 The Grumman OV-1C/D AE-021In conjunction with a re-equipment program of the Argentine Army Aviation, as a result of the lessons left by the war over the Malvinas Islands, the Mohawk SDARM (Weapons System) was gradually withdrawn from the US ARMY, giving the possibility of acquiring a batch of 23 aircraft of the OV-1C and D type to this country in order to supply this weapon.Thus, in 1992, the affected cells in the United States began to be selected, for which purpose a group of troops was commissioned with the then Major Horacio Sabin Paz in charge. Of these aircraft, the first to arrive in the country would be those registered AE-020 and AE-021, the first of which had (and has) dual command.  The aircraft that concerns us today is the one that carried Bu/No 68-15932, which saw the light for the first time when it left the Grumman factory in January 1969, its original standard being that of OV-1C, converted to the D model in December 1974, carrying the Motorola AN/APS 94 SLAR radar, which was removed before its delivery to our army. After a brief stint at NASA in 1983, he was sent to the 224Th MI BN, where he remained stored for a long period, his last Criew Chief in the US being Lt (Lieutenant) Mathewson.  He was permanently discharged in the United States in April 1993, despite which his administrative discharge was some time earlier, since his shipment by ferry flight to our country ended in December 1992, with a North American crew.  It enters in service in the "Escuadrón de Aviación Exploración y Reconocimiento 601" in December 1992, a unit in which he remained during his brief career in our country, being the first OV-1 with simple command to arrive in the country (the AE- 020 had it originally).  In 1999 he was transferred to reserve status in the "Batallón de Abastecimiento y Mantenimiento de Aeronaves 601", and his discharge was decided that same year. Finally, it was destined as a monument, for which it was thoroughly cannibalized, preserving the engines and propellers, remaining since August 1999 in the "Historical Museum of the Argentine Army", located in the town of Ciudadela in fair condition. (Carlos Pellegrini and Father Elizalde Ciudadela)  The AE-021 in NASA The OV-1D Mohawk number 67-15932 was used in 1983 as a test bed for tests carried out jointly between NASA and the US Army within the framework of the USAAEFA program in order to develop and evaluate a new loss warning system. , and dangerous excess or decrease in speed. The system designed by NASA presented both the indicated speed and the stall speed in the same integrated instrument, it also incorporated a voice synthesizer that produced a verbal alert that indicated possible risk situations. Visual information of an imminent stall was presented to the pilot as a cursor or pointer located on the conventional speedometer. The indicated speed and the stall speed were computed in real time, taking various parameters of the airplane's aerodynamics. When the system was ready, it was installed on the Mohawk and tested for less than 20 flight hours, enough time to calibrate the system and determine the aircraft's loss coefficients. Then these data obtained during the tests were uploaded into the system software and another 10 hours of flight were carried out where the device was satisfactorily evaluated. All flights were carried out by US Army pilots, not from the Dryden base where NASA normally conducts its tests but from a US Army base.  Hangar Digital |
