Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne: The Incredible Attack Helicopter Decades Ahead of Its Time 

Most military officers who make their way to the requirements, budget, and acquisitions/procurement side of the DoD have faced similar frustrations. For example, my last assignment in the military was as the director of development for a large, multi-level security big-data and analysis system. We went all in with best-practice open source everything, from code, to analytic tools, to visualizations, to data structure/un-structure principles, modeling, etc. I had a large, secure budget with a very large and talented team and we managed to deliver both a prototype and the first increment of the system through the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase of the project. We were rolling and had support and advocacy all the way through the chain up to senior civilian leadership at the Pentagon. Then, we had the honor of briefing the Professional Staff Members from the House Armed Services Committee, who heretofore were overwhelmingly supportive of us. On that day in October of 2016, everything was going well, the demo was flawless, and we were all smiling until one of the members asked if we’d engaged Amazon Web Services as part of our risk reduction efforts. We had not. He then went on a lengthy and generally pointless diatribe about their emerging toolsets, ease of use, and ability to handle big datasets with ease. I countered with the fact that, at that point, they had not proven their security model within our concept of operations (a VERY big deal, btw), and were extremely cagey about rights to both raw and processed data. Conversely, our solution suffered from neither of those issues, we had proven our functionality and performance against requirements, had met our budget during the riskiest phase of the project, and were ready to scale to full production, backed by independent program and legal analyses. In the end, it didn’t matter. When the budget was released for review that fall, we were toast, courtesy of the HASC, and the whole effort was turned over to another agency which had no familiarity at all with the program but had infrastructure ties to AWS. The project died two years later amid soaring costs and late deliveries due to architecture changeover, security problems, and, of course, data rights conflicts. The worst part wasn’t losing the project. The worst part was firing over 80 of my folks in the course of two days. I retired a bitter man for that.

Hi. My dad was Don Segner, a senior test pilot on the Cheyenne program and the Lockheed Rigid Rotor program as a whole. The project was mainly killed by Barry Goldwater who was a staunch advocate of the A-10 and the U.S. Air Force. Your analysis is pretty spot one. I wish my father was still around. He would have felt vindicated by seeing this video.

When you're playing as friends as little kids this is the sort of thing they say "no that's not fair!" What an incredible machine!

Almost every single craft created by Lockheed is so advanced you'd think they hired aliens to design them.

When measured in dollars, Lockheed can’t avoid doing mega projects.

My Dad was one of the engineers. It broke his heart when the project was cancelled.

My Father worked flight test on the program. I remember watching it fly at the Yuma proving grounds and at Fort Hunter Liggett. It was impressive. I just retired from the Skunk Work after 42 years. Lockheed is a great company to work for.

When a senior in high school in 1968, Lockheed was doing flight testing out of Oxnard, CA. The approach path to the local airport went right over the high school campus. I remember, on more than one ocasión seeing the Cheyanne zoom over the school, pursued by a P-51 Mustang flown by one of their engineers, perhaps as a camera ship. Pretty impressive. And very fast.

We had one of these on static display at Ft. Campbell when I was stationed there in the 90's. Even in its relatively rough shape, the thing was immensely impressive up close.

Simon and Co. have been killing it in the aviation coverage lately....and I'm happy about it lol 🍻

Great analysis of the issue of "corruption," I mean lobbying. I've lived in a few places in the world where I had to explain that the United States suffers from this very nuanced form of corruption instead of the very upfront corruption one can find elsewhere. Fantastic job Simon & Co.

Westland successfully used the rigid rotor design on their Lynx, which still holds helicopter speed record and is aerobatic.

that was the most long winded way to say "politics only benefits politicians" I've ever heard lol and i loved every scathing second of it 😎👍

Moral of the story: Politicians suck and deny us of sick-ass projects.

Makes me sad that the different services can’t seem to understand that all of them having the best equipment (yes including Marines) is a net positive for the nation.

Great video! I'm a big aviation buff but knew next to nothing about AH-56. There's a small slip-up at 15:34 in the video where you say AH-64 two times but you are referring to the AH-56. Thank you for the very thorough history of this forgotten aircraft. 👍

My dad worked at Ft Rucker during the 60's. He told me the speed of the Cheyenne was like watching a Mohawk fly by. He always thought it was stupid for the program to be canceled.

