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Flying One of the First Ag Planes Ever Produced! The Snow S-2A
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- čas přidán 11. 12. 2022
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In October, we made plans to visit Tyson’s Dad and Step-Mom who live outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. Air Repair is an ag aircraft dealer and maintenance shop located in Cleveland, Mississippi and we knew we’d be within a relatively close drive of there staying at Tyson’s dad’s place. Normally we wouldn’t seek out specific dealers or maintenance shops, but there’s something special about Air Repair. For the last year or so, they have maintained and hangared a fully restored and operating Snow S-2. The Snow S-2 was one of Leland Snow’s first aircraft designed specifically for ag aviation. The Snow S-2 followed shortly after the S-1, which was the very first rendition and the second airplane ever designed specifically for ag aviation. Check out the Ag Aviation Timeline here to learn more.
Leland Snow is the pioneer of Ag Aviation and he is the brains behind both of the two most popular ag aircraft used today. After the Snow S-2, he went on to rename/redevelop under the name Thrush Aircraft. When Thrush moved from Texas to Georgia, Leland resigned and started Air Tractor. It’s hard to say what Ag Aviation would be today without Leland Snow. What’s even more wild, shortly after Leland, who at the time was 23, completed test flights with the S-1 in 1953 he flew the S-1 on application jobs in both Texas AND in Nicaragua until 1957. Ag Air Update has dubbed Leland Snow “the godfather of the modern ag aircraft” and we couldn’t agree more.
Back to our experience, but this really didn’t feel appropriate without a little background on Leland Snow. To be able to fly a fully restored Snow S-2 is an absolutely incredible opportunity and one we couldn’t let go of. So we drove the 4 hour one-way drive down to Cleveland on a beautiful sunny day in October. Pete Jones kindly took part of his morning to meet with us, get the Snow out of the Hangar, fill it with oil and fuel, and run Tyson through it.
I don’t really see Tyson nervous too often, but I could tell he was quite nervous to fly this airplane. Not only is it a major piece of Ag Aviation history, but it is beautifully restored and one of the only ones flying today. No pressure.
We mounted a few cameras on the Snow and Tyson was off. I was a little bummed because I only got to see the takeoff and then see him fly off into the distance. I didn’t really get any great photos from the ground. When he landed, some new friends from the town over were waiting for us. Jon and Angela Byrd had flown over in a Citabria to meet up with us. We only ever knew Jon and Angela from the internet and were also blown away that they took time out of their day to come meet up with us.
Jon told me to jump in the Citabria and we’d go chase Tyson around in the Snow. I couldn’t believe it and I was so stoked to actually get some shots of Tyson flying from the air. I’ve always wanted to take photos while flying of other airplanes but have never had the opportunity (spoiler alert it is way harder than anyone makes it look!). We’re very appreciative of Jon and Angela for this experience.
Overall, we had such an incredible experience of both Tyson flying the Snow and me being able to watch him fly from the air. Tyson loved every second of flying the Snow and it was evident in his beaming smile after he landed. He’s never even flown an open-cockpit aircraft before so I think that alone was a cool experience. Not to mention flying one of the first-ever ag specific airplanes. He said he couldn’t even imagine working in one. The seat alone was quite uncomfortable.
We had the best day and we were so happy to have made the drive down to Cleveland. We didn’t really have any expectations of what would come of the day but we were blown away by every aspect. Pete’s generosity with his time getting us off the ground, Air Repair, Air Tractor and others making it possible for ag pilots to fly this piece of history, and Jon and Angela for meeting up with us in the Citabria. Honestly, we think back to this day now and it just brings a huge smile to our faces.
Here are some more things to check out:
A Century of Ag Aviation Timeline: 1921-2021: agairupdate.com/2021/08/02/a-...
Air Repair Inc. Cleveland, MS: airrepairinc.com/
Air Tractor: airtractor.com/
Leland Snow: www.texasmonthly.com/the-cult...
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Back in the early seventies while in high school I was the ground/loadman for my first flight instructor. He instructed during the winter and crop dusted during the summer. He had a Snow S-2B with a Pratt R985. N6175U. I will never forget those days. He would go out, return shortly and I would fill the hopper, clean the windshield and hand pump 80 octane into both wing tanks. All without him leaving the seat. Big time stuff for a 16 year old.
That is awesome what great memories!
My dad was one of the main people who restored this airframe! This is crazy to see now
That's awesome!!
AgAir update shared a photo of this airplane, which lead me to this video. This S2A has such a cool backstory. It was purchased over 15 years ago now as a restoration project and a way to give back to the ag community. Eventually it is destined for a museum, but for now the owner wanted to give ag pilots a chance to fly this piece of history. It has been at Air Repair in Mississippi for a while now where numerous people have been able to take it up.
