My first flight sim was “Gunship 2000” and I used to fly the Kiowa or the Defender on most of my missions. I tried to beat every mission using nothing but called artillery and kept stingers at my side for airbone threats.

The score was relative to how efficiently you used your equipment. Can I get a price check on Hellfires vs. Artillery Shells?

Ok, so it’s not terribly realistic, but fun.

Just because I love this little helo, I felt like starting a thread on it.

Incidentally, I’ve been playing Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum lately and I found some patches to download that allow you to fly a few of the other helicopters in the game besies the RAH-66 and Ka-52….the OH-58 is included, and I love doing recon and CAS missions in them. Armed with Hellfire and Stinger missiles, they have quite a sting.

Oh, and there is a unit of them (along with Apaches) based in my home town.

Here’s to the Kiowa….

I have to agree about the Zulu Cobra. But why could they not build it with wheels. Designers stopped specifying skids about the time when the steam engine was invented.

Actually there is one advantage with skids, if your enemy captures the helo, like in Iraq, he’s going to have a harder time moving it around:cool:

The turks demanded a wheeled version, you can see a pic of it here:

http://www.bellhelicopter.com/en/aircraft/military/pdf/AH1Z_PG_04_web.pdf

Wow, this is a great forum! People with differing opinions not flaming each other! I must be dreaming!

I came across this sight because I saw a screen shot from the game “Battlefield 2” that included a model of China’s “WZ-10” (see attachment.)

Right away, I knew it was simply a rip off of the A-129 Mangusta, so I started looking around for “Mangusta” and “WZ-10 and I found myself here. Man! Look at all the great shots!

I have been in love with this bird since I first saw it. Being a dego, I am partial to anything cool coming out of Italy, but I never thought the land of lovers would create a machine such as this!

Seams like the conception of this bird was forming around the time of the Cobra’s successes in VN. The Cobra, an ugly, but effective hack on top of the UH-1, surprised everyone, even its engineers who never understood or cultivated heliocopter warfare. It was up to the pilots to figure out how to use the craft. The Cobra was an accident, a lucky break, and while it is still (IMHO) the best thing we have to offer, even after 35 years, Agusta knew the Cobra was not the end all, be all.

The name choice “Mangusta” CANNOT be an accident, it is typical Italian one-up-man-ship in a word. Rock beats scissors, Mongoose beats Cobra, A-129 was designed to beat and replace the Cobra.

Does it? It’s too hard to say. While the mongoose is a ground up design, tailor made, like an Italian suit, to be a gunship, the technology at our (the U.S.’s) disposal is hard to compete against. However, we tend to BURY our designs in technology and we get birds that break down (like the Apache) or never get off the ground (like the Comanche) instead of reliable, dependable, serviceable craft like the Cobra and the Mangusta.

It is my opinion that the Cobra, its self, is an “Unamerican” design. At least, a design from a much younger, more practical America. It is a master piece of practicality. Even the name defies the convention of American Heliocopter names. Can someone explain to me why we name our warbirds after defeated and opressed people? If the Native Americans had defeated us, would they have named Heliocopters “Yank” or “Custer?” But I digress.

After 25 years of service, the Cobra is ready for a refresh, and the turks are looking to buy from someone. Originally, the Turks had narrowed it down to Kavmov (who couldn’t produce enough) and the AH-1z (though we wouldn’t give Turkey the software to run the things, which pissed them off) so the Turks have opened things back up. Maybe the Mangusta has a chance.

Which brings me back to China. Could China have seen the power of the Mangusta? Are they using it as a road map to their own design? Have they licensed the design from Agusta?

Can you imagine this elegant design with the singular might of the worlds largest emerging industrial super power?

China is steamrolling technological progress like the US and Germany were doing in WWII. Their “wartime” efficience is scary, and they are ramping up to capture as much of the global market as they can.

Scariness aside, will China be the country to bring the Mangusta to maturity? Will they have the industry to bring USA grade technology to this elegant, Italian warbird? Will the Chinese Mongoose finally beat the Cobra?

We shall see.