[Narrator] It's a heavily-armed killing machine.
This slim, lethal design
would revolutionize air-to-ground support.
When it goes off, you can feel that gun.
[Narrator] Flying straight off the production line
and into the jungles of Vietnam.
It's designed to get into the fight
and stay in the fight as long as possible.
[Narrator] Performing daring rescues
in the heart of enemy territory.
[Grover] The adrenaline starts pumping
because we know we're in trouble.
We can feel it.
[Narrator] And flown by ground-breaking female pilots.
I wanna fly the baddest thing out there.
For me, that was Cobras.
[Narrator] In lifesaving fights to the death.
[Payton] In this last gasp,
the Cobra is still suppressing the targets.
[Narrator] This is the AH-1 Cobra.
[music]
[Narrator] August, 2004,
an AH-1 Super Cobra helicopter gunship
races through the skies above Najaf, Iraq,
Responding to an urgent call from a squad of marines.
[distorted explosions]
In the front gunner seat,
the US Marine's first-ever black, female combat pilot,
Vernice "Flygirl" Armour.
I get a call from the ground control.
You can hear the desperation in this guy's voice.
"We have Marines and soldiers pinned down
and they need your help."
[Narrator] 11th expeditionary force marines
are caught up in a bitter civil war.
It begins a year earlier
when the United States-led coalition forces
launch a shock-and-awe bombing campaign in Iraq.
It's an assault that succeeds
in overthrowing leader Saddam Hussein.
The big phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom
is over.
Saddam has been captured,
but our problems in Iraq are only just beginning.
[Narrator] Saddam's capture provokes a violent backlash
from his loyalist followers.
Insurgents who have been disarmed by the Americans
and have got no real future, they take up arms.
[Narrator] Now in Najaf,
occupying forces made up of US Marines
and Iraqi security forces are trapped,
engaged in fierce close combat.
They're battling followers
of radical Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr,
who preaches loyalty to Saddam Hussein,
fierce opposition to Western ideas,
and encourages them to fight to the death.
[Paul] American Marines found themselves pinned down
by quite fanatical defenders
because it suddenly became not just a sort of an uprising,
but it became political and then it became religious.
[Narrator] Speeding to rescue the Marines from the mob,
Armour is flying a Super Cobra.
Top speed, 310 miles per hour.
It's fast, highly maneuverable,
and bristling with weaponry
and computerized targeting systems
to fire on enemy ground units
with pinpoint accuracy.
This helicopter has serious bite.
The Cobra, it excels at air-to-ground missions.
The best thing the Cobra can do
is chew up an enemy strong point.
[Narrator] But Armour isn't flying in, all guns blazing.
Diverted from another strike mission,
her Cobra is running low on gas.
We'd been out for a little over an hour,
which meant we only had 20 minutes of fuel left
and we only had one missile left on our aircraft.
[Narrator] Closing fast on the troops' location,
Armour gets nightmare news from the ground.
Even more desperate than the first.
"We're pinned down.
We don't have any ammunition to shoot back with.
We don't even have any green smoke
to mark our position."
They were in bad shape.
[Narrator] Out of marker flares,
the units on the ground come up with an ingenious plan
to help the Cobra crew track them down,
signaling by reflecting sunlight off a mirror.
I was scanning down, looking for any sign of our friendly forces.
And then I see a small glint.
"Contact. I see you."
[Narrator] Armour also sees the enemy.
The marines are under constant fire from a nearby tower.
Her Cobra needs to eliminate it now.
But the enemy have spotted them.
"Break right, break right!" I quickly yell out.
Why? Because, now, small arms fire
is coming out of that tower,
trying to take us out of the sky.
[Narrator] As the Cobra banks out of the line of fire,
Armour prepares to unleash her last missile
at the enemy building.
Looking down at the target, finger on the trigger,
ready to pull, waiting to come in range,
waiting for that phrase, "permission to engage."
We got the permission.
[Narrator] She's good to go,
I pull the trigger.
Nothing happened.
[Narrator] As her co-pilot begins evasive maneuvers,
Armour has just moments to try and troubleshoot
the missile system.
We're flying dead towards this target,
resetting circuit breakers.
I'm scoping.
[Narrator] The system reboot should have solved
her firing problem,
but there's only one way to find out.
