At some point in the last couple of weeks, I learned about Leland Snow and his relationship to both the Air Tractor aircrafts and the Ayres Thrush. I mentioned in my entry on the Ayres Thrush SEAT that Leland Snow designed and built the Snow S2 airplanes, an early ancestor of the current Thrush Commander line of aircrafts.
As you can see from this history, after he sold his company to Rockwell-Standard in 1965, he was hired by Rockwell as Vice President where he worked on the S2-R models, aka the Thrush Commanders. In 1978, he quit Rockwell, went back to Olney Texas where he started out, and began building the Air Tractors. The first Air Tractor was the AT-300. In addition to the AT-802 models, Air Tractor builds the 401, 402, 502, and 602 models. Late last year, Air Tractor built their 300th AT-802F. These firefighting SEATs are fighting fires world wide from Croatia to South Africa to Australia to America.
Air Tractor is in the process of developing a larger model, called the AT-1002 with a 1060 gallon hopper. See this article for more information.
I have blogged about aerial wildland firefighting since 2009. I am not a firefighter and am not a pilot, just an interested bystander who wants to learn more and share what I learn here. Join me here as I blog on the aircraft and the pilots who fight wildland fires from the air in support of crews on the ground. I also blog on concerns affecting fire crews on the ground as well as other aviation and meteorology issues. Learn what it takes to do jobs that are staffed by the best of the best.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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