Bronco ready for duty

North American OV-10D Bronco N15453 (c/n 305-20) is ready for duty at Blue Air Training, Las Vegas (NV). It was officially registered to the OV-10 Squadron of Costa Mesa (CA) on 9 June 2021. Blue Air will operate the Bronco for their NATO Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) training.

N15453 has an interesting history: it was built for the USMC as OV-10A with BuNo 155409 in 1968 and later converted to OV-10D. It last served with VMO-2 as UU-11 and was sent to AMARC as AXPA0002 on 22 April 1993.

It left AMARC on 2 April 1996 and was later delivered to Policía Nacional de Colombia as PNC-243. The Bronco was later reregistered as PNC-3043 and withdrawn from use in 2008. From Columbia, the OV-10 went to the Valiant Air Command Museum, Titusville (FL) where it was registered as N15453.

Although this acquisition was meant to be a project of returning it back to flight status, this never happened. It sat in a hangar for more than eleven years without the in-house skill-sets necessary to restore the aircraft to airworthy condition. It was finally sold to OV-10 Squadron and restored to flight status.

Photo: Gareth Sebburn Info: Iwan Bögels