We don't have time to come around for a re-attack
because we don't have enough fuel.
And in a few precious moments,
we'll be too close to the target
for the missile to be able to come off and strike.
[Narrator] Armour locks on
with her rebooted targeting system
and engages her weapons.
But if this doesn't work,
the Marines on the ground are doomed.
I pull the trigger.
[imitating missile swish] The missile comes off the rail.
Impacts the target.
[Narrator] Direct hit.
The tower and the hostile insurgents inside
are obliterated.
The 11th Expeditionary force Marines can retreat to safety
and Armour speeds back to base in her Cobra.
When we go back in the ready room,
the officer of the day told us that it was a good mission
and the Marines and soldiers will be coming home that night.
It was amazing.
[Narrator] After completing her tour of duty,
Armour receives a welcome reminder
of the mission
from an 11th expeditionary force Marine,
one of dozens rescued by the Cobra's awesome firepower.
I'm in the hospital for a routine doctor's appointment.
I'm talking to the Marine in front of me.
And I say, "Hey, Marine, why you here? What's going on?"
And he says, "Well, ma'am,
I have some shrapnel in my left leg."
I said, "Whoa, shrapnel? Were you recently deployed?"
He said, "Yes, ma'am, Iraq, 11th MEU."
I said, "Whoa, wait a minute. I was on the 11th MEU.
I was your Cobra air support.
And then he just stopped and he looked at me.
He said, "Ma'am, you saved my life."
[Narrator] It's an impressive show of air dominance
from an assault helicopter
which debuted four decades earlier,
designed for a very different combat environment.
In 1964,
communist forces ramp up violence
against US and South Vietnamese targets,
prompting the US to go to war in Vietnam.
Faced with deploying 100,000 troops in dense jungle,
the military decides to use helicopters,
but there's a problem.
They're moving whole battalions around,
jumping from place to place.
They thought chaps in the doorways with guns
would be sufficient
to protect them on the landing zones.
They quickly found that wasn't the case.
They were flying into combat assault scenarios
whereby, because they're slow, because they're large,
they were easily being targeted by enemy fire.
They were going into landing zones,
being shot to ribbons.
[Narrator] In response to this emerging new combat environment,
US General William Westmoreland puts out a request
for new, faster, more heavily armed gunships.
They needed a dedicated attack helicopter
that would fill their requirements
for close air support.
[Narrator] Though the US Army already has
helicopter gunships in the pipeline,
nothing is quite ready for deployment.
But the Bell company presents an ingenious interim solution.
They use prototype ideas
to update their Huey troop carrier.
They add armor plating
and shrink the cockpit down to just 36-inch wide.
Completing its deadly makeover,
a multi-angle gatling gun turret with grenade launcher.
This is the world's first
dedicated armed attack helicopter,
the Bell Huey Cobra.
It's designed to go into combat.
Most helicopters are designed to avoid combat,
but this one is actually designed
to get into the fight and stay in the fight
as long as possible.
The Cobra is muscular and agile.
It's an aircraft that closes with the enemy
and overpowers the enemy with overwhelming firepower.
On August 29th, 1967,
just 24 months after its first flight,
the first Cobras arrive in Vietnam.
Now these new helicopters
are about to be tested in the heat of battle.
December 30th, 1969, Vietnam,
a Cobra gunship is out on patrol.
At the controls, pilot Grover Wright.
[Grover] I'm sitting in the back seat
of my Cobra gunship
and we are flying large circles
at around 1,000 to maybe 1,200 feet
above the ground.
[Narrator] He's flying protection detail,
covering vulnerable scout aircraft
seeking out enemy troops and supply routes.
The jungle's full of people with machine guns
and evil intentions.
[Patrick] There's a need there
for being able to identify targets
on the ground and fire back.
[Narrator] Wright has only been deployed on protection detail
a few months,
but he's determined to capture every moment of his experience
by taking a camera into the cockpit.
[Grover] I've always been a camera bug.
I've taken photos of everywhere and everything
that we've ever done.
And so it was only natural
to take a 35-millimeter film camera
and a Super 8 movie camera into Vietnam.
[Narrator] But this is not a sightseeing tour.
Cruising above the jungle, wright receives urgent news.
