The “Twin Cat” of the late 1970s and early ’80s was one such example. A development of the 1950s-era, purpose-built Grumman Super Ag Cat biplane, it replaced the Ag Cat’s single 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial engine with two 310 hp Lycoming TIO-540 flat-6 engines.

Rather than being offered as a complete, factory-built aircraft, the Twin Cat was a modification offered in the form of a supplemental type certificate (STC). The Twin Cat Corporation targeted Ag Cat operators wishing for more easily serviceable engines with increased overhaul intervals and multiengine redundancy, and the company offered to travel to the customer for on-site modification of their Ag Cats.

The company had some impressive experience at the helm. The president had overseen the development of a turboprop conversion of the Grumman Albatross and was assisted by the former chief test pilot at the general aviation division of Rockwell International. Most of the test flights were flown by Herman “Fish” Salmon, retired chief engineering test pilot of Lockheed. Salmon had conducted spin testing of the P-38 Lightning and had flown the first flights of the L-188 Electra, P-3 Orion, YF-104A Starfighter, and XFV-1 turboprop VTOL fighter. 

When designing the Twin Cat, one of the top priorities was to minimize asymmetric thrust in the event of an engine failure. The team did so by utilizing an unconventional engine layout in which the engines were mounted on either side of the nose with only approximately 3.5 feet between the propeller tips. The engines were also canted slightly outward to further minimize the effects of asymmetric thrust during single-engine operations.

The company touted benefits beyond the engines’ 2,000-hour TBO and better parts availability. While the engines were rated at 310 hp each, a sales manager said in an industry presentation that they derated them “with a pencil” and that the full 350 hp was available if needed. The Twin Cat’s total fuel consumption was the same as that of the single-engine radial Ag Cat. They also claimed the new layout improved forward visibility, prop clearance, and spray dispersion. 

When the time came for flight testing, the team got to see whether the new design could deliver the performance that backed up predictions. While the Twin Cat’s empty weight was the same as the Ag Cat’s, at 3,500 pounds, the maximum takeoff weight was 2,000 pounds higher, at 6,500 pounds. A load jettison function enabled the pilot to dump 2,000 pounds of payload if needed.

The new engine layout worked. With both engines operating, the Twin Cat’s takeoff distances were approximately 20 percent shorter than the Ag Cat. Asymmetric thrust was so effectively minimized that a sales manager claimed the Twin Cat could even take off with one engine shut down and then climb at 400 feet per minute at sea level. The company marketed this feature as a useful solution to ferry an aircraft with an inoperative engine to a location where maintenance could be performed.

In the air, the maximum cruising speed was 130 knots. By canting the engines slightly downward, the stall speed was remarkably low, at a claimed 49 knots for power-off stalls and 43 knots for power-on. A brochure claimed that the Twin Cat had “no V_MC,” which would have enabled flight all the way down to stall speed without controllability concerns. 

One account of the airplane’s flight characteristics suggests that it needed more refinement, however. It reportedly lacked any kind of rudder trim, and with an engine shut down, a pilot claimed he ran out of rudder and had to reduce power on the good engine to maintain control. It’s unclear whether the company planned to introduce rudder trim in future aircraft.

In the end, only three examples of the Twin Cat were rumored to have been completed and flown, and few photographs exist. One reportedly crashed, and the others presumably returned to their original single-engine configuration when the company decided against pursuing the concept any further. 

The post The One, Brief Life of the Twin Cat appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The Brazilian aerospace company said its Agricultural Aviation Division delivered 65 Ipanemas during 2023, an increase of 18 percent compared with the previous year. By year’s end, the company had delivered 1,600 of the aircraft whose design dates back more than 50 years.

• READ MORE: Embraer Reports 38 Percent Sales Increase For Ipanema 203 Aircraft

Production of the design, which first flew in 1970 as the EMB-200, has continued uninterrupted through the decades. Since launching the latest version, called the EMB-203, in 2020, the company said it has “seen continuous growth in sales” and plans to boost production to 70 aircraft in 2024.