Hey Simon. A couple of times you mixed up the numbers, refering to the AH 56 as the AH 64. The times i reacted to are at: 14:47, 15:33, 15:39 Otherwise it's a intressting video as usual.

This story makes me so sad every time i hear it. Even today this helicopter sounds incredibly formidable, but especially when it was created this was decades ahead of its time in terms of it's lethality. The Cheyenne really deserved a second chance, it probably could have been produced far more easily a couple decades later

Fairly sure the UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship from the movie Aliens was partially inspired by the AH-56 Cheyenne, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and AV-8B Harrier.

There are a plethora of channels out there spewing content but this channel is in a different league. The research, the presentation, the script, the diction simply is a cut above the rest. I think this one is the best yet. As for the content itself, the squabbling of idiots and the passing of money or favours gets under my skin. Brilliant oratory.

I've known about the Cheyenne for a while and how it all shook out but it's one of those stories where the first time I heard about it I was beyond impressed and having served in the Army I knew it had never entered service so I was waiting to hear about the end of the story, why, why didn't it make the cut? What was its fatal flaw? And it turns out it was basically interservice pettiness which was so incredibly rampant in the 70s and it blew my mind. You did an excellent telling of the story here with a whole bunch of detail I never knew before, great work for all involved.

I spent 12 years in Army Aviation working on helicopter engines. Mainly Black Hawks. Going through AIT the sheet metal school had a Comanche body they drilled holes in and repaired over and over and over. The Cheyenne was a cool heli but aside from it's technical issues maintenance costs were going to go up not down. WAY UP.. Retraining is normal with a airframe change but like the Comanche the retraining looked more like completely new training. One of those other factors people tend to look over. Retooling and retraining of the people who keep these ACFT in the air. A VERY general rule of thumb with helicopters is 1 hour of flight time equals 4 hours of maintenance. This doesn't mean an 8+ hour mission will down the ACFT for a day and a half. After normal maintenance there are other clocks ticking. Some parts MUST be replaced after x amount of flight hours. Pull them off and they look fine but there are stresses you can't see in these parts. So that's part of the down time. Phases are major service intervals where A LOT of parts are take off and inspected/replaced. Every other phase is pretty much a full main systems tear down. Be it in training or deployed these phases still take place. A fair amount of mechanical accidents with helicopters is bad maintenance and QC inspections. That's a lot of training and airframes too ahead of their time can be axed in part for retraining costs and material availability. Lots of amazing acft never saw production mainly for coming out in the wrong financial period. Also. The Army is FAMOUS for ording helicopters. Getting what they wanted then overloading them with equipment then saying what is up with your ACFT? This is not performing like we thought it would. Manufacturer has that look of "If I bitch slap this Gen is it worth the trouble"....... THe OH-58 Kiowa was an amazing scout ACFT. I got to work on a few before they were phased out my first year. Then the Army started tossing parts on it. And more parts. It went from a 4 seater to a 2 because the rear cabin was ALL EQUIPMENT. More parts. More power to lift the parts meant more stress and more maintenance and round and round you go till crap look at those stress fractures on the frame. Lets see here Grab my book here TM 55-1520-228-23-2 Ok... Cracks.. and tolerance said.. Humm. Just shows a picture of a beat up OH-58 in a trash bin and a Truck dropping off a shiny new OH-58.. OK... Who's up for a long lunch? I think this is where the Cheyenne would have ended up. I LOVE THE AH-64. Circled our bases when deployed. We got hit by mortars and rockets all the time. The pissed off R2D2s (CRAMS) managed to knock most of them out but some got through then the 64s flying around overhead would B-line off into one direction and soupify those firing at us. I've seen A LOT of FLIR cams on SIPRNet. (Army computers for secret data) Ever seen a video of someone recording military gun cam footage from a computer screen with a phone? Bad dog bad. NO.. NO! “Front lean and rest position… move!!!” Awesome video!!!! Sorry for getting off point. I'll run a reverse azimuth and see if I can find my way back. Speaking of off point........ OH SWEET!!! Humvee tracks!!!!!!! Subtle hint on what to look for when you and two other groups are completely lost trying to find the bonus nav point during land nav training and everyone has an idea but none of them agree as you calculate only having enough time left try one direction and a flat out run to get back before time is up. Well...These tracks are fresh. Anyone want to take bets on these being from the range cadres Humvee as they drove out to make sure the bonus Nav point was set up? WINNER!

