Cessna L-19 Bird Dog: Vietnam

[SPIT]

Hi
Try reading a book called A Lonely Kind of War. It is all about FACs in Vietnam and if you can still get it I think it may help you ??
All the Best
spit

[DaveReidUK]

A populated 19-tube FFAR launcher would weigh getting on for 500 lbs, so I'm tending to the view that they are posed, too, just for the photo.

[seafury45]

There appears to be a sign taped to the cowl under the prop. I think they were posing for photos, not setting up for any ops.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by seafury45

There appears to be a sign taped to the cowl under the prop. I think they were posing for photos, not setting up for any ops.

The last word (in red) is "Communism".

I think it's safe to assume that the previous (undecipherable) words probably aren't "Hurrah for".

[Rosevidney1]

Without doubt the photo portrays Ravens before an otherwise standard O-1.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Rosevidney1

Without doubt the photo portrays Ravens before an otherwise standard O-1.

Yes, I think we're all agreed that, aside from the kit they hung on it to make a good photo, it's an otherwise standard O-1.

[washoutt]

A heavy machine gun mounted on the nose would require reinforcements in the airframe and would put the centre of gravity out of limits. I'll go for a posing gun, not a smoking one.

[Stanwell]

Thank you, washoutt - we can all sleep tonight.
I'm more interested in what the dude most prominent in the pic is about to do.
Give a practical demonstration of chemical warfare techniques, perhaps?
.

[PDR1]

Originally Posted by washoutt

A heavy machine gun mounted on the nose would require reinforcements in the airframe and would put the centre of gravity out of limits.

...and either some form of interrupter/synchroniser system or a suicidal pilot...

PDR

[PDR1]

Originally Posted by Stanwell

I'm more interested in what the dude most prominent in the pic is about to do.
Give a practical demonstration of chemical warfare techniques, perhaps?

If you look under the fuselage directly beneath the pilot's seat all become clear - the photo was taken during a peer-to-peer training session on techniques for the then-new chemtrail missions.

Obviously this was before the development of today's synthetic trailing fluids.

PDR

[onetrack]

All the Bird Dogs I ever saw in SVN, I always thought were merely lightly armed, because they were specifically for observation and FAC.

This bloke (my photo below) used to patrol Route 2, through Phuoc Tuy Province, every morning on sunrise, trying to surprise VC and NVA mining the road.

Here he is, as I caught him one morning, right at our NDB (later FSB), which was set up right on a bend in Route 2, very close to the Long Khanh border.

There was a bend in Route 2 right at our NDP, and I reckoned his wingtip was only few metres from the road, as he banked for the bend, and whizzed past at - I don't know, maybe 60 or 70 kts?

It was a surprise technique doomed to failure - as the VC and NVA soon woke up, and they waited until 1600HRS one afternoon, to sprint out of the rubber plantation, and bury a 10lb satchel charge in the fresh roadbase - which promptly nailed one of our dump trucks that was dumping roadbase for widening.

The truck driver hit the satchel charge with the passenger side front wheel, and the blast destroyed the truck. The driver survived.

It must have been my lucky week, I rode in the passenger seat of that truck for 3 weeks, and I'd only stopped riding in it, a few days before it was mined.

Looking closely at my pic of the Bird Dog, I think I can see an M60 mounted under the port wing. I never saw or heard it used.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P05242.014

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P05242.015

[Jhieminga]

onetrack, I reckon that the hardware mounted beneath the port wing is just a rail or perhaps one or more marking rockets. Nice photo though, thanks for posting!

[megan]

Only ever saw the aircraft carrying rockets in Vietnam, certainly no guns, and not the big 19 shot pod in the photo above. Those pods were typically carried by helo gunships, though I see in the youtube video above there is a very brief glimpse of a bird with a 19 shot pod on the left wing.

Bird Dog Photo Gallery | Talking Proud

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Jhieminga

onetrack, I reckon that the hardware mounted beneath the port wing is just a rail or perhaps one or more marking rockets.

Could look like a machine-gun at a distance.

[megan]

The two shot rocket pod on each wing, as in your photo Dave, was the standard fit in my neck of the woods, and appears to be the fit in onetrack's pic.

[evansb]

onetrack FYI the aircraft in the photo is a Cessna 180, not an L-19.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by evansb

onetrack FYI the aircraft in the photo is a Cessna 180, not an L-19.

If we're going to be picky, it's almost certainly a U-17A (or B), which was the military variant of the Cessna 185 Skywagon.

AFAIK the Ravens didn't fly the U-17C, which was the variant based on the Cessna 180.

[edsbar]

I would not be too certain, not an L-19 / 0-1 as it has a square tail. it looks very much like an Australian Army Cessna 180D. Also could be a US Marines OE-2.

[megan]

Given the location it would be a Cessna 180 of the Australian Army 161 Recce Flight. Good eyes evansb. You can see the Aussie orange wing tip bands in the pic, as in onetrack's pic.

[DaveReidUK]

Not that we know it's not a Raven, I'll buy that too.

In fact if I'm not imagining it, you can also (just) detect the fin flash in Onetrack's photo.