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OV-1 Mohawk Rigid Seat Survival Kit


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After many years of searching for bits and pieces of equipment, my Rigid Seat Survival Kit (RSSK) for the OV-1 Mohawk aircraft is near complete. The RSSK is a component of the Martin Baker Mk-J5D ejection seat that was used in the OV-1 Mohawk from around 1974 til its retirement from the Army n 1996. The RSSK supplemented the OV-1 aircrew survival vest which was another unique piece of life support.

 

The OV-1 RSSK came in 3 formats: Hot Climate, Cold Climate and Overwater. The kit I have is the Hot Climate kit. Currently the only pieces that are missing but soon to be filled are the survival fishing tackle kit, GP Knife Sharpener and a bottle of Presun SPF-15 sunscreen. Not shown due to being in storage 600 miles away are the thigh pads which also house the Personnel Lowering Device. These thigh pads would zip and snap to the cushioned seat pad attached to the RSSK lid. Once those are sent to me I will post an updated pic of them attached. Now for the pics:

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The kit open showing the dropline which is to be laced into the 2 black "boots" The middle of the dropline has 2 loops, 1 small, 1 large. Those would be used for the 1 man life raft and its CO2 inflation bottle which are part of the Overwater kit.

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Equipment bag open showing its layering. At the top is the packing list and -10 operators manual.

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Very interesting thanks for sharing. is the paulin a Size77 ?

 

Size 2, 84" x 132". That is actually the same tarpaulin as the size 77 I believe. The 77 is from the Vietnam era with a FSN and the Size 2 is from the post nam era with an NSN. Both end in 3012, with the same stock # but the NSN has the 00 code after the first 4 digits. I have both, a 1967 contract Sz 77 and the Sz 2 is a 1991 contract.

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It seems most of these kits contained the Size77/Size 2. The Size77 and I suppose the Size 2 can trace its linage to 1942 when the AAF introduced the Size77.

Cool stuff!

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I didn't even realize those tarps went back farther than the Vietnam era. What sort of kit did they carry them in back during WW2?

 

Here are a few more pics now that I had my PLD/thigh pads sent to me:

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Inside view of the LH thigh pad showing the lowering line:

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The small strap that snaps to the seat cushion is a pull tab to remove the snap hook and brake device from its pocket inside the thigh pad. The rest of the LH and RH pads have the tubular nylon webbing, I believe 120' total.

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Interesting set up!

The Size77 was initially adopted for multi-person life rafts but then made its way as a component to E series sustenance kits like the E-10, E-11, E-12 to name a few.

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Thats interesting that they originally put it with an overwater/raft kit. They certainly dropped that idea, especially with later kits such as this OV-1 RSSK kit and other Army aircraft kits. Only the Hot Climate kits had the paulin, the Cold Climate and Overwater kit lacked it. I saw your ERE room topic, looks like we both have survival equipment as our interest. Hopefully one day I can have my own dedicated room like that to display all my equipment. You certainly have a lot of interesting items of that era.

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  • 8 years later...

So, I came across this discussion topic while trying to do some research on a inner seat kit survival container that was in my collection from many years ago (and has been in storage for the past 16+ years due to no space to display it until now).   I always suspected it was from a OV-1 aircraft until now, but could not figure out how it was attached to the rigid seat kit container.   See photos- it is marked OW 33, which I assume was for a Overwater kit, but it has the frying pan insert- is this standard practice, or does the OW 33 mean something else in it's entirety?    Thanks for posting your photos, it finally answered my question with regards to how this inner container was attached to the fiberglass case, with no sewn on straps on the outside.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Flynndoman said:

So, I came across this discussion topic while trying to do some research on a inner seat kit survival container that was in my collection from many years ago (and has been in storage for the past 16+ years due to no space to display it until now).   I always suspected it was from a OV-1 aircraft until now, but could not figure out how it was attached to the rigid seat kit container.   See photos- it is marked OW 33, which I assume was for a Overwater kit, but it has the frying pan insert- is this standard practice, or does the OW 33 mean something else in it's entirety?    Thanks for posting your photos, it finally answered my question with regards to how this inner container was attached to the fiberglass case, with no sewn on straps on the outside.