“Agribusiness has a significant positive impact on Brazil’s gross domestic product, and we are very pleased to see how the Ipanema has contributed to the sector’s high productivity, efficiency, and sustainability,” said Sany Onofre, manager of Embraer’s Ipanema program. 

• READ MORE: Embraer’s Electric Demonstrator Aircraft Begins Flight Test Campaign

The piston-single Ipanema, powered by a Lycoming 540 engine, is popular in the Brazilian market among pilots and farmers. It is known as a sturdy workhorse with features that reduce operating costs and lower emissions. Embraer also offers an ethanol-powered version of the Ipanema and has tested an electric variant as part of a program to develop electric power for future aircraft.

The post Embraer Marks Delivery of 1,600th Ipanema Agricultural Aircraft appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The Brazilian manufacturer said its agricultural aircraft unit expects sales for the full year to be “similar to or better than 2022,” when it sold 66 aircraft. The company also said that given a backlog of orders over the past 12 months, it is scheduling new orders for production and delivery next year.

In terms of deliveries, Embraer said it expects to deliver 65 of the Ipanema airplanes this year, compared with 55 in 2022 and 42 in 2021. The company noted that delivery volume is highest during the second half of the year due to the market segment’s seasonality.

“We have experienced three consecutive years of growth in the volume of aircraft delivered, which highlights the very high confidence that our customers and operators have in the Ipanema 203,” said Sany Onofre, Embraer’s Ipanema program manager. “By combining high technology and tradition, the Ipanema 203 remains a benchmark of high productivity and low operating costs.” 

Production of the initial version of the aircraft began in 1969, and last year the Ipanema series reached the milestone of 1,500 aircraft delivered. Embraer developed an ethanol-powered version of the aircraft in 2004 after customers began experimenting with the fuel, which is widely available in Brazil.

In 2021, Embraer flew an electric-powered version of the 203 as part of a larger project to develop electric power for future aircraft.

The post Embraer Reports 38 Percent Sales Increase For Ipanema 203 Aircraft appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

John Macready, an Army test pilot who flew fighters in World War I, was at the controls. In the rear cockpit was Etienne Dormoy, a research engineer with the Army Signal Corps who had modified the Jenny for this experimental assignment.

As Macready skimmed the treetops, Dormoy turned a crank on a metal hopper bolted to the side of the fuselage, releasing lead arsenate dust. After six passes, the job was done, the grove was saved, and an industry called “crop dusting” was born.

• READ MORE: Thrush Launches Firefighting-Convertible Cropduster

That industry, now known as agricultural aviation or aerial application, moved along an interesting path to advance from Macready and Dormoy’s 150-hp Jenny with a 32-gallon hopper to modern machines like the Air Tractor AT-802A, whose turbine engine generates 1,295 hp—enough to lift the load induced by its 800-gallon hopper.

While this tale of evolution in some ways resembles that of other aviation segments, like airlines, business and military aircraft, it is sprinkled with watershed moments worth particular attention.

Dusting Catches On

Crop dusting grew rapidly following the Troy, Ohio, experiment, with many pilots adapting existing aircraft for the task. Huff-Daland, an aircraft company that supplied trainers for the military, in the early 1920s designed a biplane especially for crop dusting, which they nicknamed The Puffer. The company formed an agricultural division called Huff-Daland Dusters, and began commercial dusting operations with its specialized airplanes in 1925, according to the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA).

At the time, the company’s fleet of 18 aircraft was the largest privately owned fleet in the world, according to Delta Air Lines. Huff-Daland, through a number of acquisitions, grew into Delta Air Service and, by 1945, officially became Delta Air Lines.

Enter the Stearman

The end of World War II created a breakthrough for crop dusters for a couple of reasons. First, the enormous surplus of Stearman trainers, many in like-new condition, meant they could get reliable, robust aircraft at low prices—from $250 to $875, the NAAA said. Because all of these surplus aircraft had to be modified for agricultural use, specialized companies formed to outfit airplanes with dusting and spraying equipment. This brought a degree of standardization and efficiency that helped accelerate the industry’s growth.

