Different Bird Dog

[AussieMan]

Yesterday I had to travel to Orange airport for my annual ARO refresher in readiness for the upcoming summer fire season here in Australia. One of the aircraft being used in the AAS side of the course was this Bird Dog. I thought nothing unusual until it taxied over to the fuel truck. Then I looked at the exhaust outlet and got the shock of my life. Never seen one before.



http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d92/aussieman12/Orange%20refresher%2019-8-12/TurboBirdDog.jpg



Yep it had a turbo prop engine.

[lanf77]

SIAI-Marchetti SM1019
Italian STOL plane for the Italian Army, 100 built.
Developed from the Cessna O-1, it has a different, bigger tail to cope with the torque and a Aliison 250 turboprop engine, 420hp on the first prototypes, derated to 317hp for the Italian Army and 4 wing tanks instead of 2 plus some other minor stuff, the military in Viterbo used to call it "the Phoenix" because they wanted it as fast as possible but deliveries where slow.
Impressive performaces, could take off from the taxiway in Vergiate, or take off, make a loop and then go away.
Went to Mozambique with the italian peacekeeping task force in the '90s.
Could go on telling stories about the 1019 for hours, my dad was working for SIAI int the flight test division as flight test engineer and was one of the people responsible for the project.
PLEASE make one for FSX, I can provide all the designers need.

[snow_white]

Whao, now that is really nice..!

Thanks for sharing..

Would love to have this in FSX

[jungle_balloo]

Hello AussiMan,

On Flightsim : sm1019FSX.zip Massimo Taccoli

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