The Ayres Thrush, formerly the Snow S-2,[1]Aero Commander Ag Commander, and Rockwell Thrush Commander, is an American
agricultural aircraft produced by
Ayres Corporation and more recently by
Thrush Aircraft. It is one of the most successful and long-lived agricultural application aircraft types in the world, with almost 2,000 sold since the first example flew 68 years ago. Typical of agricultural aircraft, it is a single-seat
monoplane of
conventional taildragger configuration. Originally powered by a
radial piston engine, most examples produced since the 1980s have been
turboprop-powered.
Design and development
Early Snow S-2A of 1959 with open cockpit and roll-over protection bar at
Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 1997, in pseudo-USAAF markings
The Thrush, designed by
Leland Snow, first flew in 1956 and before long was being produced in series as the S-2 by the company he founded,
Snow Aeronautical.[1] In 1965, the corporation and all of its assets were purchased by the
Aero Commander division of
Rockwell, which put it into production alongside the
CallAir A-9 that it had also acquired, branding both unrelated (though similar) machines as "Ag Commanders". When Rockwell dropped the Aero Commander brand, the S-2 was renamed the "Thrush Commander".
In 1977, Rockwell sold off the production rights to the aircraft and the production facility at
Albany, Georgia, which were purchased by Ayres Corporation, a firm which had been built on retro-fitting turboprop engines to Thrush Commanders. On June 30, 2003, Ayres' assets were purchased by
Thrush Aircraft, the current producer of the aircraft.
The S-2 and its several variants have been purchased by agricultural spraying operators in many countries. Large numbers are operated in the United States and Australia, while other countries using the type include Costa Rica, France, Guyana, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Ayres developed a special anti-narcotics crop-spraying version of the Turbo-Thrush for the
United States Department of State. This version, known as the Narcotics Eradication Delivery System (NEDS)[2][3] featured an armored cockpit and engine to protect against hostile ground fire. Nine were sold to the Department of State between 1983 and 1985.[4] Ayres also attempted to market a militarized version as the Ayres Vigilante, intended for the
Close Air Support role, but this failed to attract customers.[5] IOMAX USA of North Carolina, which had previously modified
Air Tractor AT-802 agricultural aircraft as reconnaissance/attack aircraft, has developed the Archangel attack aircraft modeled on the S-2R-660. The
United Arab Emirates has ordered 24 Archangels, with delivery from June 2015.[6]
Two Thrush 510Gs were modified to perform a
counter-insurgency role by the Austrian company Airborne Technologies at the direction of
Erik Prince, the former head of
Blackwater, but in the absence of an export license the aircraft have not been used operationally.[7]