The first military helicopters were used for medical evacuation and supply missions. Although, their primary mission was utility, handheld weapons and some side-mounted guns were used for offensive tasks. At that time, the U.S. Army did not have a dedicated attack helicopter in its fleet. Bell Helicopter recognized the advantages of using a helicopter for offensive missions and began developing a new model designed specifically for these kinds of operations.
The first design was a modified Bell 47. It first flew in 1963 and used a two man crew arranged in tandem with the gunner in front and the pilot seated directly to the rear. The gunner operated a nose mounted machine gun with an assembly that resembled the pilot’s cyclic control. Since the gunner was also trained to fly, a small cyclic control was installed on the right side as a side arm controller. Yaw was controlled by twisting the grip on the side arm control. This model was called the Sioux Scout and was used as a test bed for the design of an advanced attack helicopter.
Bell took these concepts and applied them to the more powerful turbine-powered UH-1B, known as the Huey. The design work started in early 1965 and the prototype was flying a year and a half later. The newly designed attack helicopter carried the designation AH-1G and was named the Cobra or HueyCobra. The U.S. Army ordered 529 of these and by 1967 they were in action in the Vietnam conflict.