O2 performance
 

Any substantive difference in performance from, say, a 337B? Thought I'd seen or heard somewhere that cruise has a bit of a penalty from the exterior hardware that is particular to it. Wikipedia puts cruise at 144mph, but that's at 10k, and that's Wikipedia too. Anyone familiar with the performance numbers for these?

Just sayin' Wikipedia may not have the same info as a AFM, POH, or TCDS. As we say down south. GTS!

02, Slow!!! 10 to 15 slower depending on the load

Wow. That could be significant, especially against a turbo option. Guessing that's owed to the extra, O2-ish hardware hanging out in the breeze.

I love the idea of watching over and preserving one of these pieces of history (as I do with my 1980 International Scout II Traveler), but there is ultimately a practical requirement for us as well.

As a side note, I don't remember where google found that avatar pic, but I used it a few months ago to line up my side-view monitors for my Prepar3d simulator setup. So I thank you on both accounts.

You have to remember there were Big antennas on the airplane (on the top and on the Belly) along with the 4 hard-points, each could carry at least 350 lb some of the configurations with the rocket pods, Willy Petes and other things were quite dragee not aerodynamic! And no fancy aerodynamic covers on the props, it wasn't built for Speed, it was built for redundancy and about a 110 knots average observation speed, allowing endurance time over the Target

02 Performance
 

Yankee Clipper, please give me a call. I have all the information about 0-2A aircraft performance. I have copies of the USAF Flight Manual as well as all 0-2A manuals, check lists and Tech Orders and the largest inventory of new surplus Cessna 0-2 and 337 parts.
Have owned and flown a number of 0-2A aircraft in the last 25 years.
Don Nieser
Commodore Aerospace Corp
nieser.02.337parts@juno.com
www.02-337parts.com
405-503-4686