Bruce Sikkema was a Centaurs Cobra pilot in 1970 - 1971 and recalls a Cobra wingover recorded for posterity by LOH Scout pilot Captain Simmons.
See Bruce's story and the sequence photos below.
You asked for the story about the picture of the wingover so this is it.
Captain Simmons (I think) was the LOH pilot. He had bought a new Minolta camera that had a feature that allowed the operator to take pictures as fast as you could depress the take picture button. He had heard I did a pretty good wingover so when we were assigned the same mission, he asked me to do a wingover on the way back to base so he could try out that feature on his camera. We were about 15 klicks north of Cu Chi on that day when we set up for him to try the camera. We were about 2000 above ground level. He was off my left wing and just a little lower than me. I did a ready-set-go so he could get ready and then did the wingover.
Now, I had done a few before, but knowing I was being filmed, I wanted it to be good. I rolled over almost completely upside down and then pulled out doing what would be called a modified split S in a fixed wing aircraft. I don't know if there is a name for it in a rotory wing other than OMG. I used 35 - 40 pounds of torgue to maintain a positive g force during the maneuver as I pulled the nose in an "up" direrction. "Up" being a relative term as you go upside down, but it's like pulling the nose up between your feet as you come around to straight and level again. Captain Simmons did a good job with the camera and got 5 really great shots of the maneuver.
Being an
entrepreneur as well as a good pilot, Captain Simmons had the pictures
developed as a series of glossy 8 X 10 pictures. He had 25 sets made up and
sold them in a very short time for $25.00 (?) a set. I did a few more
wingovers, but never one quite this good. I don't remember who was in my
front seat but it may have been CWO Stanton. I say that because he
introduced me to his wife at the reunion in 2008 as "the guy who tried to
kill me!" Yeah, that may have been him in the front seat!
Guess we were all 10' tall and bullet proof in those days but... Looking back, it wasn't the smartest thing to do but we made it and now we tell stories about it.
