Reply With Quotevery interesting. I love the bronco!
OV-10 Bronco-commercial catalog (issue 1964)
Rare issue commercial of North American Aviation.....(my own archive)
very interesting. I love the bronco!
Awesome aircraft. Always loved it. Didn't one version have a chin turret for a cannon (or did it just have one on the belly) or is that just my imagination?
continue......
In the 80's in Oceana Virginia... a pair of Marine ov-10's landed for refuel. Since we had nothing better to do we wandered over to see them. The pilot was telling us that in Vietnam, there was a need to insert small teams of marines 2-3 for recon. And the best way to mask thier insertion point was to not drop them off by helo, but to put them in the cargo bay of the ov-10.
They would make a low altitude parachute jump in the middle of the night.
???
He seemed to think that was pretty daring...
So did I.
hmm...never knew there WAS a turrent mounted in the underside of some variants. Btw- read Bruce H. Norton's Force Recon Diary 1969 & 70 books, talks about being inserted via cargo bay jump from the broncos.
I've seen video of this done, saw a pretty modern video of it. The tail cone is removed and the 3-man recon team sits in back, basically a static line jump. The Bronco flies close to the deck and fast, when it approaches the LZ it pulls up hard and gravity does the rest, the Marines fall out the back and the chutes open. Pretty kick ass seeing it in action. I would say the video I saw was filmed in the early to mid 90's when it was withdrawn from service.Originally Posted by toad
They used to do that at the El Toro Airshow in the early 90's. It is pretty awesome to see.
I believe it was never put into service, just tested.
Great pics!
The Philippines are still using them!
It was the OV-10D NOGS (Night Observation Gunship) see photos below. Only 2 were delivered to the USMC as most pilots preferred the similar NOS version (Night Observation Surveillance) which didn't have the gun turret but had a laser designator.
It was the OV-10D NOGS (Night Observation Gunship) see photos below. Only 2 were delivered to the USMC as most pilots preferred the similar NOS version (Night Observation Surveillance) which didn't have the gun turret but had a laser designator.
Cool, thanks for the info and pics.
YOV-10D NOGs/NOS The Men, The Machine, The Mission
Actually there were three YOV-10 NOGs airframes, 155395, 155396,
and 155360 (if memory serves me correctly on the latter BuNo). All
three were "mules" used to build out each revision to the NA-300 at
Columbus, Ohio. Note exotic configurations of 155395 below as it is
used with everything from 2.75" Zuni forward and aft firing pods all
the way up to intergrated weaponry of Hellfire and AIM-9 missles.
Of these three, 155395 and 155396 were config'd with GE (now GD) M-197
3 barrel 20mm Gatling Guns mounted on the ventral centerline. All three had
Texas Inst. FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Radar) mounted beneath an
extended nose, just ahead of the gear door.
FLIR automatically acquired hot spots as it rotated L & R. JAFO;^)WO
would manually acquire target with rastering M-197 using a single eye
ocular.
This was not auto-coupled because there was no laser target designator
built in the initial FLIR. Remember this was only a proof of concept on NAA's
dwindeling DoD contengency funds. T.I. was vested in the project and it
mounted the FLIR unit at their Ft. Worth location.
155360 was lost to a mountain side at China Lake before 155395 & 155396
went to Nam in '71 for six month "Night Rider" proof of concept tour. NAA
& DoD wanted to see how "Night Rider" performed over a dense canopy. It
exceeded everyone's expectation.
Washington was now in the Nam extraction mode, "Night Rider" funds were
diverted to protect USN's long term "management" programs.
Above is the original YOV-10D NOGs training team and 1st class "after" 155395
returned from Nam and the appended A6E FLIR with raster and laser target
acquisition were added to what would now became the YOV-10D & D+ after SLEP
(service life extension program) enabled onboard intelligent interfacing of
WO and Pilot with weapons. This config was now to be known as NOS w/o M-197.
Previously, the stand-alone weapon intelligence was delivered ala cart' in
taxi fashion with pilot and WO delivering weapon intelligence as close to
an intended target as humanly possible without being downed.
The OV-10 was chosen because there was no other low & slow airframe
capable of accomplishing this mission...287 mph except in dive... ;^)
Images provided courtesy of http://www.ScaleAero.com as an educational
resource.
I'm currently building an rc 1/6th replica of 155395 for FAI F4C. Thought I
would post the history of the NOGs (Night Observation Gun Ship) program
which eventually led to the NOS (Night Observation Ship) the last version
of the OV-10 before the aircraft was removed from US military service in
1996 after falling victim as an easy target for SAM's in Kuwait.
I sell my OV-10 NOGS/NOS documentation on CD to offset the expense of
my FAI project. If interested contact me back channel with a PM by clicking
my handle at left.
Last edited by scaleaero; 01-01-2006 at 05:42 PM. Reason: Titling Post Correctly
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