After which the
aircraft was rendered the traditional
water cannon salute and was blessed by
father salcedo galvan. It was then
followed by the ceremonial champagne
pouring to Mark both the joy and
sanctity of the occasion, fifteenth
strike wing commander Brig, Jen, Aristotle Gonzales and other ranking
officers of the unit, welcomed the
aircraft and its crew.
The two bella ones cobra attack
helicopters were donated by the
jordanian government in 2018. In
september 2018 the philippine department
of national defense and the jordan armed
forces arab army signed a memorandum of
understanding on defense cooperation. The PAF at the time sent four pilots to
jordan for the training in handling the
cobra helicopters. Two of them underwent
further training to become test and
instructor pilots.
On november 26th the
philippines finally received the
helicopters from jordan. The helicopters
arrived at the Philippine Air Force (PAF) headquarters in clark air base pampanga
and the arrival was subsequently
communicated via an official statement
by the philippine military. The two
helicopters would be used mainly for
close air support and internal security
and counter-terrorism operations.
He bella one cobra is a single-engined
attack helicopter developed and
manufactured by the American rotorcraft
manufacturer Bell Helicopter. A member of
the prolific huey family the r1 is also
referred to as the huey cobra or snake. the r1 was developed using the engine, transmission and rotor system of the
bella one iroquois which had proven
itself to be a capable platform during
the vietnam war. it was produced in
response to fulfill a need for a
dedicated armed escort for transport
helicopters to give the latter greater
survivability in contested environments.
the r1 was a dedicated attack helicopter, featuring a tandem cockpit, stub wings
for weapons and a chin mounted gun
turret. for several decades the r1 formed
the core of the us army's attack
helicopter fleet seeing combat in vietnam, grenada, panama and iraq.
jordan obtained an initial batch of 2401FS during the late 1980s. in 2001 nine
additional ex-u.s army cobras were
acquired to supplement the fleet. During
2010 jordan transferred 1601f helicopters to pakistan under a u.s
sponsored support program that provided
islamabad with 4001 refurbished
helicopters.
In late 2014 israel and
jordan came to an agreement under which
the former transferred 16-xi of cobras to
the royal jordanian air force. The deal
was publicly stated to be for the
purpose of increasing border security
which was viewed as a pressing concern
of both nations due to the threats posed
by islamic state is militants as well as
by other insurgent groups. at that time the royal jordanian air force has at
least one squadron of cobras in service
and is supposed to have used them in
combat in iraq and syria.
