Crop dusters go to war - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

Bad ass.

 

Not new.

The AT-802U has been operational doing the same mission for some time now, and T-65 thrushes and -67 802's have been operational in Colombia and other parts of south and central america doing counternarcotic work for nearly 20 years now.

 

I'm surprised they don't put the WSO in the space where the hopper was. That would be better than a rumble seat behind the pilot.

There was talk years ago about making A-10s into sprayers when the locals in South America were taking pot shots at the paraquat planes. Minus the gun.

 

The A10 talk was all talk; it was never a serious discussion. The original intent of putting A10's into the counternarcotic program with the DoS INL wing wasn't to put them in service spraying drugs. It was conceived as a way of funneling equipment into other programs and other hands overseas as an end-run around congress, much in the same way that some of the early tanker transfers to contractors involved with the USFS (for firefighting) was done.

The second seat in the Thrush and in the 810 isn't a rumble seat; it's a two-cockpit aircraft. I've flown with people back there, and I've flown back there. To begin putting people outside the cockpit cage, in the hopper area, would require some unnecessary major reworking of the aircraft, its handling, and structure.

OV10's were used in the spraying role in Colombia, but were big maintenance problems, and eventually unworkable, and dropped from the program.

The new Thrush and Air Tractor programs have been counterinsurgency platforms.

 

A-10 crop duster, I'm in!!!!!!

 

It was never going to happen.

 

But we can dream^^^^

 

They did however have an A-10 over at Boise fire base that they were testing as a S.E.A.T fire bomber. I was told by on of the program test guys that they had several issues with it. The main one being that once you remove the cannon you have major weight and balance problems to deal with. The other issue he mentioned was that the combination of airflow and engine location caused a lot of over spray from the retardant to become ingested into the engines. It wasn't putting out the engines but it was causing major polishing throughout the the fan and compressor sections of the engines. Fire retardant is gritty and causes erosion in jet engines when ingested.

 

What if they designed fire-repellent rounds for the hawgs cannon? Probably wouldn't be very effective but damn would it be cool.

 

It wasn't part of the SEAT program (single engine air tanker).

A number of years ago a group of former A10 drivers tried hard to push the A10 as a tanker platform, but it never took off. Ed Herlik was the driving force behind that effort, and the parent company was Aerotech Ltd.

It was never going to happen.