This Week’s Hints to help you along:
- Lost out in the bid to be the leading CAS aircraft.
- A brilliant design, even with its Hersey Bar wing.
- Amazing visibility, slow speed, and tough construction.
- Simple, easy to maintain, cheap to build, cheap to operate.
So do you know what this aircraft is?
Post a REPLY below with your best guess!
Click here to check out the previous What’s That?
OV-10
North American Aviation Bronco Coin
Convair Model 48 Charger
This is the General Dynamics Convair Model 48 Charger. It lost the Close Air competition to the North American OV-10 Bronco
Convair Model 48 Charger
It Is the Convair Model 48 “Charger”
North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco from 1965. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Rockwell_OV-10_Bronco
OV-10 Bronco
North American OV-10 (derivative)
Looks like an OV-10 Bronco. Used in Vietnam for close air support. Replaced O-1 Bird Dogs and O-2 Skymasters. I think there was talk of brining back a modern version.
North American AV-10 Bronco
Convair Model 48 Charger. Lost out to the Rockwell OV-10.
I’d say this is very close to a machine in the COIN program, that is not connected to ‘bit-coin’, but ‘Contra Insurgencias’, ‘against uprisings’, North American ‘Bronco’, used in Viet-Nam war, but it could be a South-African recent remake of same concept, in smaller size.
When asked by an US diplomat, about sending some generals as help for a latin country in turmoil, the local politician said: ‘Yeah, send me General Motors and General Electric, please!’
Sorry, the South-African machine: ‘Ahrlac’, even having similar COIN purposes, is a single pusher propeller airplane,
Convair Model 48 Charger
OV-10
The correct answer is Convair Model 48 Charger — kudos to Vic White! Although the aircraft has a resemblance to the OV-10 Bronco, that is due to the design specification of the original bid, rather than any formal design relationship. The Charger lost out in the competition and the Bronco became the COIN aircraft supporting US Military operations.
It is the Convair Model 48 Charger. It is not a derivative of the Bronco OV-10 because the Convair was actually flying before the OV-10. The US Government went with the Bronco because of politics and in the wake of a crash that was due to pilot error. Strangely, the pilot that crashed subsequently went to work for North American on the Bronco program.