Ag Cats Only

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About Ag Cats Only

First off, welcome to the group. You can join and add your Ag-Cat photos if you have them.

The designers of the Ag-Cat, Joe Lippert and Arthur Koch, set out in the spring of 1956 to design a new amphibian for Grumman. On there tour around the country they noticed several biplane crop dusters working or being serviced. Also noticed was the fact that the mostly commonly used aircraft were surplus Stearmans used in World War II for training. After their return, Lippert and Koch meet with LeRoy Grumman, founder of Grumman Aircraft to discuss there findings. They presented Grumman with footage of several biplanes working the fields and suggested that they focus on a special purpose aircraft designed for aerial application. In the fall of 1956 LeRoy Grumman authorized the pair to design the aircraft.

The Ag-Cat was given the engineering number G164 because it was the 164th aircraft designed by Grumman. It had many models, the G-164, G-164A, G-164B, G-164C, G-164D. It was also given the name "Ag-Cat" because Grumman had other models named cat such as the "Hell-Cat", "Bear-Cat", and "Wild Cat". The first prototype flew in May of 1957. Because the aircraft would have cost too much to build by Grumman, the project was subcontracted out to Schweizer, which owned the rights to the Ag-Cat decades later. The first production aircraft started in August 1958 and was flown October 17, 1958. The Ag-Cat rights have been owned by several different companies over the years including Schweizer from 1980-1995, with a total of 2,646 ag-cats built by 1994. All of this information was gathered from the MUST READ book by William Schweizer, "The Ageless Ag-Cat".

Feel free to join and add all of your ag cat or ag cat related photos. No matter what year, what model (G-164 a,b,c,d), or what condition its in, its wanted here. It can be of control surfaces, ground, air to air, engines, crashed or abandoned. Does not matter, please add. Lets make this a sucessful and friendly group.

Thank you all and spread the word!