Air Tractor????

super99 · Jul 13, 2020

My neighbor had his corn sprayed today, the helicopter was turning right over our place, quite loud!!! I went down and watched him fill

I talked to the truck driver, he said he loads 10 to 15 gallons of product and it covers about 20 acres in about 10 minutes.

JMOR · Jul 13, 2020

Air Tractor is the name of a company in Olney, Texas that builds ag spray planes....fixed wing turbo-props. Some can carry almost 10,000 pounds.

Smalltowner · Jul 13, 2020

Looks like an R22 Robinson, great little workhorse. New one like it is about $300,000.

JD Dave · Jul 13, 2020

We hired a company flying Bell 47's back in the early 1970's. To this day I think they were a great, small and agile aircraft. At least the pilots were pretty good for they could dodge telephone poles by 15 feet and come back around on another pass and overlap about 8 feet. I always thought I'd like to get one and teach myself how to fly it. Unfortunately my flying friends advised against it. Maybe that's why I'm alive today! One pilot flew in Korea amongst a barrage of gunfire.

unc · Jul 13, 2020

The helicopters are quite active in our valley in SE BC. They get hired to fly over the cherry orchards and blow the rain water off the fruit. It reduces the splitting of the ripe fruit. Cheap it's not, somewhere around $1400 CDN per hour. unc

Tramway Guy · Jul 13, 2020

Impressive!
Air Tractor planes

Gambles · Jul 13, 2020

When I was a kid (the '70s), my dad hired a helicopter outfit to spray his crops. Their selling point was that "it turns the leaves over and gets more spray on the bottom side".
Okay, maybe he was right, I don't know. I do remember that the helicopter was flying and the engine quit....instantly and without warning. It was a good thing that he was probably only 20-30 off the ground because it came down fairly hard. He tinkered around with the engine and got it going soon after that and continued spraying.

JF in MI · Jul 13, 2020

Its an R-44. I got to fly one with an instructor friend of mine probably 15 to 20 years ago. Very luxurious and easier to fly than the R-22.

MNGB · Jul 13, 2020

Here's a couple of pictures of real helicopters

sourgum · Jul 13, 2020

Those are great pictures. Here is a pilot view from the R-44 helicopter just like the one you showed. The airspeed dial on this one is showing 60. Lots of air turbulence under those rotor blades. Several gauges to watch over while flying, besides knowing where you are at in the field.

used red MN · Jul 14, 2020

I’m posting from my phone but on my laptop I have a link to something called the ..Oops list.. It is basically videos of all things that went bad. There is a video showing someone who just bought what I think is a used helicopter., but looks nice. The video person comments he wants to fly this thing but is not trained. Someone even goes up to him and tries to strongly urge him to not attempt it. You can then watch him turn it into a pile of scrap in less than a minute. Tipping it on its side rotor blades busting to pieces chopping up the tail section etc. The guy luckily walks away, and the guy taking the video also decides he was lucky because he realizes he was a little closer to the action than was safe, blade debris is definitely seen coming his direction.

steel · Jul 14, 2020

When I worked for a seed corn company I rode along in a similar machine for several summers. I guided the pilot to the fields as he flew them at 8-10' stirring up the pollen. Best part of that job for sure!

rustyfarmall · Jul 14, 2020

Aerial crop spraying is almost a thing of the past around here. Too many wind turbines. OH, and the emergency rescue helicopters cannot service this area either. Too much turbulence from the rotors on those wind turbines.

JMOR · Jul 14, 2020

(quoted from post at 18:27:53 07/13/20) Impressive!
Air Tractor planes

or Texas size fields in west, need a bit more than 12-15 gallons of spray!

Air Tractor????

super99

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JMOR

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Smalltowner

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JD Dave

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unc

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Tramway Guy

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Gambles

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JF in MI

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MNGB

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sourgum

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used red MN

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steel

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rustyfarmall

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JMOR

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