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Leland Snow

Born in 1930, Leland Snow started building model airplanes at the age of six, and while in high school in Harlingen, he was given a job washing and fueling airplanes in return for flying time. He soloed on his 16th birthday. Before he graduated in 1952 from Texas A&M University in the Department of Aeronautical (Aerospace) Engineering, Mr. Snow became involved in a special project to design and build a new agricultural aircraft. This aircraft would have increased payload and performance but would eliminate the vices that attended so many gallant Stearman biplanes, the standard crop-dusting planes built for training in the 1930s.  His continuing dreams and innovative achievements resulted in a position of being owner of the largest agricultural aircraft company in the world, Air Tractor, Inc. Air Tractor has outlived both the Cessna and Piper in the agricultural plane market and is currently the world's largest producer of such aircraft. Leland Snow was inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000.