Hey Simon, just to let you know, the Cheyenne is the AH-56, and the AH-64 designation is used for the Apache.

Maybe a video on the NEWEST helicopter concepts is in order. There's clearly historical items on these helicopters that are readily apparent on the most cutting-edge program underway in order to choose a "new airborne troop transport", aka: a helicopter that mostly drops off and picks up soldiers- think the soccer mom's minivan who is taking all her kids' friends out at once.....every morning day and night for 30 years lol. But honestly, it's to replace the tried and true Black Hawk helicopter and POSSIBLY the V-22 Osprey.

I remember the cheyenne. I read about it in magazines and built a 1/72 scale model. It was a beautiful aircraft. But politics will rule.

In 1968, 1969 or 1970 as a young lad I drove by the Van Nuys airport and saw the Cheyanne tethered and undergoing hovering tests 2-5 meters above the ground. It was common knowledge in the airport employees that it was undergoing testing. An amazing aircraft.

Absolutely brilliantly covered! Such a shame it never went into production. Thank you for covering this remarkable aircraft!

Thanks Simon. I saw a Cheyenne as a child at, of all places, an Army Transport museum. It didn't have much information about it. I asked the guide what happened to it, and why it never served, he just said the "Cobras and Apaches are the big boys now"...not really helpful. This was though, thanks again.

Having served two tours in Vietnam as an Army helicopter pilot I have a few well-founded beliefs about U.S. Airfarce close air support. If you consider a half mile close air support well the Airfarce might make it. But anyone who thinks you can drop an unguided iron bomb (all they had at the time) from a jet flying faster than 200 knots from 500 feet above ground level with any accuracy is an absolute idiot. The main reason that the AH-56 was canceled was a direct result of Congress being blindsided by the news that the Airfarce's brand new C-5A would need new wing spars because the original one's were cracking and at a cost higher than the new airplane cost. The C-5A was a piece of junk. The engines were under powered., The landing gear had major problems with every other landing. The pneumatic ducting system was always leaking and cracking. It was not uncommon for a C-5A to land out of base and be grounded for a week or two. Fly one leg, land and be grounded for another week or two. Since the aircraft were in Active/Reserve units it was not uncommon for a reserve crew to be flown back to base because the time was up and a replacement crew to be flown in to take over. Problem was this replacement crew would run out of time and another crew would be brought out to replace them. The Cobra was a skinny Huey. Same engine as the H model, same transmission as the B, C, D, E, F and H model. Same rotor system as the C and E model. The Army was in armed combat every day and we needed something "NOW" and Bell delivered while the Airfarce fought every way they could to stop the Army from protecting Americans on the ground. A grunt could call for air cover and the Army could respond with fire on the ground within seconds to minutes. Call the Airfarce and on a good day it was 15 to 30 minutes before a fast mover would show up make 4 passes dropping ordinance and RTB (Return to Base) leaving the grunts to fend for themself once again. Many of a time did I wander into an Airfarce Officers Club to get something to eat or drink. I would go to the bathroom to use a urinal. After doing my business I would generally stand there a flush 5 or 6 times. Airfarce officers would laugh and make fun of me. What those pampered turd brains did not understand was the I never saw a percaline bathroom fixture at any Army base I was stationed at. We had outhouses.

Hey Simon and Co. Awesome video , Im a huge fan of all the Megaprojects, especially the aviation stuff ! I think a video of the Denel Rooivalk attack helicopter would be pretty cool, think it has an interesting history

If English were not my first language, I think I would get lost. He manages to use words I’ve not heard in sometime. That’s not a bad thing. It’s what makes his documentaries so enjoyable.

Are you telling me that we almost had this amazing piece of machinery but missed out due to politics? Man I hate corruption, I'm sorry, lobbying.

Dad was there when the test pilot was killed. It was, apparently, horrific. I remember Dad telling me about it ONCE. The pilot was literally bisected by the rotor. While that part of the airframe was not Dad’s part of the project - Dad was a weapons engineer - Dad always carried some guilt. As Dad tearfully told me, he was inside the hangar playing Pinocle when it happened.

