the once not-so-glamorous helicopter to new limits. Like its fixed winged siblings the Cobra is bristling with the latest technology.
“We're standing in front of AH-1Z, which is our newest Super Cobra. We have mission computers on this aircraft the first time for the Cobra family-a huge leap to the 21st century since we designed these airplanes originally back in the 50's and 60's,” says Colonel Keith Birkholz, Super Cobra Programme Manager.
“The weapons systems all integrated on a mission grip which looks a lot like your Atari or X Box or Playstation mission grip so your kids are learning how to fly this helicopter today.”
The da Vinci code
It's an idea that had been around since the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci in the fifteenth century. But the helicopter didn't fly until pioneers like Fokker in Germany and Ukranian immigrant Sikorsky in the USA put twentieth century technology to work on a 500 year old idea. In the helicopter the jet engine doesn't use its power for thrust like in a jet plane. But the jet engine did transform the helicopter - giving it a bigger role on the battlefront.
“You could now carry more you had more power and also the engines were much simpler and they were much more reliable,” says Elfan Ap Rees, of The Helicopter Museum, UK.
The new generation of helicopters emerged in the 1960s. At the forefront was the Huey. As an air ambulance it arrived in time for the Vietnam war. It was also drafted into more aggressive roles almost side-by-side. The extra power, payload and reliability provided by the jet engine made the helicopter a versatile machine.
“As good as this aircraft was at bringing soldiers off the battle field maybe it would be just as good bringing them into the battlefield to begin with. And thus the idea of vertical envelopment came about,” says helicopter specialist John Millman.
Vertical envelopment meant dropping troops into hot landing zones. It was a dangerous job for the new air cavalry. The Huey needed protection. Guns and rockets were fixed on the sides and a gunship version was soon flying in convoy with the troop carriers.
“The problem came that the Huey that was carrying all the armaments was slower than the helicopter that was carrying the troops. So that was why they decided to start looking at developing a particular attack helicopter which would be faster which would be more streamlined which would just carry a gunner and a pilot. And that essentially was the birth of the attack helicopter,” says Elfan Ap Rees, of the The Helicopter Museum in the UK.
This attack helicopter was called the Cobra. And it's been in action ever since.
(A CNN-IBN Nat Geo presentation)
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