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Two inches. Tops.That was all the clearance Dan Dressler had when he carefully drove the 106-inch tall, 12,000-pound Tucker Sno-cat into the belly of a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 Hercules transport plane Tuesday morning at the Medford airport. The cargo bay ceiling is precisely 108 inches above the floor. But Dressler, sales and service representative for the Medford-based Tucker Sno-cat Corp., had a bit more elbow room in the 105-inch wide bay. The Sno-cat with its four tracks was only 98 inches wide, leaving Dressler 31/2 inches to spare on each side. Nor was the Sno-cat's massive weight a concern for the C-130 crew before they began the long journey north to Alaska. The Sno-cat is bound for a Coast Guard outpost on the remote Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. "Not a problem," said Lt. Cmdr. Matt Duben, 44, one of two pilots who flew the aircraft down from its base on Kodiak Island. The plane has a maximum payload of some 32,600 pounds. "It's just a matter of meeting our max weight," he added. "We can do that with either fuel, cargo or a combination of the two. With three quarters of a tank of gas on a C-130, we can get all the way back to Kodiak from here. No problem." After they return to Kodiak, the Sno-cat will be flown to St. Paul, the northernmost of the Pribilof Islands, roughly 900 air miles west of Kodiak Island. The $150,000 machine, the third the Coast Guard has bought from Tucker Sno-cat since 2004, will be used to transport helicopter pilots from their quarters to the hangar several miles away. "In the Pribilofs, they get 25-foot drifts on the road and 100 mph winds — they need something like this to get them there," Dressler explained. "The blade is designed to cut drifts out of the way. They'll definitely need the blade." The Sno-cat will replace a 1973 snow vehicle, one that has been breaking down on St. Paul. The older vehicle was not made by the local firm, which Dressler described as the only "over-snow vehicle manufacturer left in this country," not including snowmobile firms. "The biggest market we have in the country is grooming snowmobile trails and personnel transport," Dressler said, adding the firm's main competitors are in eastern Canada and Germany. "We have a small niche compared to them but we do a lot of repeat business," he added. The firm, which has about 45 employees, sells 50 to 100 Sno-cats a year, he said. One is being delivered to Turkey now; another one is being built to be sent there, he said. The model heading to Alaska is a 1643RE, an eight- passenger vehicle with a 50-gallon fuel tank. It runs on about 21/2; gallons of diesel per hour. "That's quite a bit better fuel economy — about 40 percent better — than the older diesel engines because of its new electronics," he said, noting it meets new EPA standards. "With the rubber track, you can go on the snow or anywhere and not mess up the ground," observed Marcus McNeil, 32, of Ashland, the production manager of Tucker Sno-cat, which his great grandfather, Emmett Tucker Sr., started in the 1930s. The firm has been based in Medford since 1942. "It drives just like a car," McNeil said before Dressler steered it into the belly of the C-130. After Dressler climbed down, the C-130 crew quickly tied the Sno-cat securely. Known in military parlance as the "Herk," the C-130 has been a workhorse for the U.S. military since it was first produced by Lockheed in the mid-1950s. In Alaska, it is used for everything from bringing in equipment and supplies to search and rescue. "It's a phenomenal aircraft, especially for the Coast Guard," Duben said. "We haul everything from Sno-cats to boat parts." Once the Sno-cat arrives in Kodiak, it will be flown out to St. Paul within about two weeks, he said. "The only time we can't get in there is when the weather gets real bad," said the veteran pilot, who's on his second tour in Alaska. "But if we can't, we try to get in the next day or two. No problem." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected].