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The NAC Fieldmaster was a British agricultural aircraft of the 1980s. A turboprop powered single-engined monoplane, it was built in small numbers and used both as a cropsprayer and a firefighting aircraft. ==Development and design== NDN Aircraft, which was set up in 1976 by Desmond Norman, one of the founders of Britten-Norman, the manufacturers of the Islander, to build the Firecracker trainer, designed a new agricultural aircraft. The resulting aircraft, the NDN-6 Fieldmaster was a large single-engined low-winged monoplane with a fixed tricycle undercarriage, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine, the first western-built agricultural aircraft to be designed for turboprop power.〔Barnett 1980, p.800.〕 Novel features included an integral hopper made of Titanium to carry its chemical payload, which was dispersed via spray nozzles built into the flaps under the aircraft's wings.〔Barnett 1981, p.649-652.〕 The first prototype flew on 17 December 1981 at NDN's airfield at Sandown, Isle of Wight. TNDN moved the premises to Cardiff, Wales in 1985, renaming itself the Norman Aeroplane Company (NAC). Production finally started in 1987.〔Taylor 1988, p.299.〕 It was intended that parts would be produced by UTVA in Pančevo, Yugoslavia (now in Serbia) to be assembled in Cardiff.〔''Flight International'', 19 March 1988, p.12〕 NAC went into receivership in 1988, after the production of six Fieldmasters, including the prototype.〔''Flight International'' 6 August 1988, p.11.〕 Brooklands Aerospace attempted to continue production, rebuilding one of the Fieldmasters with a more powerful engine as a specialised firefighting aircraft as the Firemaster 65,〔''Flight International'' 6–12 December 1989〕 but these attempts were stopped by the outbreak of civil war in Yugoslavia.〔Donald 1997, p.673.〕 A final attempt at production was made by the Turkish Aeronautical Association (''Türk Hava Kurumu'' - THK) who started licensed production in 1997. This ended in 1999 after completion of two complete aircraft and a further two airframes lacking engines.〔Deniz, Tuncay. "(THK )" ''Turkish Aircraft Production''. Retrieved 5 September 2008.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「NAC Fieldmaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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