It is one of the most successful and long-lived agricultural application aircraft types in the world, with almost 2,000 sold since the first example flew 69 years ago.

Typical of agricultural aircraft, it is a single-seat monoplane of conventional taildragger configuration.

This version, known as the Narcotics Eradication Delivery System (NEDS)[2][3] featured an armored cockpit and engine to protect against hostile ground fire.

[6] Two Thrush 510Gs were modified to perform a counter-insurgency role by the Austrian company Airborne Technologies at the direction of Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater, but in the absence of an export license the aircraft have not been used operationally.

[7] (per Simpson, 2005, p. 39) Powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A it could mount FLIR cameras and could carry up to 1,200 lbs of NATO standard weapons as well as gunpods on six under-wing pylons.