The first-person narrator of that song was an F-105 Thunderchief (aka the “Thud”) fighter pilot, as was Maj. Levine in real life. The plane he was singing about was the O-1 Bird Dog, a single-engine ...
Manufactured by Cessna, one of the most enduringly popular brands in general aviation aircraft production—now a Textron subsidiary and headquartered in Wichita, Kansas—the L-19 Bird Dog made its ...