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a dive was a blistering 385 knots; in the models equipped with dive brakes, the Mohawk could stabilize at Vne and evade hostile action by heading for the deck.Davis’ runway in Vietnam was 3,500 feet long. However, Wayne Klotz, a technical operator based at Phu Heip AAF on the coast at Tuy Hoa, said his unit often operated out of a 2,000 x 80-foot strip, where takeoffs were quite marginal. For proficiency, Klotz’s pilots would perform five continuous barrel rolls and attempt to recover at the entry altitude. Such maneuvering was only done if the Mohawk was dry of photo-developing chemicals; radar and IR pictures were recorded on a filmstrip and the film was automatically developed in-flight on the recon missions, ready for study as soon as the plane landed.Max Corrineau flew Mohawks in the 1980s, initially in Germany during the cold-war era, involving99% SLAR missions. He then flew the aircraft in Desert Storm, the 1991 Gulf War that drove Saddim Hussein’s forces from Kuwait back to Baghdad along the “highway of death.” Afterward, he flew out of Camp Humphreys in Korea, monitoring movements along the DMZ. In Corrineau’s experience, the Army’s Mohawk units coordinated very well with Joint Air Operations, integrating their intelligence with the AWACS aircraft overhead. LTC Corrineau retired in 2009 after 24 years of service.Captain Brenda Curkendall and her husband both flew OV-1Ds in the 1970’s at Fort Hood, Texas, where they were attached to the Army’s military intelligence units. Her aircraft was equipped with dive brakes, and the escape and evasion technique they were taught was to go on the deck at 200 knots, because the sound of the aircraft was behind it, evading small-arms fire. In her experience, the SLARinformation was downloaded to the ground via datalink, as real- time actionable intelligence. The –D model was reconfigurable, so the ground crew could swap out components in short order. For night photography, a massive photoflash pod could be attached to light up the area, far superior to the flares used in Vietnam. For IP checks, some of the Mohawks had dual controls, but Curkendall enjoyed the single-pilot aspects of flying the little “Grumman Iron Works” airplane. Later in her career, she flew U-21 intelligence-gathering King Airs in Korea.All of the vets we spoke with loved the OV-1, stressing its ability to deliver information gleaned up to 100 kilometers away from its flight path. It could change speed, altitude and attitude simultaneously to get out of harm’s way, capability that Dr. Masessa employs to great advantage in his low-level airshow demonstrations. T&T-•B/E Aerospace, Inc. Half Page4/C AdFEBRUARY 2016TWIN & TURBINE • 13


































































































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