We get a radio call and the radio call says,
"We have a scout aircraft that has been shot down."
[Narrator] This is an emergency.
Injured crew are trapped in enemy territory
and communist forces are closing in fast.
The only thing that becomes important
in your entire life is getting to the scene,
and getting that crew out of that aircraft,
and safely and as quickly as possible.
[Narrator] Racing to the crash zone,
the Cobra team scan the brush
for signs of the stricken plane.
We accidentally saw the thing.
It was just a miracle.
It was just a little bit of a white paint
that we could see.
[Narrator] As Wright swings the Cobra around
over the wreck,
his gunner spots something terrifying.
Just a couple hundred yards from the stricken crew,
enemy troops are rapidly assembling
a 12.7-millimeter machine gun.
It sends a real shiver up your spine
because they are extremely large rounds
with a lot of firepower
and they cause a lot of damage.
[Narrator] Other US aircraft are on the way
to the crash site.
Wright needs to take the gun out fast.
[Grover] it was frightening. It was absolutely frightening.
The adrenaline starts pumping because I've got to get that gun
before that gun gets me or gets anybody that's coming.
[Narrator] Pushing the engine to its limit,
Wright pulls back hard on the stick,
throwing the Cobra into a rapid climb.
[Grover] Two Gs are forcing you down into the seat.
Looking at the sky, you can see all of that.
That's all you can see.
[Narrator] Turning a tight 60-degrees,
Wright points the Cobra's nose down
towards the enemy.
I fired off two pairs of rockets.
[Narrator] Direct hit.
The whole area turned into a cloud of dust.
We had neutralized the gun.
[Narrator] Wright banks away,
unknowingly steering his Cobra
straight into the sights of a hidden second gun.
The machine gun opens up on us
and starts putting bullet holes in our rotor blades,
in our transmission, our engine.
Our tail boom gets hit.
Our wing stub gets a round through it.
[Narrator] Smoke fills the cockpit.
Wright's Cobra is now in serious trouble.
You can feel it.
The sound of crunching metal coming from behind
says that the engine, the transmission, or both,
are grinding up.
[Narrator] Wright is deep in enemy territory.
We're riding this thing as far as we could.
It's all jungle.
You look down
and you know it all belongs to Charlie,
I mean, North Vietnamese.
To stay alive, he must limp the damaged gunship
to the nearest fire support base.
[Grover] You're sitting there,
wondering just when everything's going to quit.
[Narrator] Engines screaming, Wright finally reaches safety.
We set it down, we reach over, we shut off the engine.
We shut off all the electronic, we shut off the radios.
We jump out and the smoke stops.
So I'm feeling pretty good at that point.
[Narrator] Wright's camera captures the evidence
of just how lucky they've been.
But this Cobra can't fly again.
With time running out for the stricken spotter plane crew,
he urgently needs a new ride.
I look over at the flight line
and we see a Cobra that is air-worthy.
So let's get in that Cobra.
That'll be Cobra number two for the day.
[Narrator] Despite his lucky escape,
Wright heads back into the danger zone
to resume the rescue,
joining four other Cobras to circle the crash area
and rain down a protective barrage of bullets
around the stranded crew.
It's an organized, chaotic, unbelievable show of force.
[Narrator] Wright, once again, becomes the target
as the enemy attempts to blast him
out of the sky.
We were bullet magnets that day
because we not only put a bunch of holes
in the first Cobra,
but we got a whole bunch of holes in the second Cobra.
[Narrator] Under a hail of bullets,
Wright pumps the trigger,
driving communist forces back,
allowing a Huey troop carrier in to pick up the only survivor.
The enemy disengaged.
They didn't even wanna fight anymore. They withdrew.
We had a superior force and we had all the firepower.
[Narrator] Job well done,
Wright can finally return to base.
[Narrator] A day later,
the crew helps to recover the bodies
of the two men killed in the crash.
[Grover] It's more than just duty.
It's also a certain amount of pride
that we never left anybody out there alone.
We take care of each other. We have each other's back.
[Narrator] Though, Wright and his co-pilots
defied death twice in 24 hours,
many aren't so lucky.
Almost 30% of Cobras deployed to Vietnam
are lost, most to enemy fire,
but some will be blown out of the sky
by their own weaponry.
