Eat your heart out Pitts Special pilots, because there's now a sport bi-plane that will eat you for breakfast! It’s the new Ag-Viation Toy Cat, a highly modified, customized version of the venerable Grumman G164 Ag-Cat crop duster, bi-plane.

First flown on May 22, 1957, over 2,600 Ag-Cat’s were built before production ceased in the mid-1990s. Built by Grumman, Schweizer Aircraft, the Ag-Cat Corporation and in Ethiopia by Adams Air Services, many modifications have been made to the basic design in its forty-year history. A Turbo Ag-Cat with a 750 shp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-15 turbo-prop engine probably propelled it into the ‘super plane’ realm.

Latest – and certainly most radical – manifestation of the original duster design has come from the Biggs, California company Ag-Viation that has specialized in maintenance and re-builds of Ag-Cats for many years. Located in the heart of the most intensively farmed part of the USA, California’s Central Valley, close to the state capital Sacramento, crop dusting here is big business.

Although the maneuverability and performance of the bi-plane configuration is hard to beat, the 21st century duster is more likely to be a turbo-powered, low-wing monoplane. There are hundreds of ‘retired’ and redundant Ag-Cats around and Ag-Viation saw a niche market for conversions for a discerning market of sport aviators. They unveiled the prototype Toy Cat (N672TC) at the NAAA Convention at Las Vegas last year and by June of this year had accumulated 40 hours flight time on their prototype.

The Toy Cat is a two-seat – possibly a three-seat with two accommodated in the front cockpit – version of the standard single-seat Ag-Cat. Payload is not an issue with a useful load approaching 5,000 pounds (2,250 kg)! The basic Ag-Cat had a 250-US gallon fertilizer hopper located behind the engine and in-front of the single-seat cockpit. This has been removed and converted to a front cockpit – the completion of the re-build of the whole cockpit area is a smart, one-piece bubble canopy that slides backwards and then hinges to the right-hand side to allow access to the cockpits. Dual controls mean it can be flown from either front or back cockpit.

Many radial engines have been used on Ag-Cats, all un-cowled to permit ease of access for maintenance and cleaning. The Toy Cat has a 450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine with a smart cowl-ring.

Other major mods for the Toy Cat include the substitution of fabric covering to the steel tube fuselage frame - the original Ag-Cat had a mass of easily removable alloy panels on the fuselage, again to facilitate access and cleaning. The Toy Cat’s modified spring steel undercarriage is now set off by a pair of fiberglass wheel pants. The vertical tail shape is also ‘more sexy’, curves replacing the angular and functional shape of the original. The profile of the nose, now that the hopper isn’t there, is also different, allowing better visibility while taxiing. Just the alloy skinned wings and horizontal tail surfaces remain largely un-altered.

To all this a jaunty, Pitts Special-like red and white color scheme, and its only when you see a man standing by the Toy Cat that you realize what a monster it is. Its dimensions are over double that of a standard, single-seat Pitts Special!

Ag-Viation doesn’t quote a price for the Toy Cat. They have several potential customers, but as each Toy Cat is custom made to each customer’s individual requirements – put it like this, $150,000 plus is probably a conservative estimate. Toys for big boys certainly! Toys also for the cat who’s got the cream! For more info: agviaair@manznet.com