Glass cockpit for O-2A picture

[Roger]

The panel looks awesome. I have been thinking about doing something like that to mine, although it has really up to date steam gauges, HSI, 530, etc so it is a bit hard to justify. Keep us informed on how she operates.

Meanwhile I see your Avatar and wonder if you are familiar with :

http://www.janchurchill.com/hit_my_smoke.htm

This and other books were written by this great lady: Jan Churchill, who I met because she put her beloved O-2 (337H) up for sale as she was no longer flying it. She bought it new from Cessna and had it painted in military livery to tour the US airshows, which she did for 25 years and 1500 hours TTL. I snapped it up immediately 5 years ago for the asking price, and it is what I now fly.

There is a long history with my/her plane full of famous people who flew in it. For example there is a little plaque on the panel that says "flown by Gabby Gibresky". But Jan told me that while she would let people like Gabby fly it "in flight" she never let anyone but herself take off and land.

So essentially I have the only o2/337 on the planet that was only flown by a little old lady on the weekends And to this date I am the only other person to ever fly it.

[ConwayB]

G'day Roger,

Thanks for your reply. I'll let you know how she goes. I flew it for a few hours in OKC when Don Nieser and I did some test flying on it. She seemed to go well, although a little slower than I expected.

The G500 worked well and so did the STEC autopilot. It flew a GPS RNAV approach nicely without any pilot input, except for the power change to start the descent.

Is your machine an actual O-2 or a C337 that's painted up as an O-2?

It's interesting that you should speak about that book after seeing my avatar. I created that design as part of the marketing for the aircraft (eg at airshows, stickers, t-shirts, caps, etc) and AussieO2, a member of this forum, provided me with some history on my aircraft beyond that which Don had. It turns out my machine was flown by the 21st TASS whos motto was... Wait for it... "HIT MY SMOKE!" Amazing coincidence, huh? I was under the impression that the aircraft remained 'Stateside' during the VN war only to find out that the 21st TASS had it on their charge.


Cheers
Conway
www.ipas.com.au

[AussieO2]

Hi Conway and all, I checked out your O-2A at high noon today. Looking good, (the boys are working on it, so did not interrupt them). Congrats!