There seem to be at least 17 variants of the Air Tractor, and I’m not at all sure which one this is.

According to Wikipedia:

Leland Snow began designing his first airplane, the S-1, in 1951. The 23-year-old Snow completed test flights with the S-1 in 1953. Snow’s S-1 flew dusting and spraying jobs in the Texas Rio Grande Valley and in Nicaragua until 1957. He followed-up the S-1 with the models S-2A and S-2B, which were built when Snow moved to production facilities in Olney, Texas in 1958.

In 1965, Leland Snow sold his company to Rockwell-Standard and was appointed a Vice President of the Aero Commander division. During this time, the Model S-2R was developed and named the Thrush. The first 100 Thrush aircraft were built at the Olney Division before the plant was closed and Thrush production moved to Georgia in 1970. More than 500 aircraft were produced under Snow Aeronautical Corporation and Rockwell-Standard in Olney.

Snow resigned from Rockwell and devoted the next two years designing the Air Tractor. Construction began in 1972 on the AT-300, which later became the AT-301. Air Tractor’s first turbine model, the AT-302, was introduced in 1977.

Sixteen years later, Air Tractor delivered its 1,100th airplane and soon began expanding the Olney plant for increased capacity. Today, Air Tractor produces a line of aircraft that includes 400, 500, 600, and 800-gallon capacity planes powered by Pratt & Whitney piston or turbine engines.

I’d never seen such a large military aircraft in flight and eager to do so. So I was a bit disappointed when it didn’t appear on the programme for the particular day that we went. However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the announcement that this aircraft would be flying that day. It’s very impressive. Above seen taking off with the Blue Angels in the foreground.

According to Military.com:

The C-17 Globemaster serves as the U.S. Air Force’s primary strategic lift aircraft for global transport of troops and equipment. The C-17 is capable of rapid strategic delivery of troops and all types of cargo to main operating bases or directly to forward bases in the deployment area. The aircraft can perform tactical airlift and airdrop missions and can transport litters and ambulatory patients during aeromedical evacuations when required. The inherent flexibility and performance of the C-17 force improve the ability of the total airlift system to fulfill the worldwide air mobility requirements of the United States.

Reliability and maintainability are two outstanding benefits of the C-17 system. Current operational requirements impose demanding reliability and maintainability. These requirements include an aircraft mission completion success probability rate of 92 percent, only 20 aircraft maintenance man-hours per flying hour, and full and partial mission availability rates of 74.7 and 82.5 percent, respectively.

The Globemaster III was designed to be able to land on runways as short as 3,500 feet and as narrow as 90 feet. With engine thrust reversers, the C-17 can back up and turn around on very small runways in forward operating bases.