the AH-1 Cobra is still one mean bird

Still you know how vulnerable you are without them. All it takes is one enemy to get lucky and you are not there... At least it provides a momentary pause in the mind of an attacker...

That enemy would be pounced upon by F/A-18s, 22s, F-15s, and F-16s before he knew what hit him. He'd be lighting up AWACS or Hawkeye radar before he got close.

Okay everyone lets set this straight. There are no Cobras or Apaches in the US military inventory that are modified to carry the Sidewinder missile. You just can attach them to the end of the wing pylon when there is no attachment point.

The aircraft has to be modified to do so. There are none...Period!

How do I know this, because I was in US Army Aviation for 6 years. My unit had Apaches and Blackhawks. I have also seen the Marine Cobras in a combat zone and they do not have the modifications either.

2nd Air to Air combat is not part of there training. They dont even recieve a quick course in air to air combat and how to fire a sidewinder. Therefore there would not be a mission given to the crews to carry a sidewinder.

That is not there job.

3rd. It is not a deterrant to an enemy because none of our enemies carry them. Even if they did they would not stand a chance because the Airforce would get rid of them before they could get the Apaches or Cobras.

An Apache or Cobra is not going to waste valuable Ground Support Ammo such as Hellfires, TOW or rockets to carry a sidewinder missile.

I know everyone thinks that Apache Longbows are standard to carry them because they see it in Video Games. These Video Games such as Longbow are not reality and not even close to being realistic.

Also the movie Firebirds is not real either. The air to air combat scenes in the movie with the Apache firing its regular rockets at other helicopters is not real. It will not happen in real life and you can not target those rockets to shoot at the enemy aircraft.

REAL LIFE COMBAT IS NOT LIKE IN THE GAMES AND MOVIES

HealzDevo said:

I think Cobras can but the US doesn't let them. Certainly be a great deterrent to jet aircraft to attacking the helicopters. Besides Harriers do fighter work and they are not really that much faster than helicopters in reality...

Click to expand...

No it is not a deterrent you know why. Because the Jet fighter does not care if you have the sidewinder or not. He is going to either kill you before you know you are there or he is going to outmaneuever you. It does not matter.

I REPEAT HELICOPTERS DO NOT DO AIR TO AIR BECAUSE THERE IS NO REASON FOR THEM AND THEY WOULD BE VAPORIZED BEFORE THEY HAD THE CHANCE

Why does the issue of air-to-air longbows and cobras keep coming up???

We had a section of cobras come to NAS corpus the other day, as well as a division of army kiowas. Always nice to have visitors bring by some cool birds. I think a section of MV-22s are supposed to come by in a week or two, but I haven't confirmed it.

I agree. I allways enjoyed seeing different units with different kinds of aircraft come through. Get to hang out and see them. That is another reason why I enjoye being stationed in Europe. We would get to see all the other nations aircraft and train with them. Was a good experience.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Okay everyone lets set this straight. There are no Cobras or Apaches in the US military inventory that are modified to carry the Sidewinder missile. You just can attach them to the end of the wing pylon when there is no attachment point.

The aircraft has to be modified to do so. There are none...Period!

How do I know this, because I was in US Army Aviation for 6 years. My unit had Apaches and Blackhawks. I have also seen the Marine Cobras in a combat zone and they do not have the modifications either.

Click to expand...

Really? Not trying to start a flame war here, but I've been on several MEU deployments and every time we've transited the Straits of Hormuz (as well as some other, not so nice littoral countries), we've carried AIM-9s on LAU-7s on stations 1 and 4. The AH-1Z (and W, for that matter), are indeed capable of carrying the AIM-9. Every single one of them...

Never say never, just sayin'....

HG

hueygunner said:

View attachment 178569


Really? Not trying to start a flame war here, but I've been on several MEU deployments and every time we've transited the Straits of Hormuz (as well as some other, not so nice littoral countries), we've carried AIM-9s on LAU-7s on stations 1 and 4. The AH-1Z (and W, for that matter), are indeed capable of carrying the AIM-9. Every single one of them...

Never say never, just sayin'....

HG

Click to expand...

I probably should have said US Army Aviation. Are there aircraft in the inventory that can do so? Of course, but will you find US Army Apaches carrying Sidewinders and going out doing air to air operations? No...

But I will agree with you, never say never. I for one can not speak for the Marines or the Navy. That post of mine was probably a bad choice of words...

Just ran across this thread. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but I do keep up on most things US Aviationwise (is that a word?). Thanks guys, in a very brief time I learned quite a bit about helicopters that I didn't know.