In comparison with the snubs of today, the 5-shot, S&W 637 Airweight comes in at 13.5. Whereas the Detective Special was 21-ounces and the Cobra was 16-ounces, the superlight Aircrewman tipped the scales at just 11-ounces with six rounds of 38-Special loaded. To be safe, the Air Force used low-pressure rounds instead of commercial. The Cobra already used an aluminum side plate, but to throw out all of the steel except in the barrel and replace it with the wondermetal was a bold step forward.
To carve weight away from the Cobra, Colt used space age aluminum for the frame and cylinder instead of the normal ordanance grade steel. 38-specials with small profile rounded butts and 2-inch barrels. The Cobra itself was a revamp of the company’s earlier 1927-era Detective Special. In a time where every ounce of weight was sliced from huge bombers like the Convair B-36 “Peacemaker” to allow them to carry atomic weapons to the Soviet Union, the watch word was ‘lightweight.’Ĭolt answered this call for a small and effective, but super lightweight handgun, with a modified version of their then-new Cobra line of snub-nosed revolvers. In 1947, the US Air Force was carved off from the Army and the new brass realized the need for a modern space age handgun for the occasional aircrew emergency, survival situations, and nuclear weapon’s security breach. 38 revolvers of various manufacturers supported by the occasional M-1 carbine.
Throughout World War 2, US Army Air corps, personnel and glider pilots often carried full sized. This led to those daring young aviators to begin carrying handguns and in some cases rifles with them for those unexpected stops. In World War 1, pilots and aircrew often found themselves lost, crashed, or shot down in areas that were less than friendly. US Air Force Pilot with Aircrewman revolver.
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