North American OV-10 Bronco

[Joe Copalman]

BENT BRONCO

[Joe Copalman]

PAINTED PONY

[Scott Youmans]

Another nice Bronco shot Joe! Post processing is a good balance between subtlety and punchiness. Not sure if punchiness is a word but you know what I mean.

[Joe Copalman]

Another nice Bronco shot Joe! Post processing is a good balance between subtlety and punchiness. Not sure if punchiness is a word but you know what I mean.

Thanks Scott.  A bit of creative post-processing on this one.  Applied a purple-to-orange gradient layer to the background and blended at about 10% - really just to reinforce colors that were already there.  Didn't really do much to the aircraft aside from a few selective shadow/highlights edits. 

[Scott Youmans]

OV-10G - Coolidge, AZ  Edited with the help of some apps on my iPad.

[Joe Copalman]

Ha!  Looks like one of the shots you'd see in the black-and-white section of a Koku-Fan book.

[Scott Youmans]

That's funny. They must be using the same cheap apps!  Is Koku-Fan still around? They had great color shots when I used to see them years ago.

[Scott Youmans]

OV-10A Bronco BuNo 155427 serving with VMO-4 out of Atlanta, GA, now Calfire 460 (N415DF) based at Hollister. Photo taken at North Island in 1980.

[Joe Copalman]

PAINTED PONY


Always good to see OV-10s on display, but the markings on this recently-repainted example hidden in a remote corner of DM's petting zoo are pretty far off the mark. 

[Scott Youmans]

Almost looks like a mock-up.  That particular OV-10 has been there a long time.  There was one damaged in a storm at DM way back when.  I wonder if that's it.

[Scott Youmans]

VMO-2 OV-10Ds lined up on the flight line at Camp Pendleton August 11, 1980.

[Jeff D. Welker]

^^^^ An amazing photograph Scott.  A slice of military aviation history preserved and I love the echelon of twin tail booms in your composition.  Wonderful work sir.

[Scott Youmans]

Thank you Jeff. At the time that photo was taken I wasn't really going for anything artistic but was simply amazed at seeing so many relatively pristine OV-10s in one place. There were more to the left out of the frame. The "D" models were just coming online and were almost "new" having gone through the mod from A to D and a major Servive Life Extension Program (SLEP). Having spent a good portion of my childhood obsessing over the OV-10, going to Camp Pendleton and mingling with VMO-2's OV-10 was an absolute thrill.

[Scott Youmans]

OV-10D 155494 VMO-2 Camp Pendleton, CA September 1992. Scanned from Kodachrome transparency.

[Scott Youmans]

OV-10G 155481 at Marsh. Later became one of two Combat Dragon aircraft.