I have photos of it from 10+ years ago but cant share them in a CZcams comment.
SN#25 started the project and a secondary S2A was acquired for parts along the way. Both were purchased in Texas.
This is the result of lots of work and help from many people… So cool to see it fly.
Thanks for the comment! Glad you found us through the photo. It was a very special day for us!!
Well growing up in south Texas lower Rio Grande . Valley we had lots crop dusting companies. During the 60 70 80s I love watching the old commander thrush .I work in Mcook. Texas. Ground crew.flagger ..the airport in Edinburgh. was Norman & White. Of highway 281 they had a couple of snows.
That's awesome! What memories.
Have always been interested in this aircraft since it was restored. Thank you, Tyson, for the walk-around and flight report. Time machine of agricultural aviation!
Thanks for watching Brad.
What a treat to get to fly that piece of history!! It speaks well of your abilities also that they would allow you to take their museum piece out for a test flight. I bet sitting out there on the firewall was a trip!! Thanks for sharing Tyson!!
Thanks for watching Rob, it was a blast!
What a beautiful bird!
It sure is!
Back in the day. They were very conservitive with HP. The original Steermen had only 220 hp , original PA-18 95 hp, ect ect.
But it's still a real thrill to fly that old stuff. Back then, the operators were braging about thier preformance. .
Great video, great experience
That’s true!
HEY, Cleveland! I used to live there!
Very cool!
My husband is from Cleveland Ms. His dad worked at Christmas flying service in Shelby Ms. Thank you for sharing.
That is so neat! It was our first time to that area of the country and we really enjoyed it.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting. “Fly low and fly slow.” I recently saw an aviation aphorism saying: “Altitude. Airspeed. Brains. You need two of the three to survive.” I guess the folks who flew these airplanes needed plenty of brains to offset the shortage of the other two. :)
Haha yes that seems about right.
Not sure about that, I didn't have a problem flying it.. but I was only 18 years old and did not know a whole lot about anything.. When I was flying it, 110 was normal in the winter and 90 mph during the summer. Normal load was 100 gallons when it was cold and 40 gallons when it was hot.. Fun was spraying greenbugs in western oklahoma during the winter and having to wait for it to get up to 40 degrees so that the mix in the booms would not freeze on the way to the fields, didn't say much for the temps in the cockpit..
I couldn’t imagine that!
I remember the SN-2 from '62. We lived near my hometown airport and I saw the spray pilot flying it from time to time. I loved it then and I love it now. As a long time pilot who used to flag and mix chemicals for crop dusters, I would love to fly that plane!
Those sound like great memories!
I saw one at the Allendale, South Carolina Airport about 1975 while on a x- cou try flight between Thomasville, Georgia and Timmonsville, South Carolina....
That’s pretty neat!
I remember the Stearman when I was a little boy in the mid 50s.
Pete used to restore them and had a couple extremely nice restored ones sitting around. Such a cool aircraft.
enjoyed the vidieo.i love aircraft and love flying.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!
Good morning to all from SE Louisiana 17 Nov 22.
Good morning bill!
Thanks for sharing your video. I enjoyed watching. Take care and God Bless.
Thanks for watching Walt.
Awesome video. Pete’s one of kind. My dad’s dad flew stearmans as a crop duster and my dad was loadman. And in the video you were about 1/2 mile from their house. He was killed in helicopter spraying cotton when hung a wire on the skids and flipped the helicopter. Also in merigold was Dorr field where a lot of early ag pilots were trained.
He is one of a kind! Sounds like you have some awesome family history.
This video has a fun factor of at least 17!!!!
😅
That was awesome. Never really visualised a aircraft like this ... wow
Thanks for watching!
KRNV is my home airport. I always love watching this plane and Pete's other great planes fly around.
He has some pretty dang cool airplanes that’s for sure!
Mr. Snow came through Miami, Florida about 1960 when I worked at Mike's Flying Service at Old Tamiami Airport....A real nice person and I believe I still have the photo somewhere that I took of the airplane....
That would be a very cool photo to have laying around.
Love it! Thanks for sharing with all of us!
Thanks for watching!
Welcome to the Mississippi Delta!
Hah! I live in Cleveland. You actually flew right over my house if you took off going north or landed headed south. My house is right under the final approach at the north end of the airport. I watched the old snow fly around a few times.
It was our first time there and really blew us away. Totally different then other places we’ve been.