The 1950s: New Models, Rising Standards

A team at Texas A&M led by aircraft design legend Fred Weick built the AG-1, a prototype monoplane crop sprayer, in 1950. The following year, Leland Snow, who later developed Thrush agricultural aircraft and founded Air Tractor, rolled out his first design, the S-1. By 1953, Piper was building the Pawnee. These aircraft all shared the distinctive raised cockpit, sloped nose and low wing that became standard for ag-plane design. Indeed, industry insiders often draw parallels between the AG-1 and the latest Air Tractor.

Just as the template seemed to be set, though, aviation giant Grumman introduced its G-164 Ag-Cat, a radial-engined biplane, in 1957. It was the first agricultural airplane from a major manufacturer and it significantly raised standards for reliability and safety.

A Fragmented Industry Comes Together

In 1966, new federal regulations under Part 137 imposed new restrictions on agricultural aviation. This and a number of other factors, from the subdivision of farms into suburbs to the release a few years earlier of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—a book that criticized pesticide use—helped drive independent-minded crop sprayers to form the National Agricultural Aviation Association, or NAAA, in late 1966.

Turbine Power Arrives

While Pratt & Whitney unveiled the first PT6 turbine engine in 1957, almost 20 years passed before the powerplants turned up on the noses of ag aircraft. According to the NAAA, the first example to fly in the U.S. was the Turbo Cat, a converted Ag-Cat that took to the air in 1976. It was about 60 percent more productive than the piston version and marked the beginning of a turbine ascendancy in crop spraying.

GPS Replaces Flaggers

Remember how expensive GPS technology was at first? In 1993, when it became commercially available, many people in agricultural aviation recognized its potential but felt the price tag, often tens of thousands of dollars, would deter most operators. However, within a year, 25 percent of the industry was using GPS, the NAAA said, mainly because it increased accuracy by a huge margin just as environmental concerns were focusing more scrutiny on crop spraying. Before GPS, workers would stand in the field with flags on long poles to guide the airplanes. They would have to lower the poles at just the right time so the airplane would not hit them.

Unlikely Pop-Culture Phenomenon

In 2013, Disney released Planes, an animated film along the lines of the 2006 film, Cars, about Dusty Crophopper, an agricultural airplane that dreams of air racing. With a sequel the following year, in which Dusty takes up aerial firefighting, the franchise arguably gave agricultural aviation its most notable screen presence since the 1959 film North By Northwest.

What About Drones?   

As agricultural aviation looks to a future of expected growing populations and shrinking farmland, it is clear that efficiency, sustainability, and cost will affect how ag pilots operate. Unmanned aircraft systems have been part of crop spraying for years, but it remains unclear how far their roles might expand and whether they will remain largely as pilot aids or lead to levels of automation that begin to squeeze pilots out of the business.

The post History of Agricultural Aviation Reveals a Series of Turning Points appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

• aerial photography
• pipeline patrols
• search and rescue
• crop spraying
• wildfire spotting

The fuel efficiency of LSAs is a major factor in these types of aircraft now being used worldwide for many aerial work applications. However, in the United States, LSAs currently are severely limited in what “aerial work” they can do, with the only “for hire” uses of an LSA today being: 

• flight instruction
• aircraft rental
• towing of a hang glider, but not banner towing

For many years, LAMA has been working with Jonathan Scott, a senior research fellow at École des Ponts Business School to lobby the FAA to include these uses in the MOSAIC rewrite. LAMA, USUA, and Scott have also been working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other entities performing testing and data collection to prove that LSAs make sense for aerial work on many levels. As part of that work, a 2014 survey revealed that in other countries, the list of allowable types of aerial work an LSA-type airplane can perform is very long.

