OV-1 Mohawk photos

CWO4 Dave Mann wrote:
richec wrote:
David Hartung wrote:

richec wrote:
David Hartung wrote:

Allen wrote:
Jim wrote:
Anyone have more of this airplane ?
Here's an OV-1 ready to start
Is the OV1 still in use?
Ahhh nope.
That's what I thought.
This is just a guess, I think they were retired when the Air Force forced
the Army out of the fixed-wing business sometime during the Nam war.
Couldn't begin to fix a year w/o doing some research.


I am somewhat familiar with the OV1 family of aeroplanes. We phased her
out mainly because of emerging new technology and cost of operation.
The OV1 was a great platform for Side Looking Radar, for SIGINT, for
IMINT and for some other lesser known stuff. It was a high performance
aircraft, of which the US Army had only one, the OV1. The USAF ate
their hearts out over the OV1 and the whole development program but the
National Security Agency was behind the project all the way. NSA needed
a high performace platform with flexible mission packages (well, sort of
flexible; they got less and less later in development). Previously, NSA
had been stuck with the Army flying the PV2 Neptune, a couple of B25's
(yes, B25's -- older than the warrant officer pilots), two C123
Providers outfitted with special stuff, and a number of civilian
aircraft. The civilian stuff converted to military included the U6, U8,
U21 and U21x. The covert side of the house used civilianized and
sheep-dipped Beech Queens.

If you Google names such as LAFFING EAGLE, QUICK LOOK, LEFT JAB, LEFT
FOOT, CEFIRM LEADER, CEFLY LION, you'll see what I am talking about.

The YELLOW FRUIT scandal and courts marshals in 1987 came about because
the OV1 and similir "military mission" aircraft were not available, nay,
not desirable, for the covert missions in Central America.
Unfortunately, a couple of unscrupulous military members became involved
in "Black Ops" which they used as their own person fiefdom. The
government lost some one hundred million bucks, give or take a few
million. Leasing Learjets, and so forth, flying mistresses to Paris,
you know, the usual **** that happens when Military Intelligence
officers are let loose of their leashes and given a blank check.

The USAF was successful in taking away the C123 system and they all went
to the Air Force where they were quickly relegated to hauling tank loads
of Agent Orange around.

The OV1 was a demanding aircraft and there are a lot of pilots and
observers who died when the pilot somehow flew the airplane slightly
outside the envelope. The ejection seats were slow to work and were not
equipped with either zero-altitude or with sky detection and maneuvering
(meaning that the seat would detect if it was ejected towards the earth
and use small rocket charges to right itself. There are several OV1
accidents where the crew were killed when they ejected into the ground
after the aircraft rolled within a second or two after the pilot moved
his hands to the ejection ring.

Also, the high performance capability also killed some pilots who failed
to remember that there are no old careless aviators. Stunts like flying
your OV1 at ground level and doing a barrel while over your parent's
home in Sierra Vista and then completing the roll recovery some 25 feet
under ground was only one such example.

Finally, the OV1 had a number of combat related crashes where the VC --
hearing the distinctive sound of the OV1 coming in a 100% throttle SLAR
or thermal sensor run opened up with every AK47 in the neighborhood.

Finally, the technology just became too old. Most OV1 systems were of
1950 and early 1960's development stage. The SIGINT package the OV1D
carried over grossed it. That same capability today fits into a box the
size of a briefcase.

Today, we have the CASA 212 and other CASA aircraft. Great platforms
... you can actually stand up to pee at the back of the equipment racks!
We lost one over CENTAM a few years back. I'll always believe that it
was shot down by narco-trafficantes and since the crew flew shirtsleeves
with no parachutes .. well, they didn't have a chance.

Okey Dokey .. go to the OV1 association web site. It'll tell you all
kinds of stuff. Argentina still flies them, by the way; or maybe its
Venezuela. Someplace down south..

The only thing I know about them is that when I was at Luke in 67-77, we
used to occasionally have OV1s come in TDY.