Agriculture aircraft

AggieMike88

AggieMike88

Touchdown! Greaser!
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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
Henning and some others will like what I found in a local FBOs hangar last week.

I've see some of the smaller agriculture aircraft before, but never one grown the size of an F4U Corsair!

I was told these were being built as firefighters for grass and brush fires.
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Little windows look armored sure it isn't a S American drug sprayer?
 
Don't know... I was just amazed how big this thing was for a single engine civilian aircraft,
 
Ag Tractors are HUGE. It takes 4 or 5 steps to climb up into the cockpit.
 
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ClimbnSink said:
Little windows look armored sure it isn't a S American drug sprayer?
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The "little" windows are bigger than they look, and the whole "canopy" is beefed up for rollover/impact protection, AFAIK. Glass might be heavy-duty too, but I'm not sure.
 
Dont think that is a sprayer for production crops. This looks like one of the air-tractors flown by contractors for the DEA down in south america.
 
Don't think that is an 802. Doesn't look big enough. Maybe a 502-B set up for training. Looks like a reinforced cockpit, so I'm guessing it will be doing some south american mary jane spraying.
 
That looks like one of the ones built for State department, does it have an armored tub still in it?
 
CJones said:
Don't think that is an 802. Doesn't look big enough. Maybe a 502-B set up for training. Looks like a reinforced cockpit, so I'm guessing it will be doing some south american mary jane spraying.
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Coca...
 
Henning said:
That looks like one of the ones built for State department, does it have an armored tub still in it?
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Uncertain... The two I saw were new production aircraft. The shop I was in was an avionics shop and they were contracted to kit out the panel.
 
The small front windshields and the rear cabin area indicate that it's not an ag applicator. It looks like it is a 802F (fire fighting) with a fiberglass hopper. The hopper on the 502 is smaller and the canopy is different, if the windows were larger it might be a 602. My ag applicator designed the eyebrow window STC which is now a standard item on a lot of Air Tractors and has just gotten a contract to supply a digital hopper quantity gauge.
 
Sure looks like DEA type machine. Please google university of Texas CIA aircraft history . Anything is possible! Poppy sprayer?
 
To me, they are beautiful. They are the color of money. Without them, I would have nothing, I would not be a pilot, I wouldn't own MY airplane, and my employees would not have jobs. They are one of the best cost/benefit ratio machines on our farm.
 
While this one is designed to have some acrobatic nimbleness to it.....let's take the idea to an extreme and outfit an A-10 Warthog for brushfire fighting....
 
AggieMike88 said:
While this one is designed to have some acrobatic nimbleness to it.....let's take the idea to an extreme and outfit an A-10 Warthog for brushfire fighting....
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Yep, you could mow down some pretty nifty fire breaks quickly with those 30mm rounds...:yesnod:
 
Henning said:
Yep, you could mow down some pretty nifty fire breaks quickly with those 30mm rounds...:yesnod:
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Our glider club shared a field with one of these monsters and we tried to convince him to hook up a glider. :rofl: 3000 feet in a minute if he was empty? :idea:

They are useful for so many things.
 
Henning said:
Yep, you could mow down some pretty nifty fire breaks quickly with those 30mm rounds...:yesnod:
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Howzbout instead of spent uranium, it was a "paintball" sphere loaded with fire suppressant.
 
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