It's kind of tractor related...

I got to watch a free tractor show today... Well actually an air tractor show. There was a big forest fire about a mile south of my property and I was watching 4 water bombers flying less than 200 ft above me, every few minutes for a few hours. Pretty neat to watch and there were several other planes and helicopters around as well. I was curious what kind of planes they were so googled them. They were AT802F fire boss planes with floats. Around 1400 HP and scoop up 820 gallons in 30 seconds! The AT stands for Air Tractor. Very interesting. They are used a lot for AG service as spraying planes too. On Thursday I was watching a 4 engine engine plane with what looked like a big bomb on the bottom. 2 of them and also 2 twin engine ones were dropping fire suppression material to try to contain the fire. I think it's under control finally but the county declared a state of emergency. One house and a couple farm buildings were lost but they prevented any other structures from being burnt up. A bunch of people had to be evacuated, some just because of the smoke. Thankfully the wind wasn't coming my way. I would have had the water truck earning its keep for sure. Dave

i bet that was a cool show

Air Tractor Aircraft Company (Air Tractor,Inc.)was originally founded in Olney, TX by Leland Snow. Until recently, the AT802 was the largest single engine aircraft in the world. They have designed a bigger one, the AT1002 new for this year. The AT802 has a turbine of over 1400 hp and can carry an 8,000 pound payload. It has a wing span of almost 60 feet.