Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Crop Duster at 6 A.M. Sunday morning

That's a valid observation unless you saw what was in his path.
All three photos are of the same pilot, but he was approaching some 30' tall island-growing black willows in the first two photos.
BTW: those water-slurping black willows were treated as well. The fish need the water much worse than the willows!!!

Big iron is fun and it pays the bills, but I miss flying low and fast....

Excellent posts Kelly. I'm looking for the "like" button.

I saw a youtube video a while ago that showed a crop duster flying under the utility wires on the poles.

Another crop-duster "innovation" is a guidewire that spans from the top of the cockpit to the top of the vertical tail. Wanna guess its purpose? (look closely at the first photo that I posted in this thread)
Needless to say, aerial applicators are the high-speed Nick Wallendas of the working class who do their daily jobs without any desire to attract tv coverage or public attention.

Aerial application is an integral part of many agricultural productions. As has been said, conditions will dictate when it can or must be used. Fields are often too wet for land based spray rigs, timing may be critical due to the sudden emergence of pests or weeds in fields nearly ready for harvest, such as a wheat crop which could be lost very quickly if not treated.

Wind drift is a HUGE factor in any kind of spraying. Even here at the house, the best time to spray is almost always at dawn, and the window of opportunity is short.

With the emergence of cover crops, you may see more aerial seeding in the fall. At the farm, we are looking at seeding into standing soybeans to give the cover crop seed a head start. No decisions yet, but it's beginning to look cost effective to help build up the soil and maybe even reduce the amount of fertilizers necessary in the future.

My Dad was a private pilot (not a crop duster), and I know that he thought that most crop dusters were the best skilled civilian pilots. Because of the farm and getting to be around airplanes with my Dad, I love to watch crop dusters, but I understand that not everyone will. Hopefully, you won't be bothered too often, as I understand the value of a good night's rest. But these days, my bladder seems to take care of sleeping too late, and my dog certainly will if my bladder won't!

P.S. I don't know if it is still true, but about 35 years ago, I recall seeing a study that said that the life expectancy of a crop duster was as good as the general population. The reason cited was that in order to get and keep a pilot's license, you have to be in pretty good shape. I've never heard if the study was proven accurate or if it was an anomaly.

GGB

Kelly, is that wire to keep the top of the tail from getting caught or sliced off?

Bingo!

Josh, no one wanted to go down our trail of sophomoric humor...

Only a few dare to be childish enough to do so.

When there aerial spraying out here they must not use a drift agent because I can taste it in my mouth sometimes.. I still hate crop dusters even if they are necessary they definately ain't necessary around me and they still use them..

Need to raise your own food...

I do raise alot of it..

Out of curiosity, what crop are they spraying, and what pest (if you know) are they targeting?
Some pesticide agents contain a fairly potent "aeromatic" as alert-odors; not unlike the foul aroma that is added to natural gas (which is otherwise odorless). None of them are intended to smell pleasant.
If you know the crop-owner or applicator, it is certainly within your rights to request a phone-call alerting you to when a treatment is scheduled - so you can at least know when the plane will fly. You can even trace the plane's number to its owner on-line.
If actual material is drifting onto your property, that's an entirely different story altogether.

The father of our current crop duster was WWII pilot. He would fly above the fence and below the electric lines. He and his coworkers would also be spraying in the same field occasionally.

Last fall I seen 2 crop dusters spraying together in a 1400 acre field for Bertha army worms. It was foggy when they started and I don't know how they didn't crash. I have heard when they spray our canola that if they don't come back with flowers on their tires they are flying to high. Not sure if that's just an exaggeration or not. With our 100 foot sprayer doing 18 miles per hour I sprayed 20 acres in the same time the crop duster did 160 ac across the road.

A long, long, time ago I was working he wheat harvest. We started in North Texas and wound up in Canada. One day we were watching a crop duster. There was one tree in a huge area. He hit it and died. I've always wondered about that.