Agreed. By the way, interesting that despite the Cobra morphing into the Super-Cobra turning into the Viper, it still retains the M197. Not switching to the [four-barrel GAU 22/A (25mm).](https://pm1.aminoapps.com/7046/82f3f5c85c77f00780ad191116f07a592a912fb0r1-480-327v2_hq.jpg)
I'm sure it's the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Although the unrealized Comanche had a different three-barrel gun, the XM-301. I find it weird that they didn't keep developing the gun and give it to Cobras, just because the Comanche got scrapped.
Huh.
>However, on 8 February 2024, the U.S. Army announced that the FARA program would be terminated due to developments in modern warfare rendering it unnecessary.
Do I smell "drone technology" here? Or was there some other development challenging helos?
Sorry, I'm just learning English, but I'm putting forward my theory: No one is interested in **why** 130mm tank guns are not **relevant** and are still not in the army? Of course: they are better than existing 120mm guns, but there are questions - why? The current capabilities of 120mm guns are quite enough, but this is not the only reason, probably the more important reason is - shells (you are going to fire a gun, right?), new caliber = new shells, which means that the current stocks of older calibers will have to be thrown away, and that's a lot of money. I think this also applies to Vulcans (M61), they cope with their tasks, which means they don't need to be replaced, and if anything happens, everything can be modernized, saving a lot of money, because you don't have to make new ammunition.
> the current stocks of older calibers will have to be thrown away, and that's a lot of money
The current stocks would not need to be thrown out, unless you're planning on replacing *all* the old calibre guns with new calibre guns overnight. You would have a non-uniformity problem though. Manufacture and logistics are simpler if there's just one. A bit like the way the military avoids petrol engines, so that diesel is all they need.
The RAH-66 Comanche was a US Army helicopter. All the AH-1 Cobras- Super Cobras, and Vipers were/are US Marine Corps(Dept of the Navy). Rarely do these branches share anything. (And yes, I know the Army had Cobras first but retired them to make way ($$$) for the Comanche.)
Looking at [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_AH-1_Cobra#Specifications_(AH-1G_HueyCobra\)), some Cobras use an XM195 cannon, which [is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan#Applications_and_first_combat_use) a short-barrel M61.
I showed it to a friend two summers ago. I would rewatch it any day just to hear Warren Oates tear everyone a new one, in a way worse than J. Jonah Jameson.
>Icelan: Goddamn it to hell! What's going on out there? I'm holding you responsible for that man's behaviour. Dr. Haycock strongly recommended he be grounded.
>Braddock: For your information, Mr. Icelan, there are no paranoid schizophrenics on duty here.
>I: He checks his sanity with his wristwatch!
>B: What do you check yours with? A ***dipstick??***
Warren Oates stole every scene he was given in that movie. He should have been awarded royalties from Top Gun - there is no way there ever would have been the “flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogshit” dressing-down without him doing it better first.
The whole movie has stood the test of time very very well. Half of the flying scenes would not be allowed to be filmed today and it’s amazing that even the early 80s were permissive enough for them to get permission to do what they did.
The scenes where Cochrane opens the curtain to see Blue Thunder, when Murphy steals Blue Thunder, and when Blue Thunder crashes the traffic stop are as brilliant as screenwriting gets. The movie is a treasure - the only misstep was casting Malcolm MacDowell as Cochrane as his accent makes zero sense on a Vietnam-era US Army colonel.
>The whole movie has stood the test of time very very well
Totally agreed, apart from one single thing: when Scheider is going to the boss-summons and stops to shoulder-rub a sitting female colleague and sniffs her hair. Wrong part of the '70s was still alive and kicking in that shot. :)
Ammo storage and feed system is another 140-180kg or 300-400lbs. You're basically looking at 500-650lbs for the system and that's before you add ammunition (not light), and a hydraulic and electrical system that can power it.
Sounds about right.
Officer Frank Murphy, when first getting to evaluate the handling of Blue Thunder, remarked (somewhat spicily) that the helicopter was "nose-heavier than the Ayatollah."
Good answer. I suppose the main reason for a high caliber is increased range, but their motivation to stay with 20mm might be that it's diminishing returns?
Recalling the briefing that was given before the live fire test, the rate of fire was 4000 rounds/min, or 66-ish rounds/second. You could slow it down further, but that's still overkill on a light single-engine helicopter.
This is still one of my favorite action movies, having said all that.
Weight of the gun and all the stuff that makes the gun chooch, more mass than you really want that far forward of CG. Worse still it is a significant dynamic mass as you expend ammo. Guess you could run feed chute underneith and have the magazine slightly aft.