 

 

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You actually have the harder part of the OV-1 RSSK kits to find, the inner survival contents case and the frying pan.  If that is the correct pan for it which i can pretty much tell from the primer color it is, it should have a sloped front to match that of the RSSK fiberglass container (bottom of RSSK)  That bag is only held into the container via 2 cross straps that cinch down and then that strap with the snap on the side of the contents bag snaps over the white dropline inside the container that goes between the container and lid.  When packed as a Cold Climate or Over Water kit, the raft of the cold Wx sleeping bag just sits on top of that bag under those cross straps in the container. You will notice that bag is kinda cupped on the topside for that.

 

Seeing how it was labeled, you probably are correct in the assumption it had been an Over Water kit.  The actual lid on the RSSK kits were also usually labeled with a label maker having an idea like that as well as the type of kit and then a plastic sleeve that held the DD Form 1574 yellow tag.

 

These are some of the extra OV-1 RSSK pans I have, can see the special shape of them.  Only the Mohawk kits from both the earlier seat of the Vietnam era that used a soft pack kit and the later seats that used the RSSK has special shaped frying pans to fit the ejection seat pans.  The Vietnam era pan is even harder to find and I have yet to get my hands on one.   This is also a pic of 1 of my 2 OV-1 RSSK kits.  Can see how the bag sits inside, the drop line and the majority of it laced in the vinyl boots and then what it looks like closed up.

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Also forgot to note, yes the pan is standard on the Hot Climate, Cold Climate and Over Water RSSK kits.  It basically holds in place the survival kit contents inside the bag.

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I may muddy the water a little on the meaning of the markings on the bag.  Mine is marked 26 with a G under it.  The next photo shows a side view of the hard kit the bag goes in showing the angle on the front of the kit that the pan conforms to. The final picture shows the part number on the bottom of the frying pan.

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2 hours ago, RWW said:

I may muddy the water a little on the meaning of the markings on the bag.  Mine is marked 26 with a G under it.  The next photo shows a side view of the hard kit the bag goes in showing the angle on the front of the kit that the pan conforms to. The final picture shows the part number on the bottom of the frying pan.

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Certainly they weren't all marked the same way.   Was up to the local unit to mark them  how they had been marking various kits in their shop.  I've seen a few ways of them marked.   Some of the RSSK lids even had a dymo label with the type or just a local number,  some marked like that and just the taped on plastic label sleeve for the tag themselves   Wasn't very much standardization when it came to Army ALSE in the Mohawk realm. 

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2 hours ago, RWW said:

I may muddy the water a little on the meaning of the markings on the bag.  Mine is marked 26 with a G under it.  The next photo shows a side view of the hard kit the bag goes in showing the angle on the front of the kit that the pan conforms to. The final picture shows the part number on the bottom of the frying pan.

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I know it's not directly RSSK related but you should show the special shaped frying pan for the OV-1 soft pack kits

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Thanks very much for the information.   See below picture of the pan- just like yours.

 

Also, while I have your attention- do you know the aircraft where the below SSP liferaft kit bag is supposed to go into?   

 

To give you some background, 20+ years ago, I started collecting aircrew survival equipment, and was well on my way to getting everything listed in Breuninger's book, when I packed up my family and moved them to south-central Montana, and had to put my entire collection into Rubbermaid totes under the house, since we downsized our house when we moved here (but up-sized our acreage). I have been slowly adding items to the collection, but for the most part, had forgotten about most of the items. I finally got all my kids thru college, and my wife is allowing me to convert a spare bedroom into a museum for my collection.  After 16 years in storage,  I pulled (48) totes of assorted sizes from under the house and am slowly going thru the collection and inventorying everything.    Needless to say, it has relit the collecting fire in me.   I have stuff from the part of WW2 to the present in those totes.   Thanks for your help with ID'ing some of these items.

 

 

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From NAVAIR 13-1-6.3-1. The Standard Soft Pack is part of the survival equipment used aboard aircraft using NC-3, NB-6, NB-8 and NS-3 parachute assemblies. That would apply to a number of non-ejection seat aircraft.

