AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 182 / 267

Plate 182 of 267 · Early jet age · Liaison and observation

Cessna L-19A Bird Dog

L-19A Bird Dog, 51-11989, painted as 51-11989, a Cessna L-19A Bird Dog of the US Army, Cessna construction number 22303, on loan to the Army Flying Museum, Middle Wallop, since 1982: the two-seat liaison and artillery-spotting aircraft Cessna built for the US Army from 1950, a tandem-seat, strut-braced high-wing monoplane with a 213 hp Continental O-470 flat-six driving a two-bladed propeller, a deep glazed cabin with windows in the roof so the observer can look up and behind, large slotted flaps, spring-steel main legs and a tailwheel, shown standing tail-down on its wheels as displayed, with both upper cowling panels open over the engine and the starboard upper door window hinged up under the wing: olive drab overall, the star-and-bar with a red bar and white ‘ARMY’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, ‘U.S.ARMY’ over ‘111989’ across the fin and rudder, a star under the starboard wing and ‘U.S. ARMY’ under the port wing, and a black propeller with yellow tips (shape from I. Mikhelevich’s L-19/O-1 three-view, cross-checked against a second drawing and the published span, length and wing area; paint and markings following photographs of 51-11989 at Middle Wallop; the upper wings are left plain, as a photograph looking down on them shows); it stands for the Cessna, Piper and other American light aircraft in the gazetteer’s museums, from the Cessna 150 to the Piper Comanche.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as 51-11989, a Cessna L-19A Bird Dog of the US Army, Cessna construction number 22303, on loan to the Army Flying Museum, Middle Wallop, since 1982: the two-seat liaison and artillery-spotting aircraft Cessna built for the US Army from 1950, a tandem-seat, strut-braced high-wing monoplane with a 213 hp Continental O-470 flat-six driving a two-bladed propeller, a deep glazed cabin with windows in the roof so the observer can look up and behind, large slotted flaps, spring-steel main legs and a tailwheel, shown standing tail-down on its wheels as displayed, with both upper cowling panels open over the engine and the starboard upper door window hinged up under the wing: olive drab overall, the star-and-bar with a red bar and white ‘ARMY’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, ‘U.S.ARMY’ over ‘111989’ across the fin and rudder, a star under the starboard wing and ‘U.S. ARMY’ under the port wing, and a black propeller with yellow tips (shape from I. Mikhelevich’s L-19/O-1 three-view, cross-checked against a second drawing and the published span, length and wing area; paint and markings following photographs of 51-11989 at Middle Wallop; the upper wings are left plain, as a photograph looking down on them shows); it stands for the Cessna, Piper and other American light aircraft in the gazetteer’s museums, from the Cessna 150 to the Piper Comanche. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.1 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Cessna 140, 150, 172, 310, 401 & L-19 Bird Dog; Piper Apache & Comanche; Grumman AA-1/AA-5; Mooney M.20); engine, crew and dimensions are for the L-19A Bird Dog, 51-11989 modelled here.

History

The Bird Dog

In 1950 the US Army asked for a new two-seat liaison and observation aircraft to replace the wartime Piper L-4 Cub and Stinson L-5: something light enough to fly from a field beside the guns, yet strong enough to carry an artillery observer, a radio and a load of equipment. Cessna built its Model 305 in a few months from the parts of its civil aircraft, with a wing based on the Cessna 170’s, a tail based on the 195’s and a new, narrow fuselage that seated the pilot and observer in tandem under a heavily glazed cabin, with windows in the roof and the sides so they could look up, down and behind. It first flew on 14 December 1949, beat the opposition, and on 29 May 1950 the Army ordered 418 as the L-19A. A competition among soldiers named it the Bird Dog.

The L-19A reached Korea in 1951, where it spotted for the artillery, carried messages and wounded men, and directed air strikes. Its big slotted flaps and 213 hp Continental engine let it take off and land in very short distances, and its spring-steel main legs took the shock of rough strips. Cessna went on to build trainer, instrument-flying and improved observation versions, and about fifty more were built under licence in Japan. In all more than 3,400 were made by 1959, making the Bird Dog the most numerous aircraft of its kind built after the Second World War. In 1962 the L-19 was renamed the O-1.

In Vietnam the Bird Dog found its most dangerous work. US Air Force, Army and Marine Corps forward air controllers flew O-1s low and slow over the jungle to find the enemy, marked targets with white phosphorus rockets, and called in fighter-bombers, often under fire from the ground; many were shot down. The faster Cessna O-2 and the twin-turboprop OV-10 Bronco gradually took over the job, and the US Army retired its last Bird Dogs in the mid-1970s. They served with more than twenty other air arms, some into the 1990s, and many now fly with private owners in the colours they wore in Korea and Vietnam.

This airframe

L-19A Bird Dog 51-11989

51-11989The airframe modelled

Bird Dog 51-11989, Cessna construction number 22303, was delivered to the US Army as an L-19A, later redesignated O-1A. It served with the Army Transportation School at Fort Eustis, Virginia, from 1962 to 1972, then passed to a flying club in Anniston, Alabama, and was registered N33600 before joining the US Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker. In July 1982 it came on loan to the Museum of Army Flying, now the Army Flying Museum, at Middle Wallop in Hampshire, where it stands among the aircraft of the British Army’s own air arm. The model shows it as displayed there, standing tail-down on its wheels with both upper cowling panels open over the engine and the starboard upper door window hinged up under the wing: olive drab overall, the star-and-bar with a red bar and white ‘ARMY’ on both sides of the rear fuselage, ‘U.S.ARMY’ over ‘111989’ across the fin and rudder, a star under the starboard wing and ‘U.S. ARMY’ under the port wing, and a black propeller with yellow tips. A photograph looking down on the aircraft shows no markings on the upper wings, so none are painted there. The shape follows I. Mikhelevich’s L-19/O-1 three-view, checked against a second drawing and the published span, length and wing area. The model stands for the whole family of American light aircraft in the gazetteer’s museums, from the Cessna 150 and 310 to the Piper Comanche, the Grumman American Tiger and the Mooney M.20.

See it at Army Flying Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Bird Dog in 10 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 267 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.