OV1 Mohawk and B57 Canberra
Two exiting recent additions to the Green Air Force are the Roden kit of the OV-1 Mohawk and the Classic Airframes kit of the B57B Caberra. Both of these Vietnam era aircraft are fitting well in my game. I must admit that the Mohawk has always fasinated me by its appearence and purpose. It would be great to get more information on this aircraft. I am not qualified to give a pro opinion in the kits themselves but builder comments would be welcome here along with any information on the planes themselves.
posted by Peter @ 7:31 AM
11 Comments:
My interest in building models comes from my history of design development with all the models I have built. The Mohawk was the first airplane I helped create at Grumman in 1956. I was a preliminary design engineer and helped put together the proposal to the Military ( it was a tri service request, Army, Navy, AF)for a new Observation aircraft designed for STOL operations , and originally had to be able lo land on water ski's! I am not kidding as stupid as seems now the army had this unrealistic idea the airplane would land in a lake, ski along and then run-up on shore!
Eventually, the AF and the Navy (marines really ) dropped out and Grumman won the proposal.
In the late 50's Grumman became very interested in VTOL aircraft.
We created numerous designs based on large deflecfted flaps,tilted jets and the tilt wing among many other concepts.
Grumman seriously tried to interest both the army and marines in a four engine tiltwing version of the Mohawk ,known as design 134.
The worst problem with with a tilt wing design VTOL aircraft is the severe downdraft caused by the high disk load small propellers.(prop disk pressure is at least 80PSF, where helicopters is around 5)To see just how bad this would be, we actually built a vertical test rig allowing a T53 engine to blow down on to a typical landing area.Although it was uncomfortable we felt it would be acceptable for combat operations.
Remember this was in January 1959, and it wasn't till a few years later when the DOD had a ompetition that resulted the Vought XC142A tilt wing aircraft.
Grumman lost out in that competition, perhaps lucky for us.I will get a try to get few images of the tilt wing Mohawk configuration.
Wow a guy who knows his stuff about the Mohawk. This is a great comment post please do more.
M. Friedlander, Colonel, Green Air Force
Thank you Donald for putting up this comment. It is fasinating information. I hope you post much more so that the war viewers can read it all. I am linking this blog with yours now.
I have just added an artist's rendering of the Mohawk Tilt Wing VTOL design to my blog, Airplane development stories.
As soon as I learn how to do it I will post the image here.
Amazing a tilt rotor Mohawk. This I have to see. Please continue this string Mr. Terrana your info is very interesting.
Peter I am glad you finaly got your much wanted B57s. The site looks great.
These posts about Grumman aircraft are fasinating. I went to that other site and looked at the tilt rotor Mohawk it was an amazing concept for its time.
For more information on the OV-1 Mohawk, see www.ov-1mohawk.org. I flew the OV-1 in Vietnam with the 1st Air Cavalry Division. I currently fly it with the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation (www.armyav.org). If you have any questions, I would be happy to try to answer them.
Thank you for your info about these informative web sites Cliff. I wish you were flying a Mohawk in my war also. Pet
It is time to update this blog Peter.
You Rock!
Bret Branon
Austin, Texas.
I kinda like rooting for the grey army.
Nice. I have not been in the cockpit of an Ov 1 Mohawk, since 1967, at Ft. Huachuca, Az. What an amazing aircraft for it's time. Manuverability, and the ability to fly 50 ft above treelines was unsurpassed. One Captain at the time, swore he could manuver in between the telephone poles along the old road southwest of the Huachuca mountains. pssst...never saw 'em do it.
Superior for information collecting via SLAR etc. , but also could be a nasty combat machine as in the OV 1A back then. Old memories, in the Mohawk, I had completed the training, but still ended up Infantry assigned to the 1/1 Armored Cavalry, then the 1/46th LIB, go figure....but, think about it, it was the Army.
Thank you for your post. The one thing that guys that trained on the Mohawk seem to have in common is very fond memories of the aircraft and its flight capabilities.
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