Engines power the four-blade rotors for first time

Submitted by TEAM Public Affairs, Patuxent River

The United States Marine Corps' first AH-1Z Super Cobra successfully completed its’ first engine-powered ground turn on September 6 at Bell Helicopter’s experimental flight test facility in Arlington, Texas.

The AH-1Z’s first flight is scheduled for October 2000 at the Bell Helicopter, Textron Ft. Worth, TX facility. Bell is the prime contractor for the re-manufacturing program that will revolutionize the existing inventory of Marine Corps AH-1Ws and UH-1Ns into 21st century designs.

The AH-1Z Super Cobra will provide the Marine Corps with significantly improved capability to conduct offensive air support and assault support operations, including close air support, anti-armor, anti-aircraft, armed reconnaissance, supporting arms coordination, landing zone fire suppression and combat escort.

The Marine Corps’ H-1 Upgrades Program incorporates state of the art designs into the existing fleet of AH-1Ws and UH-1Ns. 180 AH-1Ws and 100 UH-1Ns will be converted to AH-1Z and UH-1Y configurations.

The Marine Corps will get 10,000 flight hour airframes; new, completely integrated glass cockpits and a highly maneuverable and reliable four-bladed rotor system with upgraded drive train, common to both aircraft.

Both aircraft will realize dramatic performance improvements over the existing platforms to include: increased range, payload and speed, increased crash survivability, increased ballistic tolerance and increased high altitude hot day performance.

An additional benefit of the program is the identicality (same part numbers) of approximately 85 percent of the major components between the two aircraft, resulting in a reduced logistics footprint and reduced operations and support (O&S) costs.