My Favourite Hands down - 1450Hp Thrush S2R-1820 not the Bull Thrush Built by the factory - too heavy but a originial 600 light frame thrush modified with Wright R-1820-76 engine by Serv-Aero, 400gal hopper,100 gals of fuel,extwings,v/g's, 33D50 prop, :- It out performs everything else:- will haul 400gals of liquid fert @11lbs per gal,200lb pilot,18gals of oil,100gals avgas,for AUW of 10,500lbs out of a 2000ft grass strip allday in 96F temps and you can even leave the load hose attached it will rip the hose lose and trail all 40ftof hose(a hungover co-worker found this out one morning, the ground crew all had cardiac arrests
,still if flew ) behind the aircraft and still climb at 600-800ft a min,
Will out work in our environment all other aircraft be it Ag-Cat,KingCat, Weatherley, AT802,AT602,AT501,AT-402,S-2R-T65,T34,G10,M-18, Drom-T45, sure it burns 136gals an hr at max takeoff @45" but it will haul anything you can fit into the hopper, best performing ag aircraft, i have ever flown, great hot, and high performance, sadly after operating them for over 23yrs the cost of avgas has made the economics unfeasible, now operate second best in my opinion 1980 Ayres S-2R -T34 w/ 400gal hopper, fabric tail,extwings, v/g's,100gals of gas and basic empty weight of 3800lbs it still is no Viper1200 but i'll make due
Due to the terrain here in Jamaica, we need the climb performance being surrounded by 2-7000ft mountains hence light overpowered aircraft with the abillity to turn!!! have worked 510galthrushes (t-34,45,65,G6,G10,R1820) never ever had to use flaps on them still tad too heavy for the mountainous terrain , can say the same for the AT series, dont get me wrong I love ol Leland,but the AT series doesnt cut it for most of the ops in the banana world, then again most operators here(Caribbean,Lat Am) are partial to the Thrush because of how well it was designed by Leland, and the fact that CropCulture UK ltd operated them in 39 countries and had purchased a couple sets of factory jigs from leland, kind influenced the market to the Thrush, He fondly remembers our company pestering him to build an 1820 powered At-401, with his usual reply:- i've lightened the 401 so much that engine will shake the airframe to bits on it first flight
Worst I have ever flown AT-301 w Ag-1 prop and orginial short rudder a real dawg
, Leland made some great airplanes but, the 301,401 are flatland aircraft, i see that he met his design goals a lighter, better performing aircraft with the ability to haul more on less Hp- the only way to do that lightenen the airframe and optimise the wing , but with as with most operators working bananas we stick with the Thrush, more stable ie cadillac; vs sporty ie corvette AT series, I'd rather crash in a Thrush than anyother Ag-type im baised i guess, never written one off came close
, made a couple of off-field landings,hit the odd tree, marker, etc.
Enjoy turbine reliability, miss the rumble of a round engine, the cool blue flame on an early morn dep- dont miss the amount of times that Damn 1820 tried to kill me, but to its credit i have never had a engine fail to make power even while spitting chunks of the internals out the exhaust, always had enough to make it to a realitively safe landing site;a company pilot flew for 25mins on 6 broken conrods; the only way you knew a jug had blown was you need 1" more manifold pressure, on a 1340 you'd be dumping the load and praying to make it back before it quit.
The all time worst Ag Aircraft never flew it but is the general consensus among my associates worldwide is Eagle DW-1/EA-1