Always on the cutting edge of technology, for better or worse, Cobra tended to go more sci-fi with their weaponry than their more conventional opponent. But some of these vehicles weren’t as far-fetched as you may think…
While G.I. Joe’s Air Force was rooted fairly securely in reality, at least in the beginning, Cobra has generally been more accepting of crazier, more dangerous tech to win air superiority. Still, a lot of these vehicles had their beginnings as black book projects, test aircraft, and many other things that would definitely count as literally stranger than the fiction it inspired. While Cobra may have fielded fewer types of aircraft than the Joes did, the stories behind them are considerably more bizarre.
Night Raven/Lockheed YF-12
The awe-inspiring flagship of Cobra’s air fleet, the Raven is easily counted among the most advanced and powerful aircraft on either side. The fiction admits to it being based on the SR-71, giving credence to the idea that MARS industries merely modified the Lockheed design to fit their needs, but it’s real origins actually trace back to the earlier models of the A-12 program, including this guy, the YF-12.
Lockheed’s A-12 is the base platform that would eventually become the Blackbird we all know and love. Along the way, though, it was intended to be used initially as a Mach 3 interceptor, and was given the USAF designation YF-12. The fear of the time (1950s-’60s) was that the Soviet Union could unleash its massive conventional bomber force over the Arctic Circle and be able to attack the mainland US before enough interceptors could be scrambled to stop them. This fear would be rendered mostly groundless with the advance of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), but the idea of having a supersonic fighter able to engage an enemy long before target was too sweet a prize to pass up, so the idea of a weapon-loaded SR-71 was around long before the Night Raven.
And then there’s this little guy to seal the deal. Look familiar?
That would be another A-12 variant called the M-21, carrying the D-21 advanced reconnaissance drone. The concept, known as a parasite fighter/drone, dates back to pre-WWII Soviet Union, as well as Nazi Germany. There’s some other US variations on the concept, which we’ll get to in a minute.
This small, autonomous and even faster aircraft was designed to launch from the mother plane, fly a pre-programmed path, and then self-destruct, throwing its data-pod out for retrieval. And this was being done in 1966. Obvious differences are that the Cobra recon jet was piloted and armed, but you can definitely see the family resemblance.
And while the A-12 proved to be a difficult platform to launch from, the D-21 did go on to have a somewhat successful career, flying spy missions over China launched from the much slower and sturdier B-52.
FireBat/XF-85 Goblin
Often described as a jet engine with a seat strapped to it, these dangerous small interceptors formed a sizeable amount of Cobra’s air defenses, being launched from silos in the Terror Drome. Small, fast, but lightly armed and short-range, these sometimes expendable jets were the last line of defense, or the first wave of an assault, and their use always has an air of desperation about them.
While not as obvious as the Night Raven’s recon fighter, I think the FireBat is also linked to the parasite fighter program, this one even earlier, and weirder, than the D-21. As I said above, the concept of carrying a smaller plane inside or on top of a larger one has been around for some time. And while the Soviets and Nazis were the first to actually use them in (limited) combat, the idea had its most interesting results in the US Navy, and later the Air Force.
In the 1930s, the Navy experimented with the use of rigid airships (dirigibles), around the same era as the much better known Hindenburg. These included the pair of sister ships Akron and Macon, which made use of a fascinating trapeze system to launch and retrieve small biplanes from their hulls. They were, real-deal, no-b.s., flying aircraft carriers.
A few decades later, the USAF would resurrect the concept, on the opposite end of the strategic bombing paranoia — the idea was to launch small fighters from bombers, who could then escort them and fend off enemy interceptors over their target. Like in WWII, the bombers continued to develop speeds and ranges that their contemporary fighters couldn’t match.
Hence the XF-85 Goblin, the ugliest fighter plane that ever existed.
Designed to be carried in a modified bomb bay (one of four) under the massive B-36 Peacemaker, the XF-85 was a truly remarkable idea and concept that, while functional, just couldn’t overcome the limitations of the concept. In the end, it was too elaborate to launch, and it performed poorly against even the most standard of other fighters.
The idea didn’t die, though, as the D-21, the X-15, X-24, and various other research aircraft were launched from under bomber planes for many years afterward. Now, sure, the Goblin and the Firebat don’t line up quite as nicely as the others, but the small frame, the folding wings, the stubby tail fins … there’s some lineage. There’s also some credence to the FireBat owing a little to the US Navy’s XFV Pogo aircraft, a test plane from the same era that would take off and land from its tail, meaning it could launch from just about any size Navy vessel. It was demonstrated to be functional, but like the airborne counterparts, it proved too difficult to use operationally. Between the two, though, I think there’s enough proof of concept for the FireBat to be possible.
Cobra Rattler/A-10Thunderbolt II
The workhorse of Cobra’s air arm, the infamous Rattler was designed as a tank-buster, but it quickly found itself in the middle of dogfights with thoroughbred fighter jets like the Sky Striker and still held it’s own. Even after more fighter aircraft like the Hurricane came along, the Rattler was always frontline capable, and only the HISS tank could challenge it as the most iconic Cobra weapon. In the fiction, there is mention of this jet taking inspiration from the A-10, but the added features like a third engine, afterburners, manned turret and VTOL capability do put it in a class of it’s own, though I’d take the A-10’s GAU-7 Avenger cannon over the Rattler’s 30mm rotary any day of the week.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvIJvPj_pjE&w=560&h=315]
Oh baby.
Anyway, the A-10 is the world’s premier tank-buster, building on a tradition dating back to WWII, where the Soviet Sturmovik earned similar fear and praise among German tank commanders, as did it’s namesake, the P-47 Thunderbolt — Warthog is just a nickname. I love the thing, I think it’s beautiful, I think retiring it is huge mistake, and so on. The turret is kind of a throwback to planes like the Sturmovik and dive bombers like the TBF Avenger — truthfully, by the 1950s even bomber planes had dispensed with defensive manned turrets.
Now the VTOL (vertical take off and landing) part is what I really wanted to touch on here. Most of you have at least heard of the V-22 Osprey, the USMC’s helicopter/transport plane hybrid. The V-22 was in development during the 1980s, but that type of VTOL aircraft uses giant rotors, and is known as a tilt-rotor system, very different from this guy-The Rattler has jet engines with afterburners. That would make it a tilt-jet system, with jet engines rotating on the wings. And that’s just crazy.
Crazy enough to have been tried in the 1960s. There were actually many different attempts at a supersonic tilt-jet, but the most successful had to be the EWR VJ 101, developed by West Germany. This aircraft was a heavily modified F-104 Starfighter with a pair of rotating engines on the end of it’s wings. It did fly, several times over about five years, and it also was able to break the sound barrier. It’s a fascinating proof of concept that certainly encouraged the design of aircraft like the Harrier a few years later. But the idea of retrofitting an existing airframe to make it a VTOL … that makes the Rattler considerably more plausible than it seems.
That’s going to cover it for this set, please let me know if I should dig into Cobra’s weird helicopters next, or if there’s some other deep dark corner of the G.I. Joe weapons world you want me to visit. Be sure to head over to 3DJoes.com for some awesome 3D photos of these vehicles — and back his Kickstarter!