OV-1 Mohawk

[Radish]

Last night at IPMS Stafford, while a friend was talking about his impressive, almost finished Roden 1/48th OV-1A......builds like a dream apparantly, he bought it at SMW04 only about 3 weeks ago and is applying the finishing paintwork already...  he mentioned the evaluation of the type by the RAF and RN.

Amazing!!

I knew the israeli's had two and the Argentinians have had some for about 10 years, but anyone else??

Any details on the possible British evaluation??
Why?
Where?
When??

Intriguing, eh??
                 

[P1127]

Interesting - must dig out the Mason book on AAEE to check. They evaluated a lot of US aircarft without ever having them at Boscombe - cheaper to send two pilots to the states.

What role in the RAF/RN? I'd have assumed the Army would be a better bet.

[Martin H]

Army Air Corps Mohawk eh?

Now were did I put that Frog one in the loft?

[Marty]

I tried the Italieri kit of the Bronco, thumbs down bigtime FWIW. Made for some good spare parts though!!!!

Marty

[Captain Canada]

Mohawks are awesome looking birds.........never heard about the Brits trtying them out, tho.

I'd say the kit would make a good basis for a UK designed a/c. Did you guys ever do anything for that role after the old Austers ? Other than rotary winged birds, that is.

[elmayerle]

The Mohawk has all sorts of potential, especially considering that it was capable of light attack using six hardpoints.  Hmm, perhaps the current configuration for scouting and a tandem-seat attack version for support?

[Geoff_B]

Used for Battlefield recon and COIN ops, so i suppose they considered them for the Army, possibly in the role the Beavers carried out over Northern Ireland and what our ASTOR aircraft will be called on to do.

In IAPR Vol 7 the article on the Mohawk has the Germans & French trialling the aircraft. later in its life it was offered to Thailand, Phillipines & Australia. No mention on the UK however   .  Might be interesting in Oz Army colours rad ?.

Cheers

Geoff B B)  

[Radish]

Israel had a couple in Tan all over the top with light blue undersurfaces.

But RN in Dark Grey with white undersides?? Cool, eh??

ARMY?/ Two-tone grren/black??

Intersting, eh??

Might wait for the O-1D later though.
But yes, Aussie or RNZAF colours might be nice.

 

[P1127]

It's not mentioned in the AAEE book, so must have been either service pilots or a paper evaluation (Like the Vigilante)

How about 60s Army cammo (Dark Earth/Dark Green) with 'c' type roundels!

[Aircav]

Hi Geoff
The Austers and Beavers the AAC had in Aden where in the normal Green and dark earth camo with dayglo panels so they could be spotted when they crashed.
Steve

[Radish]

A nice idea for a British Army Mohawk would be a Gulf War Pink one?
The USAF used Mohawks in the first Gulf War.
Just think of the nose art.
Quite fancy a Navy one as well.
Probably Hasegawa, but the Roden 1/48th one DID look impressive.
 

[Mike Wren]

desert pink & sand camo would look good, heavilly weathered of course  

if only Roden would scale their kit down to 72nd though...    

[Radish]

I think the 1/72nd Hasegawa kit is still available.
The second hand dealers are surely able to come up trumps anyway.

The Army had some nice "stripy" Land-Rovers in the pink/sand camo scheme and transferred to the Mohawk with white fuselage bands....cool!!
               

[TsrJoe]

hiya Rad...any chance of any more details re the UK. Mohawk proposal, poss dates for brochure eval? etc. its def one iv not came across as yet, but agree would make for a sweet model!

cheers, joe

[Jschmus]

I haven't found any images of the Israeli units, but there are several online of the Argentines.

Argie OV-1

The paint scheme appears to be a modification of that used by the US Army towards the end of their career.  The two examples at CAM are painted in this scheme, although we recently got permission to add patriotic stripes on the flaps and engine cowlings.

According to various sources, the IDF operated two OV-1s under the designation "Atalef" (meaning "Bat").  They were used for border surveillance and support of spec ops missions.  One of them crashed, and the other was returned to the US during the 80s.  It now resides with the American Wings Museum.