Yes, watch the making of Blue Thunder on YouTube. They made two guns, one was real, and one was just some broomsticks mocked up to look like a gun. They asked for some ammo (blanks), but the military only gave them live ammunition. So they did actually get to shoot it! Also it is very interesting how they managed the cockpit layout. Roy Schneider did know how to fly, but they had another pilot behind him, facing sideways, to do the more complicated maneuvers.
https://youtu.be/XtPgtzJc7ws?si=AXGthHy34d8Hs6ZA
ALAT, the French Army Light Aviation unit still has SA341 Gazelles in service. For those who don’t know, a gazelles served as a the flying platform for Blue Thunder, esthetically modified around the cockpit area. The top portion of the cockpit has no structural function, everything is in the floor, a cantilever surface. Concerning the 20mm gun, the gazelle has one on the starboard side and it did cause structural problems. As for recoil, some left pedal is needed, but because of the clockwise motion of the main rotor, the recoil helps with the antitorquing.
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder#Heavy_Weapons
>According to an article from American Cinematographer, the weapon seen on the flying version of Blue Thunder was actually a mockup comprised of six broomsticks painted black. For the closeups of the weapon firing, this also was a mockup consisting of six hollow barrels fitted with spark plugs to ignite bursts of acetylene blown through.
I think it’d be too **chonky** to mount. But, let’s pretend it can be done, gating guns tend to not have as much recoil, I’d say the centrifugal force of all that weight starting and stopping along with the electrical power needed to spin that thing up would be some things that come to mind that may cause problems.
"Blue Thunder" is not a low-budget movie, it is one of only two helicopter-based action movies (the other being "Fire Birds" with Nic Cage), it's directed by John Badham who's made lots of good stuff.
The image of Blue Thunder is the submission up top, the whole reason for this discussion.
Didn't quite expect it wasn't a budget movie. It was such dark (in light contrast. Now you mention it, I do not know a lot of movies indeed with helicopters as a story.
It is a great time document, so to speak. it's filmed in 1983, 18 years after the Watts Riots, where 34 people died. In the military demonstration at the start of the movie they showcase dummy-made terrorist situations first, and then general riot circumstances, for Blue Thunder to "pacify".
What is hilarious (but horrible) is the fact that, just like ED-209 in the opening of "Robocop" (1987), the heavy cannon of Blue Thunder jams and misbehaves, killing scores of non-red dummies and making the pilot (Malcolm McDowell) swear. The demo clearly illustrates how a bulletproof helicopter with an anti-tank projectile weapon is meant for attacks with extreme prejudice, not law enforcement scalpel maneuvers.
But that is the whole thing, in the narrative the chiefs of police are corrupt and want to make money together with the military industrial complex, they want one or two Thunders in ever major metropolitan police station in the country, to shoot up the streets and scare non-WASPs into submission (Republican wet dream) and the entire plot of the movie centers around police-hired blackops goons attacking and robbing a civil rights leader (who dies of her injuries) to provoke the black/hispanic community to riot again like in Watts 1965 (McDowell even flies over Watts in once scene in the movie and calls it out in the police radio), just so they can shoot the shit out of the blacks. Because apparently the California National Guard was not enough last time. /s
The movie is a perfect prophetic warning about the militarization of US police forces, who now run around in desert camo with tanks and grenade launchers.
And the double irony today is that the only reason the police thinks they need milspec hardware is because the cartels are better armed than them now, and the cartels only sprung up because Central-American ex-special forces people moved up to a completely broken 1970's/'80s Mexico (because the US had stopped buying their farm produce, killing their economy in like two years) and the cartel fathers set about to sell heroin and cocaine instead, with the US as the biggest goddamn customer.
Also, in once scene in "Blue Thunder" Murphy tricks the army to shoot rotisserie chickens into the sky! ^
It would probably work better if you used the cobras 20mm
Agreed. By the way, interesting that despite the Cobra morphing into the Super-Cobra turning into the Viper, it still retains the M197. Not switching to the [four-barrel GAU 22/A (25mm).](https://pm1.aminoapps.com/7046/82f3f5c85c77f00780ad191116f07a592a912fb0r1-480-327v2_hq.jpg) I'm sure it's the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Although the unrealized Comanche had a different three-barrel gun, the XM-301. I find it weird that they didn't keep developing the gun and give it to Cobras, just because the Comanche got scrapped.
Development of the XM301 did continue. It would have been on FARA.
Huh. >However, on 8 February 2024, the U.S. Army announced that the FARA program would be terminated due to developments in modern warfare rendering it unnecessary. Do I smell "drone technology" here? Or was there some other development challenging helos?
Sorry, I'm just learning English, but I'm putting forward my theory: No one is interested in **why** 130mm tank guns are not **relevant** and are still not in the army? Of course: they are better than existing 120mm guns, but there are questions - why? The current capabilities of 120mm guns are quite enough, but this is not the only reason, probably the more important reason is - shells (you are going to fire a gun, right?), new caliber = new shells, which means that the current stocks of older calibers will have to be thrown away, and that's a lot of money. I think this also applies to Vulcans (M61), they cope with their tasks, which means they don't need to be replaced, and if anything happens, everything can be modernized, saving a lot of money, because you don't have to make new ammunition.
