Evening all, first post on the forum so be gentle…
I seem to remember hearing that at the time the AH-1 was being ‘named’ there was some sort of litigation between the Army and Piper Aircraft Co, who also used tribal names for their aircraft.
Hence the break in tradition.
Richard.
That’s a possibility, but only if the Army wanted to name an aircraft with a name Piper already used…Cherokee, Navajo, Pawnee, Seneca, Comanche (by the time the Comanche helicopter came along, the Piper Comanche was long out of production…and that incarnation of the Piper Company was no more. Likerwise, by the time Piper produced the Cheyenne turboprop, the AH-56 was a museum piece).
As I understand US law, it has to be for a specific name, a firm can’t simply say “We have first choice on all Indian tribe names”.
Unlike Peugeot which famously forced Porsche to change the name of their new car to 911 from 901 when they said they “owned” all 3-digit car designations with a 0 in the middle.
Besides, there are plenty of Indian names to go around.
I still think the Iroquois name already being adopted for the H-1 series is the most plausable. The “Cobra” name gained currency with the troops and it went from there.
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