In the early 1960s, John Weatherly formed the Weatherly Aviation Company, to convert 19
Fairchild M-62s into the
Weatherly WM-62C agricultural aircraft. With this experience, Weatherly designed his own agricultural monoplane, the Weatherly Model 201. The Weatherly 201 is a cantilever low-wing monoplane, with a fixed tailwheel landing gear, and powered by a nose-mounted 450 hp (336 kW)
Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engine. Its
fuselage is constructed of steel tube with aluminium panel covering, while the wings, which are unswept and have 6 degrees of
dihedral, are of all metal (aluminium) construction. It has an enclosed cockpit for the pilot, and a glassfibre 270 gallon (1022 litre) chemical hopper in the forward fuselage. It was designed for crop dusting and liquid spraying, and was certified in 1967. In 1970, the
Model 201A was introduced that had a larger chemical hopper and fuel capacity; it was also built as the
Model 201B with minor improvements. In 1975, another improved version, the
Model 201C, was introduced. By 1979, more than 100 Model 201s had been built, and it was then succeeded by the improved
Weatherly 620. ==Variants==