January 30th, 1972,
a Cobra helicopter patrols the border
between Vietnam and Laos.
It's paired with a smaller Loach scout helicopter
to form a hunter-killer team.
The hunter would try to figure out
where enemy positions were.
If the enemy made the mistake of revealing himself
by opening fire at the aircraft,
the position would be marked and logged,
and then the killer Cobra would move in.
Taking on this crucial killer role in the pilot seat
and on his second tour of duty in Vietnam
is Hugh Mills.
[Hugh] My job was to watch the scout
a hundred percent of the time.
I never took my eyes off of him.
[Narrator] As the Loach hunts the enemy,
Mills and his gunner circle their Cobra above,
waiting to pounce.
Suddenly, they get an urgent radio call
from a nearby OV-10 scout plane.
He says, "I've got an anti-aircraft gun
that's shooting at me
on the side of a mountain over here
and I need somebody to address it."
[Narrator] It's the opportunity he's been waiting for.
The cobra speeds towards this fresh target.
[Hugh] As I move toward the Laotian border,
I can see the OV-10 circling at about 5,000 feet
out ahead of me
[Narrator] The aircraft is under fire
from a 14.5-millimeter heavy machine gun,
concealed somewhere on the mountain below.
[Paul] The Vietcong in Vietnam were really good at hiding.
They were using cover.
They were brilliant guerrilla fighters.
[Narrator] Banking 'round the mountain,
Mills spots the machine gun's location.
I'm circling,
and I can see the circular pit
in the side of the mountain.
And in the center, it's a built-up area,
and that's where the 14.5 sat.
[Narrator] The Cobra is armed with flechette rockets
and turret-mounted, dual rotary cannons.
The aircraft didn't even have to be lined up
on the target to engage, using that weapon,
by virtue of the turret.
When it goes off, you can feel that gun.
[Narrator] It's more than enough firepower
to obliterate the enemy machine gun,
but it's a small target.
To maximize his chance of hitting it,
Mills needs the Loach to mark the gun
with white phosphorous flares.
[Hugh] They burst in the area of the enemy gun
and I can see the smoke.
[Narrator] Target locked in, Mills primes his weapons.
I'm in the gun mode position on the armament panel
and I trigger my thumb switch.
[Narrator] Flying just above the trees,
Mills opens fire.
I give the enemy position a long burst of 20-millimeter.
And I can see them impacting on the gun position.
[Narrator] Swinging 'round for another approach,
Mills prepares to unleash even more firepower.
[Hugh] I approach in the dive.
I've reached out and flip over to wing store position
and I fired one round of flechette rocket.
IT flew straight and true.
It popped right on the target.
[Narrator] Now, he needs to finish the job.
I slow the aircraft up and then roll it over
on the left side
so that I result in a dive
of about 60 degrees.
[Narrator] But as Mills fires a second rocket,
disaster strikes.
[explosive sweeping] [booming]
The burning rocket is jammed in the firing tube.
At that point in time,
I knew I was in serious, serious trouble.
[Narrator] Seconds later,
the rocket explodes,
setting off a catastrophic chain reaction.
That burning sets off the rocket motors
of the other five and they explode.
[Narrator] Shrapnel shreds the Cobra's tail rotor.
[Hugh] And I lose everything in the aircraft
aft of the exhaust.
The entire tail leaves the aircraft.
[Narrator] The Cobra spirals out of the sky.
I can honestly tell you it's the most terrifying thing
I've ever experienced.
And I'm trying to keep the aircraft
from rolling over on its back.
If it does this, then we're dead.
[Narrator] Mills and his gunner
spiral almost 5,000 feet towards the jungle below.
As I fall it simply becomes, to me a sea of turning green.
I can't see any relationship to the horizon
because I have no horizon.
[Narrator] Seconds later,
he smashes into the treetops.
[metallic crashing]
We had another 150 feet to go
because we were in triple canopy jungle.
And as the aircraft settles into the trees,
I settle into darkness.
[Narrator] Coming 'round, Mills discovers
he can't move his leg,
and his gunner, John Bryant, is in serious trouble.
He has a broken back.
[Hugh] I can drag myself,
but John's not going anywhere.
Somebody else is gonna have to get John out of this aircraft.
