In my cursory search I have not found any, so does anyone know of a model of the Air Tractor AT-802, in any configuration?
Reason being, in my brilliant brain, a bunch of years back, I thought that if they ( yes, the ubiquitous “they”) just put fire retardant in a crop duster, they could have a great initial attack aircraft for wildland fires . . . Well, finally someone with some pull came up with the same concept and there you go. To me it just made sense. I’ve had other sparks of brilliance but this one actually came to fruition, with somebody elses help.
Dang, I should have patented the idea . . . way back then.
I was just looking for this kit last week in 1/48. There are options in 1/72 but I was unable to find a crop duster or a fire bird in 1/48. Perhaps with some conversion you could modify this military version in 1/72
Funny thing - there’s an aircraft called M-18 Dromader and I believe it’s related to the air tractor via some licence production or stuff like that:
They use them for firefighting for like 30 years now. Many years ago they were stationed about ten clicks from our summer house, so we used to take bicycle trips to the airstrip to watch them take off and then return from patrols, dumping two tons of water into a nearby pond.
I have a close friend who flew the Air Tractor 802 as a fire bomber. He liked the Garrett powered airplanes the best because the power response was instant. A PT-6 takes a little longer to spool up from low power. We do need a model of the Air Tractor.
Pawel, I don’t think there was any development connection between the Air Tractor and the Dromader, just similar responses to the design challenge, I think. There are some Dromaders in California, I used to see one at Hanford in the central valley.
I do have in mind modifying the Revell Stearman into a crop duster. I used to work on N3N crop dusters but my Karaya 1/72 kit will be stock.
So far as I know, the first conversion of a crop duster to a fire retardant aircraft was an N3N, done at Willows, California. The N is a bit bigger than the Stearman and handled the R-1340 better.
Well, between all of the birds designed or based on Snow’s design (radial powered), and the newer aircraft (Cessna 188, Piper Pawnee PA-36, Air Tractor 502 - 802, and the alterations thereof) with turbo prop powerplants, one might think that we could find a decent model of something, in a decent scale. Frankly these are some awesome birds. Funny looking but amazingly flexible.
