OV-10 Bronco
ICAO V10A twin-boom observation aircraft from Vietnam, most of which now fight fires. Live OV-10 Bronco positions.
Flying right now
Live · 30s
No OV-10 Bronco is transmitting ADS-B at the moment.
Military aircraft are not obliged to broadcast, so this happens regularly. The count refreshes every thirty seconds.
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- North American Rockwell
- Role
- Forward air control and light attack
- Class
- L2T — Landplane, 2 turboprop engines
- Crew
- 2
- First flight
- 16 July 1965
- In service
- 1969
Operators airborne
Nothing of this type is up right now.
About the OV-10 Bronco
The Bronco was built for a role that barely exists any more: flying low and slow over a battlefield, finding targets and marking them with smoke rockets for fast jets to attack. Its twin-boom layout, enormous glasshouse canopy and short-field performance all follow from that job.
Military operators have largely moved on — the Philippines and a few others kept them flying longest. What survives in numbers is the firefighting fleet: CAL FIRE uses OV-10As as air attack platforms, circling a fire and directing the tankers, which is recognisably the same job in a different war.
Those Californian aircraft are what you are most likely to see on this page.
Callsign prefixes
- COPTER
- CAL FIRE air attack supervision
- BRONCO
- Historic military use
How to recognise it
- —Twin tailbooms with a high tailplane between them — very few aircraft look like this.
- —Two turboprops mounted on the booms and an extensively glazed tandem cockpit.
- —Sponsons under the fuselage carrying stores or troops.
Common questions
+ What was the OV-10 designed to do?
Forward air control: flying low over a battlefield to locate targets and mark them with white phosphorus rockets so faster aircraft could attack them, plus light attack and observation.
+ Why does CAL FIRE fly Broncos?
The job is almost identical. An air attack supervisor circles a fire, coordinates the tankers and directs their drops — the same loiter, visibility and low-speed handling the military role needed.
+ Is the OV-10 still in military service?
Barely. The Philippines flew them into the 2020s and a handful serve elsewhere; the type has left US military service, with surviving airframes mostly in firefighting or private hands.