My younger brother joined the US Army and became a helicopter maintenance tech around 1970. He'd been trained to work on the Bell AH-1 Cobras. Some time during 1971 he was deployed to Vietnam. One day I walked into a hobby store in a city near me where I spotted a shelf full of various military models. I walked over to look at the military models and spotted a kit of a very unusual helicopter that I'd never seen or heard of. It was an AH56 Cheyenne kit. If memory serves, it was a Revell model. I bought it, brought it home, and assembled it. It was so strikingly different from any other helicopter that I'd ever seen, that I became curious and tried to get more information about it. I learned that it was still in late stages of development but that the military had ordered a few hundred of the type and would soon be fielding them. Somewhere around that same time I remember seeing one of those fold-out type ads for that helicopter in Popular Mechanics magazine and could not believe the technological advancements touted in the ad. I wrote to my brother and asked him if he would be working on those eventually. "No, I heard that program has been cancelled," he wrote back. I recall feeling a bit disappointed. I enlisted a few years later in '75 and after training was stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC. Sometimes, on long weekends I would drive home to visit the family and my drive would take me through Virginia. On one such trip, I decided to stop at the Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis. As I stepped out of my car in the museum parking lot I was astonished to see, on the grass lawn in front of the museum, an AH56 Cheyenne. I walked over to look at it. Once up close, I realized how large, well long actually, that helicopter was. Just sitting there it looked wickedly intimidating. What a machine it would have been if the program hadn't been cancelled. I felt sorry seeing that one sitting there all forlorn by itself with sun-weathered paint and a layer of grime deposited on it from sitting outside. As I read the information about the helicopter on a placard nearby, I thought to myself, "What a f*****g waste." For years, I'd wondered why that program was stopped in favor of the Cobra, when the Cobra didn't appear to be nearly as capable. About 8 - 10 years after I saw that chopper at the Army Transportation Museum, the Army fielded the AH64, at which time I noticed that helicopter used many of the technological advances that had originally been mentioned in that Popular Mechanics ad. Now, after watching this video, I know what really stopped the program. Over the years, I'd read various accounts of the AH56, but, though they'd mentioned the Air Force's insistence that the Army shouldn't be allowed to trespass on their turf, none of those explained it near as thoroughly as this account. It is, frankly, infuriating the amount of development grant money that's wasted every year in this country as a result of lobbyists activity and political greed. I suspect that Air Force General that was so opposed to the AH56 eventually retired and became very rich by getting hired as a "consultant" by one of the companies for which he ran interference. I won't bother to google him to find out whether it's true or not - I'll only become more infuriated if I'm right. Thank you for the work on this. Side note: A few years ago I'd read about another Lockheed project and decided to check out Lockheed's web sources. Somewhere in that search I came across something that listed what spare parts Lockheed had in its warehouse for older aircraft. There in that inventory was something that said something like, "Rotor blade, helicopter: AH56 Cheyenne, showing that there was still a small quantity of rotors left over from that project. Wouldn't it be terrific if there were other spare parts and a private buyer(s) were able to purchase one of the remaining prototypes from a museum, buy all remaining spare parts Lockheed still has, and then restore it to like-new condition and fly it again?

Simon, you and your crew are doing some outstanding research. Nicely done. As always, looking forward to more :)

A stealth version of this chopper would be unstoppable - especially if it had a few drones under its control and a pilot that knew what he was doing!!! Air-Wolf!!

don't forget Canada's own *AVRO CANADA CF-105 ARROW INTERCEPTOR*

Outstanding video! /thoroughly enjoyed it! Simon's one-liners just make the cherry on the cake!

When does Simon sleep? The amount of amazing videos he puts out is staggering! Keep up the great work.

Excellent video! An additional event leading to the cancellation likely occurred when the AH64 was being tested for the half P hop in the Ames Research Center 40 x 80 ft wind tunnel. During high speed testing for the half-P hop vibration, the rotor oscillations quickly accelerated out of control and the rotor struck the tail boom, resulting in the helicopter being pulled off the test mounting structures and depositing it at the downwind turning vanes like a crushed bug. One minor nit to pick is the mixing of imperial and metric units in the descriptions. IMO if the airplane was designed in inches and feet, those should be the primary values given, with metric values being primary for aircraft designed in those units.