As the realization begins to hit me
that we're in a very, very bad position,
our only option is to wait,
[Narrator] It's a delay that could prove deadly.
[Narrator] The enemy is closing in fast.
I hunker down,
waiting for what I suspect will be the ultimate assault
by enemy troops.
And they would've taken us easily
in the condition that we were both in.
And I wait, and I wait,
And then I hear the sound of an approaching Huey.
[Narrator] The Loach scout helicopter
has raised the alarm,
sending a ranger team to their rescue.
When they hear that there's an aircraft down,
three of our rangers geared up very quickly.
Two riflemen and a medic
loaded the Huey and head out to get us back.
[Narrator] Hovering overhead,
the riflemen repel down from the Huey
with the medic.
The medic had never repelled from a helicopter before.
So as his crew is headed out to where we are,
they're trying to tell him how you repel.
[Narrator] Against the clock,
they begin the dangerous task of freeing the crew
from the stricken Cobra.
They, then, begin to hoist me up.
And as I near the bottom of the aircraft,
I look straight up and I see the flight engineer
leaning out, and he's maneuvering the hoist.
And between his legs is another head.
It's an Air Force combat photographer
with a single-lens reflex camera.
[Narrator] Mills' lucky escape is captured for posterity,
and both he and his gunner have emerged alive.
We were both rescued. We were both treated.
John was immediately evacuated.
[Narrator] Despite his injuries,
Mills is determined to fight on.
My leg was not broken, it was fractured.
I put a brace on it.
Four days later, I was flying combat operations again.
[Narrator] Forty years later, with local help,
Mills sets off to complete his mission
by recovering the remains of the Cobra
that almost killed him.
[Mills] I knew the grid coordinates.
But the Vietnamese guide knew exactly where this was.
It had been heavily scavenged
and this was, literally, the largest piece.
[Narrator] Despite clocking more than a million flying hours
in Vietnam,
the Cobra fleet cannot prevent
the eventual US withdrawal in 1973.
But they leave a lasting legacy.
The Cobra became ubiquitous all over Vietnam.
It changed the face of the war.
It changed what they could do.
[Narrator] Ten years later,
the Cobra gets a new look
and faces a new challenge.
In Grenada liberating US civilians trapped
in the midst of a deadly communist coup.
October 25th, 1983,
the Caribbean Sea.
On the deck of the USS Guam, crew rapidly prep
four US Marine Cobra helicopters for a vital mission.
In the pilot seat of one, Payton Dehart.
This is his first combat mission and he's using brand-new tech.
I take off over the bow of the ship.
It's still dark.
We do have night vision goggles on.
It's the Marine Corps' first assault
with night vision goggles.
[Narrator] This is Operation Urgent Fury,
a US-led mission to put down an armed uprising,
as communist forces attempt to take over the island of Grenada.
Operation Urgent Fury is really the first major combat operation
since the Vietnam War.
The Reagan administration decides to intervene
during a political coup.
[Narrator] As the coup unfolds,
a no fly zone is imposed over the whole island.
Now almost 1,000 US citizens are trapped
in a volatile and dangerous situation,
most of them, first-year medical students.
Time to call in the Marines.
They get a message, "Go to Grenada, rescue people,"
which is what the Marines are trained to do.
[Patrick] The eyes of the world are watching
and they need to perform,
so there's a lot of risks for the US
in this invasion of Grenada.
[Narrator] Front and center in this operation,
the Sea Cobra,
the AH-1T,
bigger and stronger,
it has corrosion resistant parts
to operate at sea and attack in any weather.
[Mike] It was designed for shipboard use.
It had Marine-ization, that's to say,
magnesium components taken out, replaced with aluminum,
because saltwater doesn't really work
with that sort of thing.
[Narrator] Dehart is headed for the north-east of the island.
He's escorting helicopters loaded with ground troops.
Tasked with taking control
of the island's major airport,
Pearls airfield.
Once they capture this, the airlift rescue can begin.
When the Marine Corps owns Pearls,
we have unlimited access
to land as many troops and supplies as possible.
[Narrator] But taking Pearls airfield
isn't going to be easy.
The ground troops are heading into an area
surrounded by Soviet weaponry
manned by trained Cuban soldiers.