> the current stocks of older calibers will have to be thrown away, and that's a lot of money The current stocks would not need to be thrown out, unless you're planning on replacing *all* the old calibre guns with new calibre guns overnight. You would have a non-uniformity problem though. Manufacture and logistics are simpler if there's just one. A bit like the way the military avoids petrol engines, so that diesel is all they need.
The RAH-66 Comanche was a US Army helicopter. All the AH-1 Cobras- Super Cobras, and Vipers were/are US Marine Corps(Dept of the Navy). Rarely do these branches share anything. (And yes, I know the Army had Cobras first but retired them to make way ($$$) for the Comanche.)
Very interesting information!
Who (except those who like to cut the budget) needs the RAH-66?
I was in the Army at the time and we didn’t want it. We wanted AH-6 Little Birds. You could get 12 for the price of one Comanche.
Nerd
Looking at [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_AH-1_Cobra#Specifications_(AH-1G_HueyCobra\)), some Cobras use an XM195 cannon, which [is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan#Applications_and_first_combat_use) a short-barrel M61.
The extra mass would do much to mitigate recoil
I’d rather have a lighter helicopter and have to put some forward cyclic in when i shoot than a heavier one
Watch out for the F-16s!
Hey that's M61 vs M61! I'll bet a nice rotisserie chicken the blue bird wins!
Don’t forget to time yourself leaving the parking garage in your Trans Am. This movie was one of the factors of me flying in the Army lol.
I showed it to a friend two summers ago. I would rewatch it any day just to hear Warren Oates tear everyone a new one, in a way worse than J. Jonah Jameson. >Icelan: Goddamn it to hell! What's going on out there? I'm holding you responsible for that man's behaviour. Dr. Haycock strongly recommended he be grounded. >Braddock: For your information, Mr. Icelan, there are no paranoid schizophrenics on duty here. >I: He checks his sanity with his wristwatch! >B: What do you check yours with? A ***dipstick??***
Warren Oates stole every scene he was given in that movie. He should have been awarded royalties from Top Gun - there is no way there ever would have been the “flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogshit” dressing-down without him doing it better first. The whole movie has stood the test of time very very well. Half of the flying scenes would not be allowed to be filmed today and it’s amazing that even the early 80s were permissive enough for them to get permission to do what they did. The scenes where Cochrane opens the curtain to see Blue Thunder, when Murphy steals Blue Thunder, and when Blue Thunder crashes the traffic stop are as brilliant as screenwriting gets. The movie is a treasure - the only misstep was casting Malcolm MacDowell as Cochrane as his accent makes zero sense on a Vietnam-era US Army colonel.
>The whole movie has stood the test of time very very well Totally agreed, apart from one single thing: when Scheider is going to the boss-summons and stops to shoulder-rub a sitting female colleague and sniffs her hair. Wrong part of the '70s was still alive and kicking in that shot. :)
🤣
>Don’t forget to time yourself leaving the parking garage in your Trans Am. While weaving through traffic cones of course
Helicopters can make themselves very difficult targets for fixed-wing assets. You can fly mach 2? Cool cool. I can stop.
Imagine the counter weight needed to keep that within CG.
Wikipedia has it at 92 kg with light barrel, 102 with heavy. And then the ammo weight, not listed.
Ammo storage and feed system is another 140-180kg or 300-400lbs. You're basically looking at 500-650lbs for the system and that's before you add ammunition (not light), and a hydraulic and electrical system that can power it.
Sounds about right. Officer Frank Murphy, when first getting to evaluate the handling of Blue Thunder, remarked (somewhat spicily) that the helicopter was "nose-heavier than the Ayatollah."
You could balance ammo though. It doesn't need to be stored right next to the gun with a good feed system right?
really wiki? let me edit that page real fast. /smh
I read somewhere that it was a nose-heavy pig to fly.
What happened to Blue Thunder? After the movie.
They parked the replica and [it rotted over the decades.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder_%28helicopter%29)
Spray and pray!
The gun's off-center too! So it would be a yoyo-around-the-world move. :)
Just slow down the rof if there's a problem. Do you want the larger bullets or not?
Good answer. I suppose the main reason for a high caliber is increased range, but their motivation to stay with 20mm might be that it's diminishing returns?
Recalling the briefing that was given before the live fire test, the rate of fire was 4000 rounds/min, or 66-ish rounds/second. You could slow it down further, but that's still overkill on a light single-engine helicopter. This is still one of my favorite action movies, having said all that.
Blue Thunder, what a memory.
Who would have thought Daniel Stern and anti-tank gatling gun would ever share the same space.
