AG-1 Duster

Here is a plane not many of you have ever seen and it's classic legal.It's George Aldrich's AG-1 Duster from 1966 Model Airplane News.George had the landing gear in the wing and this wing is set up for it also. I can't find any pictures of the AG-1 but have found plenty of pictures of the Air Tractor and the Piper Pawnee both of which came from the AG-1. They both have the gear in the body as it is much stronger there. I didn't start this model. The wing was built many years ago by a modeler in Rochester NY who died around 8 years ago. David Merrithew in Binghamton NY got it and then built the body a few years ago. Dave gave it to me two months ago and the covering was brittle and had holes in it.I repaired it and added a new covering over the old tissue. I have used yellow tissue and yellow dope in the filler and that is what gives it the working airplane look. Several Rc flyers saw it sitting on my work bench and asked how I got the paint job that looked so real.I told them it was just primer and they said leave it alone.I am going to make it look like a working plane not a shinny contest plane.Georges plane weighted 60 ounces this one should weight 50-52 with a ST/46.

Is this the only ugly aeroplane that George ever designed? Guess it has a lot of useful built-in drag. I wonder if that's the reason?

LAST EDITED ON Nov-28-04 AT 05:34 PM (CST)
 
Eddy and Ian,

I have a copy of the MAN article in my files.

W/o pulling it out for review, as I recall, George's model was an interpretation of a cropduster designed and built at Texas A&M by undergrads. It wasn't intended for production and sale, or so they said after they found that no one was interested...

Mark Smith, from Phoenix, had one at a recent VSC. He did a very nice job on it, but it is not a beautiful bird... It flies pretty well, tho, or Mark made it look good (in the air, anyway.)

BTW, this may be the first published foam wing stunter! GMA tried sheeting a foam core. Not hollowed or internally cored beyond space for the leadouts. (All this is as I recall, remember.) He also mentioned that his original was too heavy to fly as well as he wanted. It was a matter of choice of finish method. I believe the plans showed an alternative rib and paper structure -- which is what yours looks like...

It has "character" anyway<g>.

I believe that Roy Decamera now owns the original Aldrich AG-1 Duster.

>I believe that Roy Decamera now owns the original Aldrich
>AG-1 Duster.

De:

I don't know how many "Dusters" George built or which was the original. I do remember seeing one in his shop that was a pile of yellow balsa pieces. As I recall (this was a long, long time ago), George explained he was experimenting with some "new" plastic hinges and the flap hinge pulled out with disastrous results. He was such a generous man with his time and expertise.

Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I have always thought the AG planes would make great stunt models. We see hundreds of them here in the midwest, old ones and new. It is like an airshow all summer long in SE Missori/NE Arkansas. They are very sophisticated aircraft. The one in the attached photo can carry about 800 gallons of spray. These things have better performance numbers than some Third World fighters. I think they are pretty.

Bill

Right, the MAN plans show ribs.

Aggie Ag-plane. I took my solo x-country flight to Olney, Texas, and went into a small factory on the field to get my log signed. About the summer of 1962. The designer of the planes being built there was Leland Snow. The Snow-1 was a crashed heap but the S-2s were being built and looked much like George's model. The Snow Company was bought out by Rockwell, later North American Rockwell, and continued producing crop dusters. The S-1 was, indeed, designed by at least one Texas A&M student- Leland Snow. I think his graduate thesis may have been this airplane. Best regards, dale gleason

>Is this the only ugly aeroplane that George ever designed?

Ian: Well, GMA was using duster aircraft as an inspiration, and they aren't exactly Spitfire Mk 14s as far as looks are concerned.

I think that there has been some denial about the appearance of the Flight Streak.
Chris...

I think the reason no one finished this model is it JUST AIN'T PRETTY. All that look at it " non modlers" like it. better than the pretty stunt models.It will have a industrial paint job to give it that working airplane look.I have the article on CD and the builders did make some changes but the numbers are correct.If I didn't take it,it would have been trashed soon and it was 95% done. It even has a set up so any motor can be put in it.
Ed

It certainly has a long nose!

Actually, an ag plane might be an excellent choice for a CL stunt aircraft: they have to manuever well in a tight space, low to th egraound, all while heavily loaded. WHile the "heavily loaded" part might not apply to us, th erest certainly does. Any of you who've sat and watched an ag plane go through its paces will agree that their manueverability is impressive. It's exhausting work for the pilot, too. I get tired simply watching them!