[Paul] The Cubans had provided large stocks
of Kalashnikov AK 47s, RPGs,
rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
So America was suddenly facing what's basically a militia.
[Narrator] Entering the danger zone
around the airfield,
the ground troops begin their approach.
Dehart pulls his Cobra ahead
to search for any enemy guns waiting in ambush.
I fly north around Pearls airfield.
There is a triple-A site there and it is smoking at the bottom.
it is firing at us.
[Narrator] But Dehart is banking hard.
He has no time to target his Cobra's guns.
Unfortunately, I'm looking at it through my rotor disc,
so I actually can't shoot as we do that first pass,
but we can see that he means business.
[Narrator] Swinging 'round,
Dehart points the AH-1 Cobra's nose
straight at the anti-aircraft gun
and opens fire,
but catastrophe strikes.
The 20-millimeter gun in front of my AH-1 jams.
[Narrator] Dehart is in trouble.
He needs to take out the anti-aircraft weapon
before it blasts him out of the skies.
Luckily, his Cobra is carrying more than just bullets.
I've got 54 2-and-3/4-inch rockets under the wings,
and start firing those.
[Narrator] Missiles pound the anti-aircraft gun.
After a number of passes, there is no more smoke
coming from the barrels.
[Narrator] Dehart has destroyed the gun,
but his job isn't over yet.
The infantry battalion is attempting
to take over the airfield,
but with no cover, they are vulnerable.
[Payton] We are ahead of them, scouting the area,
making sure that it's safe.
If I see something, it's gonna be addressed.
[Narrator] Now, out in the open,
the troops are sitting ducks for any potential enemy.
I am overhead to make sure
that we can instantly return fire
onto a machine gun position.
This is a Caribbean island.
It is a good, green forest out there,
so there's a lot of places for bad guys to hide.
And it's my job to find them.
[Narrator] Miraculously, they find it deserted.
As Dehart circles his Cobra overhead,
the ground troops go to work.
The infantry guys take over Pearls.
They maneuver it
to make it part of our defensive position.
And by the first half hour of them being there,
they have the airfield secure.
[Narrator] Mission accomplished and running low on gas,
Dehart turns his Cobra back towards the USS Guam.
But the ship is not where he left it.
I'm going back to the last point
I knew it was at and it's not there.
It's just water.
I don't know any other place
I can go on land to get fuel.
[Narrator] Operating under battle conditions,
the USS Guam has turned off its locator signal.
Dehart will have to find it by eye.
And he's almost out of fuel.
It's us looking out the aircraft windows
and saying to ourselves,
"Well, if the ship isn't here, where would I be?"
And that is on the other side of the island.
[Narrator] Ship located,
Dehart gets his helicopter back on deck.
[Narrator] But other Marine Cobras
haven't been so lucky.
Two have been shot down
trying to rescue the US citizens.
I am hearing
that our aircraft are not coming back.
[Narrator] It's a major setback.
Dehart is now one of only two Cobra teams
left to help rescue hundreds of terrified students.
He has no choice but to get straight back
into action.
[Payton] We have taken losses,
but it's a military operation.
We're the Marine Corps.
We're going to work through that.
We have two Cobras,
and the mission is first,
and we're making the mission work.
[Narrator] Single handedly taking on the job
of the downed Cobras,
Dehart destroys a barracks
suspected to be full of Cuban soldiers
so that ground troops can evacuate the medical students.
[Payton] The students are grateful.
There's later pictures that show
some guys kissing the ground or something like that.
They'd been rescued.
All I know is we've been successful
and the guys on the ground are grateful for the support.
[Narrator] The following day, 14 more Cobras arrive.
With this overwhelming firepower,
US troops claim control of Grenada.
But it comes at a heavy cost.
The US military suffers 19 killed
and 116 wounded in action.
Three of the dead are Cobra Marines.
[Paul] The aftermath of the campaign in Grenada
is that some form of democracy is restored.
[Narrator] As the Cobra enters a new millennium,
it faces a deadly new combat environment,
Iraq,
protecting troops under fire,
and taking out ruthless enemy insurgents.
[Narrator] 2004, Iraq, US forces have toppled
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
that leads to a grueling occupation.
The US military now faces a violent struggle
to maintain control.