Super vid Simon 👍👍. Have been a fan of AH-56 fore ever. It's tough considering the longevity of the AH-1 & to a lesser extent the AH-64. Got to be around 1 of the Prototypes a lot. Many thanx & best regards.

Funny thing is Sikorsky, which is now a division of Lockheed, is now building the Defiant X and Raider X two helicopters with twin counter rotating main rotors with pusher props.

I actually know a Cheyenne test pilot. He has some great stories about his time in the cockpit. His stories about his time flying in Vietnam, and being one of the first test pilots for the attack helicopter concept over there are pretty hair raising. Good video, thanks for covering this interesting helo.

14:46 - you mean the AH56, you say AH64. So advanced it changed designation! ;)

There is a display at Ft Rucker, AL. It is quite an aircraft. When I was there for flights school I got a good respect for all the helicopters that got into the Army inventory as well as rhe ones that didnt... the RAH-66 Comanche being the more modern example.

I recognize the AH-56 that stands in front of the 101st Airborne Division at Ft Campbell, KY. I pulled guard duty at the museum twice after earning supernumerary status at post guard duty inspection.

I remember the first time I saw one of these in person. It was at a little exhibit, it was such a odd design that it caught my eye immediately and I spent the next hour looking over it and doing research on it. It's just sad that the bird had started to fall apart. I wish I could see it in flight

Remember the first time I saw the Cheyenne, when I arrived at Ft.Rucker to begin my 67N Utility Helicopter Repairer schooling, in December 1978. Astonished to realize that it was nothing more than a museum piece, and that, somehow, the Cobra was chosen over it. When I got to Ft.Hood, 6 months later, a couple of senior Warrant Officers (pilots) in my Dustoff platoon told me the why & what killed the Cheyenne.

I got a chance to see this helicopter at Ft. Rucker while attending WOILE a couple of years ago. They have a couple of hangars full of one of a kind, experimental helicopters. It's almost like a museum, except you're only allowed in by special invitation. That bird is huge!

Cool video, thanks for the research. I heard of an Air Force Tunneling machine and a network of tunnels and facilities in the U.S.. It would be cool to see what you uncover about them. Some indications of the surface level facilities are in Springfield and Carthage, Missouri. Thanks again for the videos.

dude, positively love your commentary, and also how you deliver it. edgy, no holds barred, direct, but intelligent. it's artful and in a very intense way. please make more.

hands down my favorite video!!! I didn’t know helicopters were this insane

The A10 is a sky God but troops on ground need all the help they can get. who cares about overlap??

Omg ty for this one! Ive been obsessed with the cheyenne! Even now it looks like a magnificent attack chopper!!!!!

I saw one of these at Fort Jackson S.C. in the late '80s and it blew my young mind.

I was one of the honored few to go to lockheed factory for electrical and instrumentation training on the ah56. it was the most inspiring experiences of my life, I was stationed in yuma proving grounds. After all the guys finished our training, we were on cloud nine. We were the cream of the crop, we felt. Then a few months later, our world came crashing down, when we received word that congress canceled the entire project.

I worked for years as a programmer in the Pick Operating System, developed in 1965 at TRW to control the inventory of parts for the AH-56. I'd always assumed it was the cost of the AH-56 that doomed it. With people getting funding through it for things like ... a database management System. It's easy to imagine a lolly scramble for the money to do all sorts of projects and charge it to the AH-56.

Very good presentation, as full of a history as I have seen on a video of Rigid Rotor and the Cheyanne Helicopter which I have seen in person several times at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Great video! Well researched and presented in an engaging manner.

Took you a while to catch onto this one I see! The helicopter that nearly put every jet out of business. This thing had A-10 power.

Great video. Regarding the AH-56's technical problems, I know many were solved during the testing process, but weren't there some (both major and minor) which remained unresolved at the time of cancellation?

The vibration issue is just the kind of thing that happens with development of such a revolutionary aircraft. As he mentioned the crash fixed it. The AH-56 was a helicopter that has still not been passed since then by a service helicopter.

They were tested at YPG late 60s early 70s. TOE Missile wires were all over the Kofa Range

My uncle was a helicopter pilot for the Army in Vietnam. He spoke about interservice rivalry from the Air Force. The Air Force is the Jan Brady of the military while actually getting what they want.

