Editor’s note: The Farm Progress Show is Aug. 27-29 in Boone, Iowa. Visit FarmProgressShow.com.

Another first for the Farm Progress Show is coming this year: the Air Tractor, which will be stationed at Lot 101 in the northwest corner of the show site.

“The Air Tractor will be flying from Boone Airport to the north parking lot,” says Rick Wild, Farm Progress Show operations manager. “We’ll then get it shuttled to their lot.”

The Air Tractor company manufactures and markets several different models of agricultural aircraft. The one displayed at this year’s show is the AT-802A. This model is the world’s largest single-engine ag aircraft. Its popularity is legendary in helping achieve high-production agriculture, Air Tractor officials say.

The productivity of this plane for spraying and other ag uses is unmatched. With a payload of 9,249 pounds and an 800-gallon hopper, the AT-802A stands alone. No other single-engine ag airplane offers more working capacity, company officials say.

With its power, speed and payload, as well as long list of features and options, the AT-802A offers new income opportunities for operators, Ag Tractor officials say.

Maximize productivity

“It lets you work faster, stay longer over the field and complete more jobs in a single load,” says Kristin Edwards, vice president of sales for Air Tractor. “With the capacity to do the work of several smaller planes, the AT-802A provides a one-pilot operation with maximum productivity”

Edwards was one of the speakers at the company’s recent 50th anniversary celebration, held at its headquarters in Olney, Texas. Her father, Leland Snow, founded Air Tractor in 1974.

“Build a better plane for spraying and other ag uses and keep improving it” was her father’s focus, she says.

Many industry veterans credit Snow for advancing ag aviation more than anyone else in the industry.

In his early 20s, Snow designed his first ag airplane, the S-1, in 1951. He then completed test flights with the S-1 in 1953. He flew the S-1 on crop-dusting and spraying jobs in the Texas Rio Grande Valley and in Nicaragua until 1957.

The next year, he moved his aircraft production activities to Olney and established the Snow Aeronautical Co. He began building the model S-2A and S-2B airplanes.

Goal: keep building it better

In 1965, Snow sold his company to Rockwell-Standard and became vice president of the Aero Commander division. During his time at Rockwell, the model S-2R was developed and named Thrush.

The first 100 Thrush aircraft were built at Olney, and then the entire Thrush aircraft production was moved to Georgia in 1970. In all, more than 500 Snow-designed aircraft were produced.

Snow resigned from Rockwell in 1970 and devoted the next two years to designing the first Air Tractor. It was an improved, modern airplane with a sleek, aerodynamically efficient airframe. Construction began in 1972 on the Air Tractor AT-300. Air Tractor’s first turbine model, the AT-302, was introduced in 1977.

It was the right aircraft introduced at the right time. Ag pilots were lining up to buy the Air Tractor. The company’s business took off, and just 16 short years later, Air Tractor delivered its 1,100th plane and began expanding its plant to increase production capacity.

Less than five years later, the 2,000th aircraft designed and built by Snow rolled out of the factory.

Snow died in 2011 at age 81. His plans and notes for the next day’s engineering meeting were on his desk at home.

Snow’s legacy lives on

Air Tractor looks forward to the next 50 years and remains committed to pushing the boundaries of excellence in the aviation industry, Edwards says.

With the support of the company’s employees, partners and community, the sky is truly the limit for Air Tractor, say company officials.

Snow is remembered as a quiet, generous and kind-natured family man whose focus and determination built one of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturing companies.

Yet for all his many accomplishments, Snow always made time to visit with ag pilots who dropped by his office or National Agricultural Aviation Association meetings.

“His commitment to pilot safety and drift minimization programs helped improve the public image of our industry,” Edwards says.

Snow’s wish was to pass the company to the employees. In 2008, Air Tractor Inc. became an employee-owned company, establishing an employee stock ownership plan.

Today, the employee-owners at Air Tractor produce the most extensive line of ag aircraft, with 400-, 500-, 600-, 800- and 1,000-gallon capacities powered by Pratt & Whitney piston or turbine engines.