AH-56 Cheyenne: America's Unbuilt Cold War Super Gunship Ahead of Its Era. Rare Restored Footage

During the mid-1960s, Lockheed engineers set out to build a revolutionary weapon system for the United States Army: the AH-56 Cheyenne. Combining the vertical agility of a helicopter with the high-speed stability of a fixed-wing aircraft, the Cheyenne paired a rigid rotor with stub wings and a tail-mounted pusher propeller to exceed 230 miles per hour. Armed with a 30mm cannon, 40mm grenade launcher, 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets, and TOW anti-tank missiles governed by an automated computer fire-control system, it prompted an initial production order for 375 airframes out of a projected 3,300. Yet not a single production model was ever built. The story began in the late 1950s with a radio-controlled model and the full-scale CL-475 testbed. Rather than relying on unstable flapping hinges, Lockheed linked hingeless blades to a spinning control gyro. The CL-475 proved so stable that an untrained mechanic once flew it back from the desert, and flight tests continued smoothly even with a man perched on an offset side boom. This led to the jet-age XH-51 for the Army, Navy, and NASA, alongside the commercial Model 286, which performed loops, rolls, and inverted flight before achieving FAA certification in 1966. To conquer retreating blade stall, Lockheed added stub wings and a Pratt & Whitney J60 turbojet to create the XH-51A Compound. Flown by engineering test pilot Don Segner, it reached an unofficial record of 303 miles per hour and demonstrated extreme low-level survivability below 30 feet. When armed UH-1 Huey gunships struggled to keep pace with troop transports in Vietnam, the Army awarded Lockheed the Advanced Aerial Fire Support System contract. Tested in a canyon whirl tower and the fortified stockade of Fort Cheyenne, the AH-56 first flew in September 1967. Despite dazzling firepower trials, a fatal March 1969 crash caused by a rotor oscillation known as the half-P hop triggered a production cancellation. Lockheed solved the issue with a redesigned sub-transmission gyro and proved pinpoint accuracy at Yuma Proving Ground. However, interservice rivalry with the Air Force's A-X program, the interim deployment of the Bell AH-1 HueyCobra, rising unit costs, and an ill-timed TOW missile failure ended the program in August 1972—leaving its technology to birth both the AH-64 Apache and the A-10 Thunderbolt II. To support our work and channel, join @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTTqBgYdkmFogITlPDM0M4A/join Thank you! 🙏🎖️ ➤ More aircraft and history videos: https://www.youtube.com/@Dronescapes ➤ Join the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Dronescapes/join ➤ THREADS: https://www.threads.net/@dronescapesvideos ➤ FB: https://www.facebook.com/Dronescapesvideos ➤ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Atellani/ ➤ IG: https://www.instagram.com/dronescapesvideos ➤ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/dronescapes.bsky.social ➤ Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dronescapesvideos ➤ X/Twitter: https://dronescapes.video/2p89vedj VIDEO SERIES: 🎥U.S. AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/US 🎥AVIATION VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/aviation 🎥GERMAN AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/WWIIGermany 🎥BRITISH AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/British 🎥ERIC BROWN VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/EricBrown 🎥B-29 VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/B29 🎥VIETNAM AND KOREA: https://dronescapes.video/Vietnam 🎥TURBOJET VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/Turbojet 🎥SUPERSONIC VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/fastest 🎥EXTREME AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/Extreme 🎥STRANGE PLANES VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/Extreme 🎥COLD WAR ERA VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/ColdWar 🎥 WW2 VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/WW2 00:00:00 The Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne Concept 00:01:15 Automated Fire Control and Tank Busting 00:03:38 Late 1950s Origins and the CL-475 Rigid Rotor 00:06:17 The XH-51 Testbed and Center of Gravity Trials 00:09:58 Model 286 Aerobatics and Commercial Ambitions 00:12:21 The Jet-Powered XH-51A Compound Helicopter 00:15:04 Overcoming Retreating Blade Stall at 303 MPH 00:17:53 Low-Level Evasion Trials and Survivability 00:19:48 Vietnam UH-1 Huey Gunships and the AAFSS Bid 00:22:22 Engineering the AH-56 and Fort Cheyenne Testing 00:24:56 First Flight and Reversible Pusher Propeller 00:27:51 Integrated Weapons, Swivel Turret, and Avionics 00:31:54 Early In-Flight Firing Trials and Production Order 00:33:19 The Fatal 1969 Crash, Half-P Hop, and Cure Notice 00:35:30 Redesigning the Gyro and Yuma Live-Fire Accuracy 00:40:28 Pentagon Turf Wars, the AH-1 Cobra, and Rising Costs 00:43:36 The Final TOW Missile Demonstration and Cancellation 00:44:55 Heritage of the Cheyenne: AH-64 Apache and A-10 Warthog #AviationHistory #MilitaryAviation #HelicopterHistory