As we approach the release of the ongoing FAA MOSAIC regulatory rewrite, many in the LSA industry are hopeful that the case made by LAMA, USUA, and Scott will lead to a much broader list of allowable aerial work applications for LSAs in the U.S.

“One aspect of our testing confirmed that an LSA at a height of 4,500 feet agl can map 30,000 acres in about an hour,” Scott said, “while a drone would need four to six weeks to cover the same area because, by law, drones can only ascend to 400 feet. This means LSAs have the ability to do more with less if the right aircraft is matched with the right job. And from the testing we’ve been doing, we now know that LSAs can do aerial observation and imaging very well.”

Although Scott is the “driving force” behind the testing of LSAs for aerial work in the U.S., his entry into this field came almost by chance. 

“In 2017, while I was attending ground school, I came across an article written by a researcher at the USDA which highlighted their aerial-imaging program and mentioned off-hand that USDA-ARS uses six-seater aircraft to carry 10-pound cameras,” Scott explained. “So I sent the researcher an email asking why USDA was paying hourly fuel costs of over $125 [the cost of 100LL avgas at the time] when they could probably do the same job using LSAs that consume only $15 of fuel per hour. He immediately invited me to the USDA research facility in Texas and asked me to bring an LSA for testing. This was before COVID hit, so we had to wait a year, but eventually I arranged to have three different LSAs show up for testing.”

Scott’s everyday work involves eliminating waste, reducing resource use, and lowering costs in work and production processes. While visiting USDA-ARS, one of the technicians explained that most of the aircraft they use are given to them by Homeland Security (i.e., drug confiscations). The technician said that the repair, maintenance, and operation costs associated with these ‘free’ aircraft often exceeded the research center’s budget, so none of the four aircraft in the hangar were usable at the time.

When larger aircraft are replaced with LSAs, the economics are hard to dispute, Scott said. “Wildfire detection is a great example of these economics. If the state of Florida replaced its present-day wildfire-detection fleet of seventeen Cessna 172s with LSAs, the fuel savings alone would amount to over $1,000 per hour and emissions could be cut by more than two-thirds. 

“Keep in mind this doesn’t take into account all the other financial savings involved, which means Florida could probably increase the size of its wildfire detection fleet by 50 percent using LSAs and still end up paying fewer day-to-day costs than it does now.”

One of the many concepts Scott and USDA have testing is “bridging,” where two or more technologies are combined to enhance their capabilities. “In this case, we replace traditional aerial photography cameras with drones. The idea is to securely strap a small drone to an LSA thereby eliminating the height, weight, and distance limitations of the drone while enabling the LSA to transmit a live video feed to a ground crew. This is a real game-changer, especially if thermal cameras are entered into the mix because by combining a drone with an LSA, you end up with an affordable, and improved, aerial platform as well as two aircraft that can be separated and used for different applications,” Scott said.

The 2016 white paper listed the types of aerial work uses LSAs are currently performing around the world. In Germany for instance, “ultralights” (similar in fuel efficiency to our LSAs) are used for crop spraying and surveillance, herd management, inspections of pipelines, power lines, and wind turbines, aerial photography, and towing of gliders and advertising banners. In Australia and New Zealand, LSAs are being used for many of those same applications, and also shark patrols and aerial seeding.

In the work advocating to the FAA for broader allowable uses of LSAs for aerial work, it was imperative that the distinction between “aerial work” and “commercial uses” be made. “No hauling of passengers or cargo is envisioned, and flight over areas of dense population is not requested. Night and IFR operations are also not contemplated. Aerial work performed in LSAs is not expected to exceed any operation parameters of such aircraft accepted as compliant with ASTM standards,” the paper said.

While the nuts and bolts of the final MOSAIC rewrite remain a mystery, many involved in the U.S. light sport industry are hopeful that the FAA opens up this efficient part of general aviation to more aerial work applications. If that happens, it could be a win for all involved, saving operators money while opening the door for more LSA sales and a new wave of job openings for pilots and ground crews.

The post Will MOSAIC Allow LSAs To Do More? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.