And Speaking of SEATs

Take four minutes and go and check out this awesome video on Patrick's Aviation on SEATs working fires in France. Some of this is taken from the cockpit of a SEAT. You will see some footage of an AgCat shot from the SEAT cockpit. TL Stein tells me that the single-winged aircraft are an Ayers S-2R and confirmed that the bi-wing planes are AgCat G-164A's.

For a refresher on AgCats, see this earlier entry to my blog on AgCats. I wrote about the Ayer's Thrush aircraft here.

Ayres Thrush Commander SEAT

The current Thrush Commander line of aircraft (sometimes referred to as Ayres Thrush Commander), used as crop dusters and for firefighting, is descended from a long and respected line of agricultural aircraft. Over fifty years ago, Leland Snow developed an agricultural aircraft known as the Snow S2. Design and production rights to the Snow S2 and later airplanes in the same family have changed hands a couple of times since the mid 1950s. The current manufacturer is Thrush Aircraft, for a brief history of this company see their about us web page.

I suspect that there are many different versions of this aircraft in service as SEATs for wildland fire fighting. To get an idea of the specifications of a representative Ayers Thrush, see the specifications for the 660 Model Turbo Thrush . If you read the specs, remember that this aircraft is used both for crop dusting and for firefighting, hence the different hopper capacities.

Do you want to see some pictures of this aircraft? Thrush aircraft maintains a photo gallery. Check it out.

Finally, for a video of a Thrush in action, watch this video on youtube.