Free air show

Geo-TH,In · Jun 18, 2014

Got to watch a free air show from backyard. Neighbor was having his corn sprayed. The pilot must love his job. He puts the bird just a few feet off the ground and then pulls up just missing trees, power lines. Not a lot of room for error. How does he know where he has sprayed? GPS?

JMS/.MN · Jun 18, 2014

We"ve had our beans done twice with aerial app when aphid numbers got too high. Yes, they use GPS now so no spotter needed on the ground. Auto turn on/off on field ends.

Dick2 · Jun 18, 2014

Even the skilled pilots have a mishap once in awhile. One near us clipped a guy wire on a tall TV tower; he went into the ground in a ball of fire and the TV tower came crashing down.

We also had a Marine helicopter get too close to a different tall TV tower and brought it down too. Helicopter crashed; no survivors.

David G · Jun 18, 2014

Probably one of the most dangerous jobs out there.

crwilson · Jun 18, 2014

Here are a couple of pictures I took of our ag pilot a couple of years ago. He's 59 and been flying all of his life. He's putting out Roundup for burndown before we plant our no till soybeans.

Geo-TH,In · Jun 18, 2014

That looks like the bird I watched today. Neighbor says the farmer owns the plane and his boy flys it.

crwilson · Jun 18, 2014

This is one of Southern Air's Planes. They are headquartered in Des Arc Arkansas but they fly all over the Arkansas River Valley. This plane has since been painted Razorback Red with the Hog logo on the tail section. They have at least two of these 802-A Ag Tractors.

HenryO · Jun 18, 2014

I was stationed in Laredo Texas in 1952 for pilot training and when ever we were off duty we would go to the local airfield early in the morning and the crop dusters , who flew what they called bull cubs, a piper J-3 with fABRIC ONLY ON THE TAILS AND WINGS and a hopper behind them, let us fly the planes out to the fields and then wait and fly them home. All the crop dusters were WWII pilots. Many got killed doing that.

Mark · Jun 18, 2014

Piper Pawnee.

There are old pilots and bold pilots....but there are no old, bold pilots.

RBnSC · Jun 18, 2014

I remember watching a Pilot spray our beans when I was a kid. I didn't know I was going to marry His next door neighbor. Now He's our "uncle Don" He made it to retirement.
Ron

old popper · Jun 18, 2014

About 10 yrs ago we had one crash just south of the plant where I worked. He had clipped a high voltage line on his last sweep and did damage to the rudder. He didn't know it till he got back to the airport (1/2 mi east of the plant). He broke 1 arm and 1 leg, said that was the third time he had crash landed, and he was going to find a real job when he healed up.

flembo · Jun 18, 2014

I remember as a kid watching them spray the tobaco fields with crop dusters also they sprayed the neighbor hood for skeeters. Must have been in the 50s

ShadetreeRet · Jun 18, 2014

They are fascinating to watch. When I was growing up in the 50s a young man in the area did spraying. You could tell when he was coming because he flew a Piper Agricultural setup which had a different engine. He later flew for a major airline and unfortunately died about 25 years ago while flying an old military trainer which he had restored. He did a loop one day and the thing never pulled out.

GarryinNC · Jun 18, 2014

Lowell,
Was that Charlie Ballantine? Or a pilot named Wendell, cannot remember last name. Wendell Trogdon?

Garry

Wheatfarmer · Jun 18, 2014

Even before GPS they had a unit that pushed out a paper ribbon, then some pushed out a pile of foam. I remember spotting. Pilot would line up at you, and as soon as he was down you moved fast up wind. Well I never did get bugs. LOL

dmiller · Jun 18, 2014

Some of those ag guys are something else. Two short stories.
1. A local gent who passed away this spring claimed he killed a coyote in the range country with the tire on his spray plane.
2. A few weeks ago they were spraying the neighbors corn and turning over our place. I wasn't home and apparently the boys were out flying kites. They said the guy flew about 5 feet from their kite, saw it out the window. He was close enough to the ground they could see his face. I guess he was pretty surprised. They pulled the kite in and did other things.

Goose · Jun 18, 2014

I did an insurance inspection on an aerial spray operation about ten days ago.

A couple of their planes were same as in the pictures above. I had no reason to look into the cockpits, but I noticed a screen maybe 8" square on top of the instrument panel, so I assumed they were all GPS.

One fired up and took off while I was doing the inspection. These were powered by turbo prop engines instead of piston engines. Makes sense. The fuel for a turbo prop wouldn't be nearly as volatile as gasoline if they did have a mishap.

Anonymous-0 · Jun 19, 2014

Looks like an Air Tractor. They have a full roll cage around the pilot. I watched 4 of them fly over my land at low altitude working on a forest fire. The fire came through my property but luckily I had my water tank on the truck and saved any material losses. Lost a lot of tree's and they made a mess digging up hot spots though.

rockyridgefarm · Jun 19, 2014

In a previous life, I sprayed with a Case ground rig, but I interacted with the nuts in the planes often. They got a cable cutter bar bolted vertically on the front of the cab in case they get too close to power lines.

One of my fellow sprayers at the place encountered a wrecked plane in the middle of the field he was spraying. Apparently, the pilot got too close to the ground and flopped. He said said he came across a wing first, then another wing, then the fuselage. Pilot apparently walked away. He was the son of the owner and his "real" job was a corporate jet pilot. After that incident, he had to quit flying dusters for insurance reasons.... And he pry had to toss his drawers. This would have been 15 years ago in Central Wisconsin

jennifer408 · Jun 19, 2014

im sure it's dangerous, but i've watched them several times through out the years and they are either having fun or faking it awfully darn good.

T in NE · Jun 21, 2014

Watched one spraying a pasture a few weeks ago, he disappeared down into the canyon at one end, came up out at the other.
Several years ago was a wet summer and I guess they hired anyone who could fly trying to keep up. Someone came in with milo hanging in his landing gear. He either asked if it was low enough, or he went under a pivot, heard the story both ways.

hillbilly2 · Jun 21, 2014

Around southwest MI they spray the blueberries. We had dinner just last sunday with one of the guys that does our farm. He had quite a few interesting stories about close calls. When he sprays our farm he always ends up with blueberry leaves on his landing gear. There is another farm by us that has a telephone pole in the bushes with a wire running to a building. He flies between the bushes and the wire. There cant be more than a 8ft high opening to fly through at 100 mph.

Free air show

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