Cobra on the Free World Frontier - 1/48 AH-1Q Cobra built again by Martin Pfeifer

The AH-1G variety of the Cobra became famous because of its service in the Vietnam War. The later version designated AH-1Q and S, very fortunately, did not get as much famous. Why? These TOW armed Q and S Cobras were designed specially to defend the Free World against Warsaw Pact's tank columns that, in the plans and dreams of communist military plan makers were supposed to roll towards the Rhine and perhaps even further to the Atlantic. On the other side of the frontier, by the airmen often called the High Blue Wall, in the free world, these columns were rather a huge nightmare and so the development of a specialised version of the highly successful Cobra chopper was initiated. The Q/S Cobras, when in operational service, were stationed at West Germany bases alongside the border. And among them, also this one as shown in today's photos, airframe no 72-021024 operating from Hanau base in the 1970s.

   The markings of this machine, with a few more, are contained in our SH48232 kit and it is the very chopper that Martin Pfeifer has chosen for his latest build. Painted in olive overall as the majority of US choppers of the period, the chopper wore only one symbol that made him  stand out of the olive everywhere, and that was the Playboy Bunny emblem on the doghouse. Our 1/48 Cobra is nothing short of an almost perfect kit and as Martin says, there was nothing to hamper the build. And of certain help were also the Inside/Outside masks  M48016. Today's photos do show this serpent in very appropriate settings, as the background shows the period control tower of the very Hanau base the real thing operated from. Very nice job, Martin, indeed!