OV-1 Mohawk cockpit and J5B seat

[ozjag]

Hello everyone, I have a long term restoration project of a Grumman Mohawk cockpit underway, part of this is a refurbishment of a J5B ejection seat. I live in Australia so understandably parts are very hard for me to source, I'm posting this up in the hope that someone will have parts I need, know someone who has parts or can suggest places I can search for them. I've read the other Mohawk ejection seat thread and intend to follow up some leads from that.

 

My cockpit is from OV-1C 60-3757 which served with the 244th Aviation Company in Vietnam and is in very poor condition, my seat on the other hand is quite decent and with the addition of a few more bits will look super. Parts I am looking for are; drogue chute, drogue link line, drogue withdrawal line, main parachute soft pack, main chute straps/harness, RSSK, seat pad and leg garters. As to the cockpit I'm mainly looking for engine instruments.

 

Regards Paul

 

 

[MWalsh]

Great project Paul!

 

As to the parts you are seeking, with a little net searching I bet you can come up with a contact person for the now defunct (at least in terms of having a traditional museum building) American Wings Air Museum in Blaine, Minnesota at the Anoka County Airport. If nothing else contact the airport administration, they will know.

 

Check out the thread below and you will get a flavor for how interested in the OV1 Mohawk they were.

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/114949-anoka-county-minnesota-airport/?hl=anoka

 

MW

[ozjag]

G'day MWalsh

Thanks for the link to the other thread which I hadn't seen before. They certainly have a lot of Mohawks, I'll have to chase down a contact and see if they can help in any way.

Cheers Paul

[phantomfixer]

I like your seat and the cockpit...should be a good project......very cool to have a Mohawk cockpit...very cool

[mohawkALSE]

I just noticed this post today, have a lot of catching up to do here on the forum. Ive collected a bunch of OV-1 related stuff over the years, mainly more of the later era of Mohawk stuff but time to time pick up pieces of the earlier Nam era stuff. The seat you have is a MK-J5B seat with the later easier to grip secondary lower firing handle. The earlier style was a small metal oval shaped handle that I was told was much harder to grasp in the event of punching out.

 

This J5B seat does not use a RSSK type kit, those were only used on the modernized J5D seats that came out around 1974. This B model seat uses a orange colored seat pad with a soft type survival kit bag that looks just like a Navy Pararaft kit outer bag. The OV-1 version differs slightly with 1 more mounting strap for the rear of the seat pad. Overwater kits used the same style inner bag as a Navy PK2 Pararaft kit, the Hot Climate and Cold Climate kits had a OD green kit bag with a single shoulder strap. The seat pad and soft survival kit case also mounts to the seat pan lap belt halves that have the sticker clips that attach to the seat bucket. The lap belt also has a survival kit retention strap that clips to the parachute harness survival kit retention straps. I can post some pics of the stuff I mentioned. I have a bunch of the parts as well as the early type harnesses but unfortunatly they are back at my families home in storage. I do have some pics from the seat manuals and of the proper harness that I will get up soon. A seller on ebay has both the J5A and B maintenance manual and the parachute packing and maintenance manual for the J5B seat.

[ozjag]

Hi MohawkALSE

It's never too late to reply to a thread, I've only just looked at this forum today for the first time in about 3 months myself. I would like to see your photos and if you ever manage to get stuff out of storage I'd be interested in purchasing some of it. I have already obtained the manuals and found them very informative.

I'm heading to the US early next year so if anyone can suggest any surplus or recovery businesses where I might be able to find Mohawk cockpit parts that would be appreciated.

Cheers Paul

[mohawkALSE]

Sending PM.