This page will provide information about where the O-2As are and what they are doing. For those visitors who own and fly an O-2, please contact me to share some information about your plane and what you do with it.

There were 501 O-2A’s built for the USAF and an additional 45 C-337A’s which were converted for USAF use as O-2B’s, making a total of 546 O-2 Aircraft. So where are they now? Of the 501 O-2A's delivered to by Cessna to the USAF:

• 108 lost in South East Asia (82 combat losses)
• 49 destroyed in peacetime accidents
• 35 were left in the Republic of Vietnam. Fate unknown, but there are rumors that some may yet be in storage.
• 9 to Botswana (Not in active service but 8 may be airworthy)
• 23 were transferred to Chile (two were sent to provide spare parts, one may still be flying)
• 3 were sent to Costa Rica
• 5 to the Dominican Republic
• 18 to El Salvador (8 may still be in service)
• 2 to Haiti (along with six C-337G’s)
• 1 to the Ivory Coast
• 14 to the Republic of Korea
• 6 to Nambia
• 6 to Nicaragua (in addition to ten, militarized C-337Ds)
• 2 to the Solomon Islands
• 2 were given to Zimbabwe (adding to the 21 French-built "Lynx" C-337 variants of the Rhodesian Air Force)
• 7 O-2As are in storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base

Somewhat more than 20 are on static display at various museums across the United States

That accounts for about 310 airframes (plus or minus the estimated planes in museums or mounted on sticks.) That leaves about 190 airframes to account for. Of those:

5 are registered in other countries, 3 in Australia (and "good on 'em" as there were Australian O-2 FAC's in the SEA conflict) 2 in Canada (not counting N-registered airplanes that happen to live in Canada), one in the Czech Republic, and one in the Netherlands (I had the pleasure of meeting the owner/pilot at Airventure 2013.)

There are 61 aircraft registered by the FAA as either O-2A or M337B (Cessna’s designation for the Military variant of the C-337B). A few years ago there were more than 80, but their registrations since expired. Other aircraft may have current registrations, but are not flying or airworthy, the owner keeping up the registration in the hope that it will someday fly again. Altogether, estimates are that there are less than 50 O-2As flying (and only one O-2B.) I have seen that O-2B at AirVenture/Oshkosh, N446TF/Ser#67-21446. It is owned by a retired USN CAPT and looks beautiful.

So where are they? What are they doing? What happened to the other hundred? Some, I know were transferred to the California Department of Forestry and used for Forward Air Control of firefighting aircraft (tankers). That is a hard mission and wore airplanes out, many being used for replacement parts to keep the others flying. Some, of course, have been involved in accidents and striken from the records. Others may still be "off the books" for government programs. I imagine that there are more than the score of O-2s that I have tracked down to museums so far.