Hi Kim The nose does look long but that is from the wide angle setting on the camera. Also no detail shows up because of the color, the flash wipes it out.The nose is not square as it looks in the picture.The nose is 9 inches and the tail is 13.5 inches. Here it is with a Nobler and a Saturn Detroiter. The Duster is 625 sq inches and the Saturn is 570.The duster is a Nobler with no wing taper.Same airfoil. AS a kid in the 50's I built a Nobler with a straight wing. It had no planking but used surface spars or stringers.It was very light and flew well even though it was under powered with a Fox 35.
Ed

If you go to Google and type in "Piper Pawnee Brave" which is the PA36, you will see the full scale version of your AG-1 Duster...the Brave had a different airframe configuration than the Pawnee PA-25 and up to a 400hp engine.

It's closer to the Chief than the Nobler, or so it appears. I saw one at VSC a few years back and I think it was covered with Japanese tissue. Yellow with black trim and was very, very well done. I think it is kinda neat, not pretty, but neat. In fact I was looking at my set of plans of it, from MAN, as I was digging out the plans to the Jumbo.

George told me that this thing was a blast to fly. With that in mind I might recomend anybody to build one. "Greased wheel landings"

Here is a little bit of what I have found out about the start of the Ag-1. Fred Weich was at A&M starting in 1948 and he had a lot of input in this research plane for Ag work. He later went to work for Piper and designed the Ag-3 that became the PA-26. Snow a grad of A&M, after working in the Ag plane business and started Air Tractor and it still looks a lot like the Ag-1.The Pawnee is cleaned up a lot and they got rid of the hard corners on most of the surfaces. The rudder is the big change.The Ag-1 was a prototype and so it had little in the way of personal appeal only function.I believe the Ag-1 had a open cockpit. Here is a picture of a Cessna Husky and the front view of a newer Air Tractor.The many views that I have found of the Air Tractor show that the basic Ad-1 must have been well thought out as not much has changed 50 years. The nose on the Air Tractor looks very much like George's Ag-1
Ed

LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-04 AT 02:18 PM (CST)
 
There is a lot of confusion here. Airplanes which have more than a family resemblance to the AG-1, are not necessarily AG-1s. The top photo in the post above is a Cessna Agwagon. The bottom one is, I think, a Snow Air Tractor, turbine version. The Piper Pawnee, Snow and Cessna were all very similar appearing airplanes defined by their use. I'm not even sure who actually built the real AG-1, Snow or A&M, I think.

In any case, to be Classic legal, I would suppose that one would have to build it as George built it, and plans show it. I would think it would be very inappropriate to substitute a fuselage mounted gear for the wing mounted gear shown on the George's plans just because they happened to be used on similar Cessna and Piper agplanes, neither of whom built the AG-1.

Al, Will you trade some of your P-51 time for some of my Pawnee time? And just to keep his memory alive, John Laws, deceased DMAA member, loved his Aldrich AG-1 and I think it may be in Tom Farmer's care now. Best regards, dale g

LAST EDITED ON Dec-02-04 AT 03:53 PM (CST)
 
Al I found several histories on the early crop dusters and they all credit Fred Weich with the Ag-1. The plane was already flying by the time Snow was at A&M but he did see it and may have had input to improvements for it. The Ag-1 was a big improvement over what the Ag business had been using. The two plane above I took right off a add for used aircraft. One can see the influence of the Ag-1 in these planes.If one puts "crop duster" in Google a lot of information will come up. I have had a email letter from a friend of Georges and he saw the 1964 pictures of the Ag-1 that George took and he can't remember if it has a wing gear.The wing is all set up for a wing gear and it can be changed in ten minutes. This plane will never see a contest so none of that matters.It is just a fun project as a sport plane.It would be nice to see a picture of the Ad-1 but I haven't found any. Here is a link to a page that covers the Ag-1,A&W and Snow.
http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/GENERAL_AVIATION/dusting/GA16.htm
Ed

Just out of curiosity...I ran the Type Certificate Data Sheets on the PA-26 and the AG-1...Could'nt find these types??? Could this have been a Typo??? After viewing the Tractor and Thrushes...They look more like the model than the PA-36 Brave.

I happen to have a clipping from a 1950s Air Trails that has a plan for a CL AG-1. The plan shows either an O.K.Cub 074 or 099 for CL, and what's left of the article suggests a Cub 049 with a Merco 30 second tank for FF.
The plan says to finish the plane with Silver dope.