Corporate History

Snow Aviation International (SAI) was founded in California in February 1986 and relocated to Columbus, Ohio in May 1987. SAI was incorporated in the State of Delaware in November 1987. SAI adopted its current location at Rickenbacker Airport in October 1993. SAI's aeronautical engineers come from the core of the aviation industry with over 800 cumulative years of experience in the planning, design, procurement, prototype development, engineering, production and logistics support of diverse aircraft types. The top executives of the company's staff were previously employed by Douglas Aircraft, Lockheed, and North American Aviation (Rockwell International) as well as other aeronautical and avionics related companies.

SAI's first development program was the SA-200 Series, twin-turboprop medium-capacity cargo airplane. The SA-200 was designed as a STOL airplane ranging from commuter/feeder airline operations to being able to transport military cargo up to loads of 25,000 pounds. The SA-200 was designed as a "Flying Truck" and built to support economic development for vehical transport, disaster relief, and tactical support to conflict activities. It is capable of operations from unimproved fields. The conceptual plan and the preliminary engineering was completed in 1992. The Company decided to follow the developement in incremental phases instead of a single project due to the unstable condition of the aerospace industry in the early 1990s.

SAI maintains ownership of a generic new cockpit using modern computer technology to present flight instrument and displays in pure digital structure which is far superior to anything offered commercially today. Redundancy is built-in to all displays and its refresh rate is many times faster than anything available today. This cockpit is referred to by SAI as the " Modern Technology Cockpit", or MTC, and can be applied to any airplane, albeit a commercial or military transport. This cockpit is designed to provide full Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) compatability.

SAI's additional products include a completely new electrical system, FAA certified on a commercially registered C-130A Hercules aircraft, but applicable to all models of the C-130 series. SAI developed this state-of-the-art electrical system which solves many C-130 electrical anomalies. The system was installed in Lockheed C-130A (Lockheed Serial Number 3035) which was originally produced in 1956. SAI also installed "off-the-shelf" commercial avionics components in the C130A. Other C-130 programs in development at SAI include structural improvements to the C130 airframe including replacement of the T56A series engines with the new Allison AE-2100 engines or Pratt & Whitney Canada PW-150A, Dowty 6-bladed propellers or Hamilton Sundstrand 8 bladed propellers, EICAS, wing tip tanks, Outer and Center Wing structural improvements, and modifications to the fuselage and avionics to create an aerial fire fighter configuration for combatting forest fires. SAI's C-130 design improvements provides for another 20 years of useful life to the aircraft and capitalizes on the maximum use of components and available systems in the commercial market. SAI has also studied and developed similar engineering and modification programs for several other aircraft including re-engining, modernization and avionics upgrades.

The company has completed studies of several programs including the C-141, S-2 Tracker, T-37/A-37, T-38/F-5, P-3 Orion, SA-16, U-10, AU-24, DC-3, DC-4, DC-8, DC-9, DC-10, B-727, and the B-747.