“The 1019 is appealing because it allows you to buy a turbine-powered airplane for the price of piston power,” he says. The aircraft shown here, N2525M, belongs to John Schwamm, a real estate developer from Alaska. SM.1019: Airframe manufacturer SIAI Marchetti created the SM.1019, a larger, more powerful version of the Bird Dog. Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, and the Bung-Ly family, sponsored by the crew of the Midway, lives not far away. Chambers, did not believe that the seven occupants of the Bird Dog could survive a ditching in the rough sea, so he ordered $10 million worth of Huey and Chinook helicopters scuttled overboard to allow Bung-Ly and his family a shot at landing on the rain-soaked, windswept flight deck. It pleaded for some helicopters to be moved so that there would be room for him to land. He circled the ship a few times and then flew low over the deck to drop a note written on a chart. After a long overwater flight and running low on fuel, Bung-Ly finally spotted USS Midway, its flight deck jam-packed with helicopters. They took off from Con Son Island, skirted enemy ground fire, and headed into the Gulf of Thailand with the hope of finding a rescue ship rumored to be somewhere out there. Bung-Ly, a South Vietnamese Air Force pilot who crammed his wife and five children into a Bird Dog on April 29, 1975, to escape the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam. One of the most fascinating involves Maj.

There are endless war stories involving the venerable Bird Dog.

These burst on impact and generated intense white clouds that were visible for miles. During the Vietnam conflict, enemy targets were marked by firing white-phosphorous smoke rockets at them. In 1962 and during America’s early involvement in Vietnam, the Department of Defense standardized aircraft designations, and the L–19 (L for liaison) suddenly became the O–1 (O for observation). Although the L–19’s slow speed made it vulnerable to ground fire, enemy soldiers often would not shoot at one for fear of revealing their position. When enemy ground troops spotted a Bird Dog flying low and overhead, it gave them good reason to believe that something bad might soon happen. Once found, such targets were identified and their locations radioed to those who would respond with an air assault, artillery, or ground troops. Suddenly, there was a greatly increased need for Cessna’s Model 305, which became better known as the L–19 Bird Dog-an apt name because of how well it enabled pilots and their rear-seat observers to search for and locate enemy ground positions. Two months later, on June 25, 1950, the North Korean Army crossed the Thirty-Eighth Parallel.

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