A new suggestion: Operation Nickel Grass. Moving that much equipment on such a short notice with complete success is truly a megaproject.

Back in 1980, I was going through my Advance Indvidual Training ( AIT ) in the US Army for the AH-1 Cobra, we talked about the Cheyenne. Ft Eustis had one in the museum which was the talk of our class. It was very much ahead of it's time but had a few problems that still had to be worked out. But what project doesn't. The vibration was a big one and also the gunner set turned 360 degrees, which made the gunner sick was another. But all that can be worked out in the end but not given the chance as usual. The Cobra was only to be a inter till the AH-56 could be brought online. The Cobra though did work into a great gunship but the Cheyenne would of been great. More than likely I would of gotten trained on her instead of the Corba if the Army was able to get it into production. Ether she would of been replaced by now or was able to modified into something more for todays battlefield. I think the samething happen to the Comanche as well. That would of been a great aircraft for the Army and our Allies as well.

Not complaining about all the awesome aviation coverage!

Darn, this thing is a beast even by modern standards

The Cheyennes that were saved from the breakers and sent to various military museums: are they really gathering dust...or are they gathering rust? Just wondering.

Good video, it would have been useful to describe how the rigid rotor head was different that normal helicopter rotors.

Dude..... 25cm target from 3km away is sick accuracy!!

In reference to your last video where I argued the exact same point you just made about the TSR2 cancellation as a result of it being a threat to the F-111, thanks for confirming that!!

That whole mechanical stability system would have been moot by the mid 70's and probably replaced by an electronic three axis gyro much like the Bell stabilizer bar on the AH-1s were. Jump to one minute: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--5Hl9uuGeoI.html That would have solved basically all of the aH-56's problems

The writing on that intro was next level!

The "Cheyenne" in the first scene is now in the Army Air Museum in Fort Rucker AL. (I almost had a wreck when I first seen it out side the museum.) The last time I was there (2 or 3 years now) it was in the shop for refurbishment. I hope this will give you all a place to go to see.

Great video about an impressive aircraft. It always amazes me what tech gets discarded for one reason or another. Small blooper when talking about the guns, Simon refers to the AH-56 as the AH-64 for that portion until talking about the hardpoints. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_6GAp8yO7l0.html

Love the fact that you mentioned the political manoeuvring that brought its cancellation, and how it wasn’t the first time that it has happened 👍

You pointed out one thing which crossed my mind as soon as I read the title. Why do politicians always interfere and turn a good idea into a disaster.

My dad worked at the Skunkworks. Worked with avionics. He told then of a test pilot he had flown with in testing having flown a Cheyenne inverted at low altitude down the runway at Lockheed Burbank. That test pilot whose name escapes me now was infamous for flying various aircraft inverted. Dad had been in a Lockheed P3 Orion sub-hunter for testing of a problem with those airframes in turbulent air. So this same pilot repeatedly flew the P3 inverted through a mountain canyon north of LA which was known for consistently very turbulent air. As a former race car driver who had conducted inverted testing of his race car with no rollover protective structure dad described his experience in the P3 as a real rush (of adrenaline). Dad worked on a number of then "black" projects such as U2 and YF12 which at the time he could not talk about. I remember a number of times going with mom and sitting in our car parked on San Fernando road at the end of the runway late at night waiting to pick up dad after his late shift. The runway lights were turned off and a dark aircraft, no lights on, would take off over our heads and the only light would be the jet exhaust. A bit after, the runway lights would come back on. The Cheyenne inverted flight was something he COULD describe because it was done in daylight in the middle of the then 3rd most populous city in the US. Out of the cancer med induced memory fog I'm thinking that pilot was called "Upside Down" Sammy Mason. Don't hold me to that, though. Aside from being between 50 and 60 years ago and me not being as young and sharp as I once was.

The AH-56 was capable of out doing both the AH-64 and the A-10 while STILL out doing the AH-64 upgrade which itself takes from the AH-56 (rigid rotor and pusher rotor with wider wings).

Speaking of age ahead of its time, you need to cover the P-39 Airacobra and it’s big brother the P-63 Kingcobra. Center mounted engine, massive cannon in the nose, tricycle landing gear in a time of the tail-dragger. Hated by the IS but loved by the Soviets.