America was faced with having groups of people
that they didn't really understand.
They didn't understand just how Iraq functioned.
And that meant widespread fighting, uprisings,
against the American aggressor, as they were seen.
[Narrator] Desperate to keep the peace,
the US deploys the Super Cobra,
and the first female combat pilot to fly it
is Vernice Armour,
defending troop convoys on the dangerous roads of Ramadi.
Did I go out to become the first? No.
I just wanted an amazing, epic, juicy life,
and I decided I wanted to be a combat pilot
in the Marine Corps.
Why? Because my grandfather was a Marine,
one of the first blacks to integrate the Marine Corps
back in World War II, 1942.
My dad was a Marine, three tours of Vietnam.
If I was going to go active duty military
and be a combat pilot, I wanted to go
into the United States Marine Corps.
[Narrator] To provide protection
for her unit's elite ground troops,
Armour's warrior has two engines.
[Paul] First of all, the twin engine
makes it more resilient to ground fire.
But, secondly, it's got the ability
to have a longer endurance.
It can carry more weapons for longer.
[Narrator] These weapons include hellfire missiles,
guided by an integrated heads-up laser targeting system.
A formidable upgrade.
Literally twice the weight and power
of the original prototype.
So it's a huge jump in technology.
[Narrator] Now the US troop convoy
heads for the city of Ramadi.
In the skies above,
Armour's keen eyes find trouble.
Middle of the day, regular convoy,
headed up north,
and, boom, all hell breaks loose.
[Narrator] Armour has flown into an ambush.
I see these puffs of gray clouds
and we're chattering on the radio like,
"What's that? What are those gray...
What is that?"
[Narrator] Her Cobra is being targeted
from the buildings ahead.
But the Cobra has systems to protect it
from ground-to-air missile attack.
Sitting on top is the ALQ-144,
a device that generates a pulse
to stop heat-seeking missiles
locking on to the Cobra's hot engine exhaust gases.
It's nicknamed the Disco Light.
The Disco Light basically doesn't allow
the missile to track.
[Narrator] But it can't protect her
from the most simple weapons.
It turned out, they were exploding RPG rounds
right at our level.
[Narrator] Armour takes evasive action.
[Vernice] We banked to the left.
People, enemy, are now running all over the place.
The convoy has stopped. Everyone jumped out.
We're shooting rockets, guns.
[Narrator] Her Cobra is hit.
Enemy bullets shred an essential system.
All of a sudden, the tape,
which is the navigation on my heads-up display,
starts spinning.
Three rounds have gone through the aircraft,
one right under us has cut through all the wires.
[Narrator] She can't use her laser targeting.
No amount of resetting switches would've done anything.
[Narrator] Armour still has three hellfire missiles
on her Cobra,
enough firepower to obliterate the enemy.
But, without targeting, they're basically useless.
Small arms fire is coming out at us
and I can't even shoot that.
[Narrator] Out of options,
Armour comes up with a do-or-die plan
to manually fire the rockets
by getting another Cobra pilot
to mark the target with their laser sight.
[Vernice] We talked to our wingman,
we get their laser lined up with our missile,
they lase, boom, we're able to shoot our missile.
[Narrator] Now out of ammo,
Armour needs to get out of the line of fire.
We can't protect the troops anymore.
We pull off.
[Narrator] Back on the ground,
Armour assesses the damage
that almost cost her, her life.
The deepest one was right through the tail rotor,
miraculously, through the center of the tail rotor
because if it had been to the left or right,
anywhere off center,
the tail rotor would've disintegrated,
and we would've come out of the sky.
And didn't even know it. It was crazy.
[Narrator] After over six decades of service
and more than two million flight hours,
in 2011,
the Cobra gets another design overhaul.
New technology transforms it
into an even more deadly serpent.
With a different name, the AH-1Z Viper
continues to patrol skies across the globe.
It's a testament to the Cobra's pioneering legacy.
It's an amazing aircraft.
It's a great piece of gear.
Has a lot of years ahead of it.
[Narrator] A helicopter that changes the face
of modern warfare
by adapting to any threat that gets in the way.
[Mike] The Cobra is often called a snake
because, like a snake, it sheds its skin and emerges stronger.
and it just keeps doing that.
[music]