Guess the plane

[Blackhawk]

12 hours ago, Blueadventures said:

I had a visit from a friend who lives in Maryborough, Queensland and he has Chris Conroys single seat and two west aircraft at his place in a container so they are both still intact which is good news.

Chris Conroy's Sparrow aircraft were offered to me by his sons who were selling off all his aircraft assets as non of them were interested in aircraft.

I told Dennis about what was available and he purchased the assets, now stored at Maryborough

 

 

Edited April 8 by Blackhawk
wrong file

[Blueadventures]

10 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

Chris Conroy's Sparrow aircraft were offered to me by his sons who were selling off all his aircraft assets as non of them were interested in aircraft.

I told Dennis about what was available and he purchased the assets, now stored at MaryboroughConroy Kit_design_drawing_information.bmp

Conroy Kit_design_drawing_information.bmp 29.34 MB · 4 downloads

Nice they are still around.  Dennis dropped in when in Mackay recently I assisted him with the purchase of the big boat he bought up here years ago.

 

your attachment won't open.  Cheers

Edited April 8 by Blueadventures

[Moneybox]

[Thruster88]

Airtractor 502 that was involved in a fatal bird strike accident.

[Moneybox]

13 hours ago, Thruster88 said:

Airtractor 502 that was involved in a fatal bird strike accident.

There were two of these at Northam earlier in the week.

 

 

 

He used every inch of the 1248m runway.

 

[Moneybox]

Sorry, I can't successfully load a video in .mp4 or .mov

[onetrack]

Moneybox, upload your videos to a free hosting site such as Screenpal, and then just put up the link for users to watch it. Screenpal will allow you to upload videos up to 15 mins long, for free.

[Bernie]

I can't open it as well.

[Student Pilot]

On 28/8/2025 at 5:32 PM, Moneybox said:

AT 402

[Student Pilot]

With the current price of P+W PT6-67F being close on 3 million US, Air Tractor are turning to an old solution of power plant.

Air Tractor 803

[onetrack]

Personally, I reckon a Skyraider II would be a better model choice. I could really give the local rabbit population a work-over, with one of these!!

 

 

[Moneybox]

 

I'd already  reduced this to just a few MBs but in the end loaded it on to YouTube.

[onetrack]

Moneybox, was he fully loaded, or just economising on fuel? Seems like a very relaxed takeoff. The Airtractors I watch working, cropdusting in the Wheatbelt, don't hang around, they've got 1600HP, they get off the ground pretty fast - and they sure move when they're spraying! I think they spray at about 90-100 kts?

 

One of them fairly made me soil my underpants about 3 years ago, when he flew right into the path of my Hilux as I was cresting a hill at about 110kmh - he came up from behind the crest of the hill as he finished his spray run! Never saw him coming, didn't even know he was working that paddock. 🙂 

[Moneybox]

I have no idea what they were doing. Two of them were parked along with a fleet of some sort of service vehicles. They were sitting idling when I arrived and took off about 10 minutes apart. The first went so close to the end of runway 32 at YNTM that I was wondering if he'd make it. The second one got off the ground a little earlier but that didn't sound like 1600hp to me.

 

 

They returned and parked next to my little plane making it look much smaller than it did before. The fuel truck came over and commenced refueling them as I left.

 

 

 

 

[RFguy]

That's a little air tractor. AT502 by the look of it. 

 

the 1300 hp AT802 aircraft have many more blades.

 

we have lots of them at Cowra.

 

I dont know about 1600 hp....

Thruster88 would know.

[onetrack]

RFguy has nailed it, my error, not paying enough attention - that's an AT-502B, they run the 750HP PT6A-34G engine. They can go to 4263kg MTOW for later models with the modified wing spar.

 

That  still doesn't explain the long takeoff roll. The factory specs say 1140ft (347M) to get airborne. He must have been on a fuel saving mission.

 

Air Tractor - AT-502B

AIRTRACTOR.COM

---

Air Tractor AT-502B World’s Most Popular Ag Plane For many ag operators, the AT-502B is the ideal combination of payload and performance. It’s got every airframe and engine advantage to...

 

 

[RFguy]

with a full hopper ,the pilots tell me they maximise the length of the takeoff roll, in order  to maximise the airspeed before  they need to climb .

 

the spec is probably what they have to do when spreading product out on a farm strip.

 

AT cowra, 1600m, they often use the entire strip before climbing.

*** Airspeed is your friend, especially with a full hopper .... better to have 30 kts over stall than 10 kts over stall with an engine failure at 50'

 

I do same if I have plenty of runway. 

Edited September 1 by RFguy

[onetrack]

The PT6 isn't really a concern for engine failure potential, their reliability is nothing short of amazing.

I saw the failure figures recently, it was something in the order of 1 engine failure every 400,000 hrs.

[Student Pilot]

Flying AG aircraft one doesn't "maximise the length of the takeoff roll". Every loaded take off is as soon as you can, as soon as the aircraft flys. Accelerate in ground effect and climb at your best rate which when loaded is eight tenths of buggar all. 
Whatever the aircraft it's usually loaded to its max capacity, full available power is used for every loaded takeoff, conditions and job dictating.  1700 HP is still not enough with an aircraft that weighs 3T empty (AT802) and carries 4T with fuel and load on a 35 degree day.

One track, that pic is a 402, with an 802 usually try to keep spray speed below 125 IAS. Air Tractors come with a variety of powerplants starting at a dash 11 or 15 PT6 (550-600HP) in 402's through to 1700HP PT6 -67F in some 802's with all sorts in between. Don't see many Radial 3/401's around these days, pity. 

Edited September 1 by Student Pilot
Brainfart

[Student Pilot]

5 hours ago, onetrack said:

The PT6 isn't really a concern for engine failure potential, their reliability is nothing short of amazing.

I saw the failure figures recently, it was something in the order of 1 engine failure every 400,000 hrs.

Those figure will be contracting. With some dodgy operators (more than you think, GA as well as AG) not logging engine time reliability suffers. An engine that might be up for an overhaul at 3 to 4000 hours might have an actual working time on 10,000+ hours. So when that engine fails through componts being just plain worn out the engines reputation will suffer. 
The poor old R1340 P+W has suffered because of this with a terrible reputation for failures.