@@AgAviationAdventures on any given day during the growing season you can look in any direction and see an ag plane making a turn off in the distance. Our pilot has been flying on cover crop and burn down in between weather events in the past couple of weeks. They work all year long now whereas in the past, they’d be off from October through March.
That’s a long season!
So cool tractor!!!
It is cool!
Grew up in the lower Texas Rio Grande Valley agricultural area in the 60's. There were 2 Snows that flew out of the Edinburg airport. I was always fascinated watching them operate.
That’s awesome!
All was wondered about these weird looking birds!
Thanks for watching
Pretty cool to fly one of them ol birds👍👍
It was a great opportunity!
Saw this and talked to Pete at OSH 2022. Very cool and magnificent restoration job.
Also speaks highly of you that they allowed you this opportunity.
They did a beautiful job on it.
What a beautiful restoration! 😍
I was just thinking about the S-2 the other day, wondering if there were any still flying.
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Thanks for watching!
I used to work for delta state university in Cleveland Mississippi as a flight instructor! Missed a chance to see Tyson fly by about 6 months! I left for a new job.
Oh that would have been fun! Congrats on the new job.
Have your ever read up on Fred Wieke who designed the Ercoupe, Piper Cherokee, and the PA-25 Pawnee?
No I have not
Fred Weick worked at Texas A&M on aerial application technology. Leland Snow was one of his students.
Now that’s some cool history!
It is interesting reading about the competition that Texas A&M held during the 1950's with the goal of developing the best purpose built Ag-Airplane and seeing which one of the major builders ended up with each of the designed airplanes..
I live near Cleveland. I actually know one of Air Repiair employees. Good folks
That’s awesome! You live in a beautiful area.
Nice video! You really should grab an opportunity to get in a Stearman, they are something else :-)
That would be incredible! Pete used to own a company restoring them and had a few fully restored ones sitting around. I was hoping he’d tell me to take one up, but he never did….
You need to take a look at the Fletcher FU 24. Designed in 1952 by John Thorpe, flew in 1954 and still going strong today. Developed into the Cresco with a turbine. Half the power of an Air Tractor, but will carry 2/3 of the load...! Great video by the way....
That’s so cool! I’ve seen videos of the Fletcher, such neat aircraft!
@@AgAviationAdventures I'm down here in NZ. There are less than 20 full time Ag operators in the entire country. So very close nit community. Nearly all use the Cresco. The odd Air tractor and a Beaver...! ( recently pranged. ) Keep up the good work.
Congratulations on your other news!
Thank you!!!
I worked on one years ago that was used for a glider tow in Texas.
That’s pretty cool! I didn’t realize they used any for gliders.
My cousin owned a agcat and there is another one working around Cherokee Oklahoma
That’s awesome! Love the ag cat
A Friend of mine bought one in the 70"s from down around ark. Flew from there to Eastern N.C. Had one inst. in it working..... the airspeed. Leading edge of the wings looked like someone had taken bondoe and threw it at the wings.
Haha that is awesome!
That is so very cool.
Check out Popeye Lucas's efforts in NZ back in the late 40's using a TBM Avenger. Cool Ag history
Oh wow I’ll have to read up on that!
For fun! Good stuff there! I never knew Snow built the first ones with the hopper behind the cockpit. He must have realized latter on it was safer to put the cockpit behind the hopper, putting the pilot farther back, with more of an energy absorbing crumple zone in front of him. A long time ago my Dad had an early model open cockpit Grumman Ag Cat for a while, after he realized they were much better safer ag airplanes than the Super Cubs with Sorenson sprayer kits he had been using. He lost his best friend who was spraying with one of his super cubs in a crash unfortunately. I think later on he got an enclosure kit with doors for the cat. It was somewhat underpower too with a 275 hp shaky Jake on it. I know later models had 450 hp + Pratts on em and a lot have been converted to turbo props now.
That’s so cool that your dad sprayed with an open cockpit ag cat.
I think the bigger problem was with the hopper being that far behind the center of lift, there was a limit on how much the aircraft would have been able to fly with. Moving the hopper over the center of lift made it easier to increase the load that the bigger engines would carry.. With the newer purpose built aircraft, one Snow or Ag-Cat could do the work of several Cubs or Stearmans cutting down on expenses of aircraft and pilots..
@@hangertails3384 ok thanks for that, makes a lot of sense. Long ago I read somewhere the issue was made that putting the pilot farther rearward and higher up was somewhat safer in the event of an accident. I think It also said something like the bowed design of the longerons helped to absorb energy as the airframe progressively collapsed from the front towards the rear on a frontal impact. The article may well have said that the safety factors were an additional benefit of moving the hopper over the center of lift with the pilot behind it and I didn't remember that part.