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I have one of those inner SSP containers, which is actually like the old Navy PK-2 Pararaft inner container as well as the Vietnam era OV-1 Mohawk Over Water Survival Kit container too.  I also have the outer container that goes around the SSP which again is similar to the PK-2 type outer container and also the OV-1 soft pack outer container. 

Couple pics of my Navy SSP stuff and then the dirty  Raft/Equipment pack is the soft pack that was used in the OV-1 Mohawk during the Vietnam era in the Mk-J5B ejection seat.

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Thank you very much for the additional information regarding the OV-1 kit and the SSP soft kit.   Now I also know what to look for when looking for the "soft" OV-1 kits as well. 

 

Any special marking on the diaper that is used with the SSP kit?

 

One last question regarding life raft kits,  I have a PK-2 pararaft kit that is also stenciled C-2A, but it is in the dark green canvas, rather than the yellow-tan color that you normally see with the C-2A accessory bags.  Was this common for the liferaft bags to come stenciled from the factory with both kit types (in the small MFR lettering that they used)?

 

Thanks

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5 hours ago, Flynndoman said:

Thank you very much for the additional information regarding the OV-1 kit and the SSP soft kit.   Now I also know what to look for when looking for the "soft" OV-1 kits as well. 

 

Any special marking on the diaper that is used with the SSP kit?

 

One last question regarding life raft kits,  I have a PK-2 pararaft kit that is also stenciled C-2A, but it is in the dark green canvas, rather than the yellow-tan color that you normally see with the C-2A accessory bags.  Was this common for the liferaft bags to come stenciled from the factory with both kit types (in the small MFR lettering that they used)?

 

Thanks

I have 3 variations of that Navy outer container/diaper for the soft packs.  I dont have a pic of the latest one but it says something like Use with SSP.  The other 2 are PK-2 marked.  Took these pics a while back before I had the newer marked version.

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Thanks for the additional information on the SSP diaper- Have you had success in getting a liferaft packed into the liferaft side of the SSP kit?   I have loose one that I tried getting put into the SSP case last night, and no joy... The raft was all folded up and should have been pretty much as small as possible, other than stiff from age.  I will need to go on the hunt for a SSP diaper.

 

I also have a F-111 Quick Rescue kit container in my collection that I aquired  a while ago, and along the way, have mis-placed a ALSE training document that had the list of contents for this kit, I think it contained (2) woodland boonie hats, a fishing kit, camo face paint, mirrors, 2 blue SDU-5/E flash guards, etc.  Would you happen to have this list in your documents?  See attached photos.   

 

Thanks again for all your help with ID'ing this stuff- you have been a big help!

 

 

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Packing the raft is kind of tricky. You have to make sure all the air is out of the raft first.  Below are a couple of pictures of my kit with the raft in it. The yellow line is the life raft retention line. Below that is the inflation toggle.

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There are F-111 QRK's made for both sides of the aircraft, but usually there was only one in each escape module. I believe which side was based of which model aircraft. The kits came from AMARC when the aircraft were scrapped. When they were first taken to Davis-Monthan for storage there was a minimum list of gear that was put in the kits in case the airframes had to be placed back into service in a hurry.  Those components were likely different from what would have been placed in them by an operational unit. Below are a few pictures of my kits. The most unique items in the kits were the reversable carry sacks.

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Man- you are awesome!  I am having problems ID'ing some of the OD packaged items- can you send a list?  I remember reading something about the bags-I got mine from the Ebay seller located near D-M AFB, and I think one of the previous ones he had sold had the bags- if  you got yours from him, there answers the question.

 

Thanks again for the info on the SSP kit- I think my raft is so old, even with being folded up in storage, its not going to fit!

 

 

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2 pair of wool socks

Manual

Sea Dye Marker

Fishing Kit 

Gill Net

2- Boonie Hats

2 - 3-pint Water Bags

2- small plastic bags, each containing Whistle, Camo Stick, & Snare Wire

2- Strobe Lights W/ Flash Guards both blue & IR

2 - 3 X 5 Mirrors in plastic bag

2 - Magnesium Bar Firestarter's

2- Tourniquet's

2- Muslin Bandages

2 - Carry Sacks

 

 

 

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