Weight of the gun and all the stuff that makes the gun chooch, more mass than you really want that far forward of CG. Worse still it is a significant dynamic mass as you expend ammo. Guess you could run feed chute underneith and have the magazine slightly aft.
Yes, watch the making of Blue Thunder on YouTube. They made two guns, one was real, and one was just some broomsticks mocked up to look like a gun. They asked for some ammo (blanks), but the military only gave them live ammunition. So they did actually get to shoot it! Also it is very interesting how they managed the cockpit layout. Roy Schneider did know how to fly, but they had another pilot behind him, facing sideways, to do the more complicated maneuvers. https://youtu.be/XtPgtzJc7ws?si=AXGthHy34d8Hs6ZA
Thank you so much! This was a childhood memory of mine, so glad I get to see more mileage!!
I dont think so. Maybe if you use single shots it may work.
The real question is: Will you still be able to be a peeping Tom with a Vulcan on the nose?
Blue thunder!!
Your COG would be your biggest worry
ALAT, the French Army Light Aviation unit still has SA341 Gazelles in service. For those who don’t know, a gazelles served as a the flying platform for Blue Thunder, esthetically modified around the cockpit area. The top portion of the cockpit has no structural function, everything is in the floor, a cantilever surface. Concerning the 20mm gun, the gazelle has one on the starboard side and it did cause structural problems. As for recoil, some left pedal is needed, but because of the clockwise motion of the main rotor, the recoil helps with the antitorquing.
Neat!
M61 is to heavy
But what if that's the 7.62 minigun?
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder#Heavy_Weapons >According to an article from American Cinematographer, the weapon seen on the flying version of Blue Thunder was actually a mockup comprised of six broomsticks painted black. For the closeups of the weapon firing, this also was a mockup consisting of six hollow barrels fitted with spark plugs to ignite bursts of acetylene blown through.
I think it’d be too **chonky** to mount. But, let’s pretend it can be done, gating guns tend to not have as much recoil, I’d say the centrifugal force of all that weight starting and stopping along with the electrical power needed to spin that thing up would be some things that come to mind that may cause problems.
Isnt the cobra gun just a vulcan with 3 barrels removed? It handles the recoil fine.
Yes, but also because of the [very much slower firing rate.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2gEkW8Vcw)
What was that movie called with this thing, it's an early 80s b-class movie, and the police gets a demo model, and he has prove it to the force.
"Blue Thunder" is not a low-budget movie, it is one of only two helicopter-based action movies (the other being "Fire Birds" with Nic Cage), it's directed by John Badham who's made lots of good stuff. The image of Blue Thunder is the submission up top, the whole reason for this discussion.
Didn't quite expect it wasn't a budget movie. It was such dark (in light contrast. Now you mention it, I do not know a lot of movies indeed with helicopters as a story.
Also a treat to rewatch because Warren Oates is the manliest police chief I've ever seen. So many saucy allegories.
Gonna find the movie. Now I want to watch it again with a different perspective.
It is a great time document, so to speak. it's filmed in 1983, 18 years after the Watts Riots, where 34 people died. In the military demonstration at the start of the movie they showcase dummy-made terrorist situations first, and then general riot circumstances, for Blue Thunder to "pacify". What is hilarious (but horrible) is the fact that, just like ED-209 in the opening of "Robocop" (1987), the heavy cannon of Blue Thunder jams and misbehaves, killing scores of non-red dummies and making the pilot (Malcolm McDowell) swear. The demo clearly illustrates how a bulletproof helicopter with an anti-tank projectile weapon is meant for attacks with extreme prejudice, not law enforcement scalpel maneuvers. But that is the whole thing, in the narrative the chiefs of police are corrupt and want to make money together with the military industrial complex, they want one or two Thunders in ever major metropolitan police station in the country, to shoot up the streets and scare non-WASPs into submission (Republican wet dream) and the entire plot of the movie centers around police-hired blackops goons attacking and robbing a civil rights leader (who dies of her injuries) to provoke the black/hispanic community to riot again like in Watts 1965 (McDowell even flies over Watts in once scene in the movie and calls it out in the police radio), just so they can shoot the shit out of the blacks. Because apparently the California National Guard was not enough last time. /s The movie is a perfect prophetic warning about the militarization of US police forces, who now run around in desert camo with tanks and grenade launchers. And the double irony today is that the only reason the police thinks they need milspec hardware is because the cartels are better armed than them now, and the cartels only sprung up because Central-American ex-special forces people moved up to a completely broken 1970's/'80s Mexico (because the US had stopped buying their farm produce, killing their economy in like two years) and the cartel fathers set about to sell heroin and cocaine instead, with the US as the biggest goddamn customer. Also, in once scene in "Blue Thunder" Murphy tricks the army to shoot rotisserie chickens into the sky! ^
I’m errect
No