@@oneninerniner3427 I clicked a button and lost the reply that I had typed, dont know if it will show up later or not. Don't know why Mr. Snow designed the S2A the way that he did, sure could see a lot from up there. Mr. Snow had practical experience with the airplanes of the day and must have had an idea of how to improve on the current equipment of the day. Things changed a lot during the 1950's with the ag aircraft, so with those advancements things changed and having the cockpit behind the hopper gave more options for safety and usability. I remember being told that the Ag-Cat would absorb a 40 G impact, but never felt that the S2A was an unsafe airplane the way that we were using them.
@@hangertails3384 sure, aerial application has come a long way since those times. I guess I wasn't implying the S2A was unsafe, just that it was a unique design that I somehow had never seen before.
I can recall lots of stories of our antics spraying in those days too. Some good, some not so much. I kind of miss it and kind of don't. kind of dates me tho. ha! Fly low!
The CallAir A7 and A7T are very rare....Maybe oneday you can find one and do a video on it....
I’d love that!
The S2C the nc forest service had front hoppers, fabric tails and metal skins over tube fuselage and metal wings. I think it would hold almost 250 gal of fire retardent. They had 600 hp P&Ws on the front and had mixture, throttle ect. On the quadrant to the left.
Oh wow quite an update. That’s awesome that you remember that.
A friend of mine just passed away recently that had a complete Snow minus the engine I don’t want to see it cut up for scrap, his name was David Black in Searcy Arkansas, maybe someone can rescue it! 9:51 12-14-22
That would be great if it doesn’t end up as scrap.
I don’t live far from Cleveland ms I grew up in ag aviation and am farming now
That’s awesome! What a great place to farm.
I almost bought one belonging to air show performer Mr. McPherson that appeared in the background in a Pepi Longstocking movie....
That would be cool to have something with a story like that behind it.
The PA-25, same time, seems so much more modern by co
mparison
I feel like the advancements came quick after the first one.
What a great opportunity! It would seem like a higher aspect ratio wing (like you describe in your Air Tractor) would be a better match for application flights. What's the advantage of the lower aspect ratio in the S2 and Thrush?
The Thrush seems to haul a load better. It’s not quite as fast but it feels more stable.
A lot of the customers in that time thought that a fast airplane was cheating them out of their money.. Not sure if there was a speed limit on using dry media, using a spreader, but it seemed like 80 mph was as fast as they wanted.. and that was with flying with the landing gear in the crops.. Seems like carrying a bigger load was more important than flying faster..
There are two airplanes that look just like that in Clarksville Tx.
Oh wow that’s very interesting.
I can't imagine how long it would take to spray a section with only 85 gallons. must have used real low volume in the day.
Right!
In our area, most of our work was for bugs, most of the time at 1/2 gallon to the acre. Would take 100 gallons and take about an hour to use it up. During the winter, up to 120 gallons.. In the summer, 40 gallons would keep you worried.
New Zealand was the first to do crop spraying just after ww2 they used tigermoths
The US was experimenting with lead arsenate out of a Curtiss JN-6 in 1921.
Nice video. why is your hand contantly doing up down eleavator? Is that the plane?
I'm guessing you're talking about the movement in the stick? That's just how you have to fly it.
Would have been nice to hear this airplane running or flying past.
We’ll be publishing a video that’s raw footage of flying.
Factory tour of thrush next?
Maybe!
👋🏻😁👍🏻
Thanks for watching Jakob.
Where are the spray nozzles?
It does not have booms currently mounted.
We had a 1959 S2A that had an R985 engine and larger hopper. Not the safest plane with pilot squeezed between engine and hopper.
Wow that’s a pretty cool. That would have been an experience.
The S2A is not a dangerous if you fly it like it was designed to fly. The problem is letting someone that is not used to that big wing trying to pull too much pitch at the end of the run and having their speed/energy killed in the climb out and running out of airspeed before getting the nose down to level in the turn.. Otherwise it is a flying tank..
more less back to basics simple and clean. No excess stuff to make it complicated
Exactly.
I sure would have enjoyed a more raw video of the flight
That is coming next. Cally is editing all the 360 video but it will be published on here.
Fly at your own RISK! , you would be feeling wind/bug beaten after 8 hours in that.
No kidding, I was tired after an hour.
Several would put the canopy off of a T-6 on them to get out of the wind. Wasn't too bad on the 240hp, but get rough with a 450hp..
Looks like you're getting some elevator feed back. A little unnerving I would imagine. Google Yeoman Cropmaster YA 1 250R. Nicest flying ag aircraft you will find. IMO
Thanks for watching!