SNAPSHOT 1 – AIR TRACTOR AT-802 EC-LGY.

This racy-looking small floatplane was caught at Portimao Airfield, Alvor, Portugal in 2024. The Spanish operator, Martinez Ridao Aviacion of Viver, Castellon, has contracted two AT-802s to Portugal’s Autoridade Nacional de Emergencia e Protecao Civil to provide forest fire-fighting capabilities for a few years now. EC-MDD and EC-NRE were based at Portimao during the 2023 fire season and, this year (2025), EC-LGY was joined by EC-IXG.

The 802 first flew in 1990 and is built by Air Tractor of Olney, Texas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had evolved from designs for agricultural crop-dusting but an aircraft able to drop 800 gallons of liquid at one go proved very attractive to the fire-fighting world. Indeed, over a single season during the 2020s, AT-802s made 20,000 drops of fire-fighting water. This was actively encouraged by Air Tractor who hoped to distance themselves from the cyclical nature of agriculture. Similar market diversification led to the AT-802 being marketed to the military as counter-insurgency aircraft.

The line developed from the radial-engined AT-300 of 1973 via its successor, the Lycoming turboprop-powered AT-302, to the AT-400 of September 1979 which first used the Pratt & Whitney PT6A turboprop engine. The 502, similarly, used the PT6A and was followed by the 602 in 1995. The AT-802F was actually designed for fire-fighting purposes and was based on the AT-503A, a 2-seater duster with a 500 gallon capability. The 800 gallon capacity of the 802 was considered more appropriate for fire operations than for crop-dusting but the company soon launched a single-seat agricultural version which has proved popular.

Initially, it proved hard to convince forestry authorities that the single-engine water bomber had a place alongside the Constellations, DC-4s and DC-6s used in North America. Even in Europe, the French Securite Civile had moved towards using DC-6s with a payload of 3170 (US) gallons. However, in Spain, Victor Huerta had seen the potential for early-intervention aerial fire-fighting and had begun to build-up a fleet of Air Tractors. Vincente Huerta had started a crop-dusting business in 1965 at Valencia and had used aircraft such as the piper Pawnee and the Polish-built PZL Mielec M-18 Dromader. The latter had been designed with assistance from the US aerospace giant Rockwell, a company which also employed the engineer Leland Snow who subsequently went on to establish Air Tractor Inc in Texas. It was therefore a natural progression when the Huerta organisation brought the Air Tractor AT-400 and AT-500 to work in Spain. The Company bought their first two AT-802s in 1994 and began to promote their ‘Initial Fire Attack’ programme the following year.

The Huerta approach was to patrol areas of prime fire risk using the economic single-engine turboprop AT-802s. If a fire was discovered, the 802 could dump an initial 3100 litres of water on the flames before commencing a sustained follow-up in combination with other aircraft if required. The first year of operation in Spain, 1995, was a year with 20% more fires than in a normal season but, with the Initial Fire Attack programme, the area of ground damaged was 60% below the usual. The two AT-802s flew 1300 hours between them in just four months. Spain has gone on to develop the concept very successfully as have other southern European countries such as Croatia. With the AT-802 such an integral part of the operation, Huerta formed Air Tractor Europe and, in 1996, became the Texan company’s exclusive distributor for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. While offering contracts for training, logistics and maintenance to government organisations in other countries, they also operate 25 AT-802s themselves, the World’s largest fleet, and, by 2017, had supplied over 150 Air Tractor aircraft to thirteen countries. Along the way, the AT-802 has become the World’s largest-selling single-engine turboprop aircraft.

Sr. Huerta, as proprietor of Air Tractor Europe, promoted the Company move from Valencia to two dedicated bases at Paterna and Viver. The former houses new state-of-the-art administration, warehouse and training facilities. The latter makes considerable use of simulators representing both land and marine-based flying. Viver is the Company’s own airfield and is named after the founder Vincente Huerta. 85 km north-west of Valencia, it boasts a 1500m runway and a very large new hanger and apron, both constructed in 2024. Unusually, many of the aircraft parked on the apron at Viver are floatplanes such as those pictured at Portimao. These are the ‘Fire Boss’ version of the AT-802 which was built upon lessons learned from operating old-time fire-fighters such as the Canadair CL-215. The yellow Canadairs used to provide characteristic images as they descended to skim across the blue Mediterranean off the Cote d’Azur to scoop-up a load of sea water before climbing away to head back to the scene of a forest fire. The Air Tractor aircraft are fitted with Wipline 10000 scooping floats manufactured by the Wipaire company of St.Paul, Minnesota, the World’s largest manufacturer of aviation floats. The AT-802F only needs to skim the surface of a lake or the sea for a brief 15 seconds to refill the tanks with over 3000 litres of water. Being small aircraft, they are also able to scoop water from fresh water dams and lakes which avoids potential soul damage caused by using salty sea water.

In Iberia, fire fighting is arranged geographically via regional authorities such as Infoca (Incendios Forestales de Andalusia) and Infocam (Incendios Forestales de Castilla La Mancha) in Spain and Autoridade Nacional de Emergencia e Protecao Civil in Portugal. The contracts are substantial and this has encouraged several contractors to enter the market. The company Avialsa had been set-up as the parent company of Air Tractor Europe and Vincente Huerta was a director. During the period from around 2010, 37 to 41 aircraft were operated on fire fighting operations and, of these, around fifteen were owned by Avialsa. Other companies which shared the market included Pegasus Aviation, Martinez Ridao, TAE, INAEL and SAETA. However, following the departure of an Avialsa manager, allegations were made that the contracts with regional government agencies were being fixed by a ‘Cartel del Fuego’ masterminded by none other than Vicente Huerta. Arrests were made in 2016 with 30 people and 20 companies implicated in a case which linked company directors with the Spanish Minister for the Interior, regional government officials and 100 million euros-worth of contracts. The court case dragged-on until this year (2025) and several guilty counts were returned. In particular, Vicente Huerta’s Avialsa was sanctioned and the company was re-incarnated as the Titan Firefighting Company, still based in Viver and Valencia. Martinez Ridao seems to have been found less culpable and continues to provide Portugal’s fire-fighting patrols from its base at Utrera outside Seville. As a demonstration of the convoluted nature of the contractors, one of the AT-802Fs at Portimao was titled ‘SAETA’ (EC-IXG) and one labelled Martinez Ridao Aviacion’ (EC-LGY).

Sources: https://agairupdate.com/2017/07/05/air-tractor-802-series-marks-25-years-700-airplanes