The Ag Cat was the first aircraft specifically designed by a major aircraft company for agricultural aviation. Grumman engineers Joe Lippert and Arthur Koch began designing the crop-dusting airplane in 1955 as a way of meeting a pressing need in the agricultural community. The first prototype flew in 1957.
The initial market surveys suggest that 100 to 200 planes per year could be sold. It was initially proposed that the airplane be marketing as The Grasshopper, but since Gruman’s naming tradition used the suffix “cat” in aircraft name (such as Wildcat and Hellcat), it was decided to call the new airplane the Ag Cat.
Due to large military orders, Grumman subcontracted the program to the Schweizer Aircraft Company of Elmira, New York. Full production began in 1959 and from initial production through 1981, a total of 2,455 were built. The Ag Cat was displayed in the Erickson Aircraft Collection in Madras, Oregon.
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