The sense of battle is carried by reconstructed dialog radio calls punctuated with rocket runs and cries for help. Cobras had an important job, protecting, guiding, and killing on behalf of their scouts, and hunting down any other trouble that might come in. The Loach scout would fly low and slow, looking for trouble, and when they found it, the Cobra would roll in with rockets and miniguns. The emotional focus is on the friendships he made with his peers, and conflicts with his immediate superiors, paper-pushing careerists who didn't understand the skill it took to fight and survive in the combat zone.Ĭobras mostly worked as the red part of a Pink Team. Zahn was something of a natural, scoring in the top 10% of his training cohorts, which meant he got Cobras, and the 1st of the 9th, Air Cavalry.Įarly in his tour, Zahn bought a portable tape recorder and used it to send audio tapes to his parents, who saved all of them, the archive forming the raw material for this book. Air Force pilots were officers and gentlemen, which meant they had a college degree 19 year old Zahn had no patience to get, but the Army would put anybody in helicopters if they could make the cut. Growing up outside Los Angeles, Zahn always want to fly. Snake Pilot is exactly what it says on the cover, a memoir of one year flying Cobras in Vietnam. This human element, combined with the vast amount of archival research and interviews with members of his former unit, ensures that Snake Pilot will become the definitive account of the role helicopters played in Vietnam. Zahn displays a sensitivity rarely found in memoirs written by battle-hardened warriors. He captures many of the ironies and nuances inherent in Vietnam, especially during the final years of the conflict. The author does not glorify killing but rather explains in sharp relief the kaleidoscope of emotions associated with fear, revenge, hate, remorse, pity, and even ecstasy. Unlike the pilots who flew the fast-moving strike jets, Zahn experienced the war “up close and personal,” witnessing the grisly effects of the Cobra’s firepower on enemy soldiers.

He describes his stunning transformation from a naive, middle-class teenager from southern California to a hardened killer during his tour in Vietnam. invasion of Cambodia, one of the most impressive demonstrations by the Cobra in the war.

Randy Zahn arrived in Vietnam shortly before the 1970 U.S. It dramatically changed the nature of the war in Vietnam by offering the Army, for the first time, its own powerful and highly accurate weapons platform for close-air-support missions. First deployed in Vietnam in 1967 and loaded with a formidable arsenal of weaponry, the Cobra was the first helicopter designed from inception as an attack aircraft.

Based on audiotapes he recorded during the war and sent home to his family, Randy Zahn’s Snake Pilot recounts his experiences flying AH-1 Cobra helicopters during the Vietnam War.

Snake pilot randy zahn