Weird, I always thought the first helicopter with a rigid rotor head was the Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (later Eurocopter) Bo-105. You should do a video about that one and maybe clear up that misconception because it's even on the Bo-105's Wikipedia page.

This is my first Megaprojects video and I really enjoy it. I enjoy the quality and information presented in a way that does NOT put me to sleep. 😄 One small critique. You keep saying AH-64 instead of AH-56 multiple times. 😉 Best of luck with your future videos and I look forward to watching them! ✌

Another airframe was destroyed in a wind tunnel test which the army requested after the death of the test pilot. The Lockheed engineers protested but the test went ahead leading to the destruction of 10th airframe.

As usual, the "experts" who are fascinated by the technical characteristics do not want to hear anything about the real cost of the technique. This cost includes: cost of production, reliability, ease of maintenance, ease of repair, ease of management. Why is there no comparison of these parameters in the video? Do not forget that you will need to arm the entire army and train a lot of pilots. The people responsible for setting budgets and allocating money are far from being stupid and greedy, as shown in the video. The final effectiveness of equipment will be determined by the tactics of warfare. The USSR has always had offensive tactics in military doctrine. This tactic determined the face of all ground forces and all auxiliary forces, including aviation. Armored vehicles were easy to transport, economical for long marches, with the most reduced armor volume to reduce the silhouette (harder to hit). Combat helicopters were heavily armored, had high speed and inertia (MI-24). Assault attacks are carried out at high speed near the ground (below the detection zone of the air defense system). US tactics have always been defensive (despite the number of wars they have unleashed). In this case, the high silhouette of the armored vehicles was even an advantage, and the high mass played a smaller role. Therefore, helicopter air support did not require high speeds. If we take into account the final cost of each helicopter, it turns out that cobras are more effective in completing tasks for the chosen military doctrine. For the same reason, the most advanced, innovative and powerful tanks could not change the course of World War II.

Another channel thank you Simon missed this one But how can we do a Whistler marathon when we Keep finding more♥️ Our and please please please never stop ♥️

I need to look into this further. This sounds like it has a very interesting back story. Love you biscuit nibbler

What you didn’t talk about is how the technologies of the AH-56 and the Comanche have conveniently shown up in the latest offerings for the replacements of the Blackhawk and the Apache which are in many ways watered down versions of those prototypes

As Simon reels off one feature after another, one gets the impression of a childhood savant annoyingly obsessed by arcane helicopter statistics

I was working for Hilti, a power tool, for construction companies. It was my second job out of college. We had engineers we provided to construction companies. Their job was to get us spec'd on jobs and provide assistance and approval for anchor hold weights on construction projects. A guy who became my best friend as I kept using him on my projects, left Lockhead, designing nuclear subs, to do that job. Working for Lockhead was so miserable, he would rather use his 6 yrs of eduaction from the University of Pitt to show up on job sites and tell the contractor that an anchor would hold, after I already did the math and told them it would. He went on to do much better things but he took that job to get away from Lockhead.

Love your style, thank you for being you, signed greatful.

Anyone who has been in the military is not shocked by this. I knew pilots who would go on to be colonels and generals, some of the most arrogant people I’ve ever known.

Why does Simon keep saying AH64 when he means AH56? - Someone really needs to properly proof read his scripts before planting them in front of him.

The Cheyenne is a huge helicopter, it was displayed I front of the Ft. Campbell museum, we used to do PT where we ran the 2 miles to the museum then 2 miles back. So for a 4 mile run we’d say; “to the planes and back.”

LOL!! At the 14:46 mark, you started referring to the AH-56 as the AH-64 (the Apache)! Again at 15:32 and 15:37! *Priceless!*

And those poor marines are still using the ah1... Which has been updated to be arguably the best attack helo in the world currently. Glory to the Z!

Air Force Haters - this helicopter was fit to put the whole airforce on smash and out of a job!!!! When a helicopter is so bad behind that in the eyes of many it might as well be an aircraft!!! This helicopter would have worked together well with the air force ground support aircraft and should have been supported as both branches would know they had assets that could truly back them up!!!

I have binged most of your videos the past few weeks, I think I could make a mega project now

Fascinating video.. please keep up your focus on defense equipment. Suggestions- FARA, SSNX, Skyborg, Zumwalt, Ford Class, SR 72