GM 337 Club... said
About the only thing I can say that is different between the two (military and Civilian) is that the military had a extra spar cap strip placed top and bottom of the main spar... also the fuel tanks were full of the material to stop explosions... and I guess leaks... and some wireing and window placement
Dave Zavoina added
As far as structural differences, the O-2A wing attach bolts are two bolt sizes larger. As far as interchangable parts go, in the military -4 (Illustrated Parts Catalogue) every sheetmetal part has the suffix "CP" behind it. This meant "Corrosion Proofed" and unless you ordered a seaplane version, you didn't get this part in your plane. Every rib, stringer, etc was alodined and primer before assembly on the military birds, Birdogs, Skymasters, Blue Canoes, and Tweets all had this. I don't beleive that many 337's were ordered with seaplane options. With the exception of one T337H that I've had the pleasure of working on, have I seen the entire interior of the wing zinc chromated. That H model was built approximatly 10 years after the last O-2 left the assembly line. Now, I'm not trying to pick on you, but when you tell the poor slob that he has to march down to the FAA and tell them he has the wrong wheels and brakes on his plane, you need to validate your response with facts, not myths. The O-2A is a much diferent creature than a 1967 B model is to a P-337 and it has its own idiocrincies that need to be addresssed.
GM 337 Club... replied
when I went through the plant many years ago... I still can remember seeing the military birds being built side by side with the civilian ones.
Dave replied
My plane is on display at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, TX, and is available for viewing at any time from 10:00am to 5:00pm along with about 40 or so other interesting aircraft.
GM 337 Club... asked further
Does your plane have the kangaroo on the tail... or just the USAF... The ones over in nam had the kangroo on the tail... skull and crossbones... or USAF.. The Navy also had some that were painted in blue and yellow... saw one when flying over the desert one time... nice looking color ... seems they were stationed at Fallon... according to another writer on the board... would have liked to find out what action they saw... and where they went... fly safe.. G.M>
Dave replied
Yes, the Navy had 6 O-2's at NAS Fallon with VFA-125. I picked one up at NAS Pensacola who had purchased it from the Naval Aviation Museum. I flew that aircraft, call sign DUCK 593, later registered as N593S, to Houston, TX with DUCK 594, later N594X, and performed the Comformity Inspection and had them both issued airworthiness certificates with San Antonio MIDO.
My plane never had the Kangaroo on the tail, those were flown by the Aussies with the 20th TASS at Da Nang. My plane was with the 23rd TASS at Nakhon Phenom RTAFB, Thailand and with the 504th at Bien Hoa AFB, Republic of Viet Nam assigned to FAC U., a training unit for new in country FAC's..
Originally there were six Navy O-2's, the Marines snatched two of them, and I think one of them ended up at the Marine Air and Ground Museum in Quantico, VA. One is still in the Houston area, one that was in Houston was sold to a person in North Carolina. I don't know what happened to the other two. There is a big Navy Criminal Investigation Division invesigation associated with the sale of these aircraft as well as some other aircraft deals that were allegedly not done per disposal specs. I've also heard of the television camera installation. They had a tramsmitter that downloaded the signal to a "Spook" trailer that had a lot of technicians in civillian clothing going in with an armed guard stationed outside.
Jason Friesen replied The skymaster started as an attempt on the part of Cessna to design a safer general aviation twin. The 336 was never used by the military and it wasn't until after the 337 came out that the military decided to use the faster skymaster to replace their vulnerable L19s in Vietnam.
Ian Clapp added
The 327 was the scaled-down version of the Skymaster designed to compete with the Twin Comanche. It first flew in December of 1967,
several years after the first 336/337 flights. It was indeed a very nice looking aircraft with clean lines akin to the Cardinals's. Unfortunately,
performance and cost issues caused Cessna to drop the 327 project.
Peter added According to Airlife's General Aviation Book. There was one Cessna 327 Mini Skymaster built. It was a reduced scale version on the 337. It was registered N3769C and had a c/n of 663 (Cessnas Experimental Series) It first flew on 4 Dec 1967 and it ended up going to NASA as a "full scale wind tunnel research unit" The Cessna 1014 XMC was a twin-boomed two-seat aircraft with a single puster engine. Only 1 was built registered N7174C (C/N 674) and first flew on 22 Jan 1971. The book does have a picture of the XMC in it.