WichitaFallsComplete.com



May 2010

Air Tractor of Olney, Texas Converts its Crop Dusters to Warplanes

I'll start with my usual disclaimer that I'm not an expert on anything. I just like to write about things that interest me.

Today, I'm interested in a recent news item in the Wichita Falls Times Record News about a company, Air Tractor of Olney, Texas, that is converting its crop dusters to warplanes, and is trying to win congressional approval to build these planes for the Afghan Army Air Corps.

It seems that Air Tractor is trying to avoid specifications that the plane has an ejection seat and retractable landing gear. Air Tractor argues that the other competitor's planes that have retractable gear also have smaller wheels, which is not a good thing for landing on unimproved airstrips or fields. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Also, helicopters don't have ejection seats so there's no reason their airplane can't be successful without such a system. Air Tractor says the increased crash worthiness of their aircraft would compensate for the lack of an ejection system. I'm thinking that any slow-flying aircraft had better have good crash worthiness!

The article has a photo of the prototype aircraft, the At-802U. It looks like a crop duster, plain and simple, but fitted with what appear to be rocket launchers under the wings. If the plane has any additional armor protection, it's not evident from the photo, but then, maybe it's not supposed to be.

This concept brings to mind the A-10 Warthog, a slow-flying, tank-killing, cannon-with-wings airplane. The plane, and its pilot, are protected by a ton of armor.

I was concerned that this might be a weak point for the AT-802U, but it seems that Air Tractor has already addressed this problem by installing armor to protect the pilot and engine from small arms ground fire. In fact, the article says the U.S State Department has already purchased 16 of the planes and have been using them is South America in the "drug war". According to the article, Air Tractor says the planes have survived over 200 hits from small arms fire since being deployed in 2002.

It's nice to see an almost-local company doing good and making the news!

Maynard