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Nerves of steel !!!!! Crop Dusters in the area today... PICS.
William81
Member Posts: 25,495 ✭✭✭✭
A couple different Crop Dusters were buzzing around our area.....They sprayed our beans and corn today and entertained me for an hour or so....Looks like a lot of fun, but I am sure I would be a smoking hole in the ground if I was doing it....
Comments
The fellow who does the fields around us was at it last week .my wife likes watching him swooping up and down just missing the power lines and our trees. In the past I seen him stop traffic flying over the road so low it would scare the car drivers
No way are they texting and driving/flying lol
A pair was around me last weekend, a plane that pretty much was identical to your pic, and a helicopter.
Looks like it'd be fun, for a minute.
Special skills involved, for sure.
Practice, practice, practice.😉
My brother and I owned a Ag Spraying business for 30 yrs along with our farming operation (he flew as did a few other pilots contracted out, I ran the ground business)....a very expensive and dangerous business to be involved in 😲. When he passed away he had over 21K hrs logged flying all types of aircraft, most hours were in Ag planes. People don't realize when spraying these pilots are constantly flying into and out of & breathing some mighty deadly chemicals which will eventually take it's toll on humans. It takes special skills and a huge set of balls to do this which only a few pilots have. Enough said, I tip my hat.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
We had one go down a couple months back near here.
Not sure it'll buff out.
Shipshewana man, 68, injured in small plane crash in Edwardsburg - 95.3 MNC (953mnc.com)
looks just like the one even same color that do the local fields
for some reason when I see him flying so low I think of Rocky Raab ( any more like him ) flying low over the canopy drawing fire to seek out the bad guys . at least the crop dusters do not have some one shooting at them ( well I hope not any way )
I know a man who does that for a living. Kind of an oddball type. I guess that helps! 🤪
They have been spraying around here this week in scenic Lizton, IN. As junkballer said, these guys must be partially made of cast iron.
😲
Actually, we flew at five feet to avoid ground fire. We were relatively safe either above 1,500 ft or right on the deck. In between was the death zone. Five feet above the treetops or tall grass, we pass over the bad guys before they had time to react. That was for small arms. There was no safe altitude (in practical terms) against .50-cals and up.
Fortunately, the only poisonous chemicals we flew with was the booze...
edit to add: The pictures did start a few of my mental videos. Fifty years past and I can still see, hear, feel, and smell it all.
The picture of the first plane looks exactly like the one that was spraying around here this year. This same guy wrecked a plane a few years ago but survived with few injuries.
When we buried Dad, we had a military send-off for him (Army S Sgt WW2). Next to the cemetery was a bean field. While the rifle salute was going off, this same guy started dusting the bean field. I turned to my brother and said " Too bad Dad wasn't in the Air Corps, then it would be appropriate.
Joe
We had a local guy who crashed, I don’t know how many Ag planes over his career before finally passing away at 68 of health issues.
Anyway, I have personally seen him spraying pivots where he would fly over a fence and under telephone and electric lines then hop the pivot finish the spray run, turn again hop the pivot then pass between the fence and the lines and do it multiple times until the pivot was too close to the fence to give him room to pull up.
many folks around here have similar stories of the ballsy flying that he used to do with his radial engine aircraft.
Miss hearing those radials since all the ag services around here have upgraded to the turboprops
Mule
When we were first married (1975?) we lived in old farm house on section dad farmed.
LOML swears the crop duster would bank off our roof making his turns!!
This was in the Texas Panhandle. "Pantex Ordinance Plant" where they assembled "The Bomb" was nearby and the lake the treated sewage went into was near that house. Many "No Trespassing" and "Property of Atomic Energy Commission" signs were posted along the fences.
One day one of the local spray pilots spotted a boat full of fishermen on the lake and decided to have some "fun". He started skipping his wheels on the water as he headed straight for the boat.
Fishermen watched him and when he showed no sign of climbing they all dove into the water.
In the '50's the spray pilots would have a helper drive their service truck out to the place they were going to spray. The helper would park the truck, then take a big flag and stand on the edge of the field they were going to spray. As the pilot flew over him he'd walk over however many paces to the next swath, then pilot would know where to make next pass. When he needed to refill he'd land on the county roads (remember, this is the FLAT part of Texas) and refill his tank, then finish the field.
Safety bureaucrats got wind of this practice and decreed no more landing on roads and no more flaggers without full protective clothing. So the pilots bought marker systems that kicked out a cardboard square with a 6' crepe paper streamer to mark their progress and flew back to town to refill.
Local loudmouth farmer started talking about how that couldn't be an accurate system because of wind, etc etc.
He had a very hot summer. His pickup wasn't air conditioned and every time the sprayer saw him he'd put one of the markers IN HIS WINDOW!!!
There also was the time the spray pilot ran out of spray in the middle of the field and headed back to grab some lunch and a tank of solution. While he was gone the owner of the place went out and picked up all the markers🙄
DPMULE, those old radials are WW-2 vintage Pratt & Whitneys that's still being rebuilt and used and are rapidly dying out (*very expensive to operate) and do have a unique sound of their own......Wild Turkey, a plane creating a boating style "rooster tail" on water is a sight to behold. Lots of unsuspecting tractor drivers working a field do the bailout too 😀
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Don't think I've seen an Agwagon with winglets before
On an fb page here couple of weeks ago folks mentioned crop duster pilots - couple of women started on that they were poor pilots who couldn’t get a “real” job as commercial pilots. They got hammered by others real quick. Some folks just don’t understand that their opinion is not always accurate.
I have watched them for hours spraying the fields near I 10 in Louisiana. Now, the flying is dangerous, and breathtaking to watch.
But what about the chemicals. In the morning they are pumping many gallons of that stuff into the plane. There is always going to be some spillage while pumping that stuff, and you are going to breathe in some fumes. While you are spraying, when you make the turn you are liable to inhale a big lung full of that stuff. What is it anyway, Roundup, or pesticides, or Agent Orange? It is some nasty chemical and if you breathe enough of it in or spill enough on your skin, you are going to get cancer.
I and my family are from Amarillo...........I know the PANTEX location well.
As a young kid, my dad (born in 1940) used to flag for the dusters at the end of the fields. I can't imagine all of the chems he got doused with. He passed away at the age of 41 from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. My grandmother was convinced that it was from this chemical exposure. Probably so.
I do love the AG Cats though..........and those pilots have balls.