Crop Dusting share your picture and stories.

[bcp]

Lived about 30 years in an active farming region with sprayers and dusters working all year round.

There were Cubs and Stearmans, and one Waco. I spent one summer as a flagger/loader for a company with a Stearman and a Waco. Near the end of that time the designed-for-the-purpose planes arrived, but no helicopters or turboprops yet.

During that whole time it was rare to not hear a radial engine in the distance every morning.

Bruce

 

[Doorman63]

Here’s the chopper pic I referenced.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

I've been around crop dusters all my life. There is a ag aviation company about a mile from my house. The main agriculture crop around here is rice. Rice fields are flooded most of the growing season, so airplanes apply most of the fertilizer and pesticides.

Back in the 70's I was the flagman many times. Two flagmen would stand on each end of a field and wave a big white flag for the plane to fly over. After he flew over the flagman, we would take X number of steps and wave the flag again for his next pass.

I've never flown in a crop duster, but often the pilots would invite me to get in the hopper for a short trip. I did fly with some of the pilots, but not in a crop duster.

I've known several pilots who crashed and did not survive. Every few years, there is a crash. Most of the time, they walk away.

 

[K5lwq]

Crop duster pilots really become one with the plane. They are some of the best pilots out there.

 

[dodge man]

Recently in our area, western Illinois.

 

[EddieWalker]

Do we have crop dusters in the Tyler area? I've never seen them here.

I have been watching a few YouTube videos where they are using Drones for crop dusting.

It has me wondering if that's an option for spraying hay pastures? A few years ago when we had the Armyworm invasion, and so much hay was lost because it took so long to spray them after finding them. Each day meant massive loss to them. If drones where available, the fields could of been sprayed almost instantly!!

 

[K5lwq]

There isn’t any around Tyler that I am aware of. North of us around Paris there is for sure. Also there will be some helicopter spraying around Atlanta for the forestry industry. Just not enough demand for it around Tyler.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Many years ago, when I worked in the research lab, they brought me a small cardboard box with pieces of painted material, taken from the covering of an old crop dusting plane. Seems the plane had been spraying cotton (Arizona, I think); when finished, the pilot landed at the airport, parked on the asphalt ... in the sun, and went into the restaurant. In the meantime, the plane burst into flames and burned to the ground.

To make a long story short, he was spraying with a chemical, Sodium Chlorate, as recall, manufactured by the company I worked for. Seems the stuff is OK when wet, but when dry, and soaked into a flammable material, it spontaneously combusts with a little heat. The pilot had mixed it with water to spray the chemical, and of course it covered parts of the airplane.

I ran some thermal analyses; the stuff burst into flames at a low temp., something like 120 degrees F.

This turned into a year long research project for me, but we found a way to prevent this in the future.

 

[bcp]

Crop duster gets drafted.

AT-802U Multi-Mission Aircraft Series

Purpose-Built ISR Strike System // Rugged and Reliable – Collapse The Stack

802u.com

Bruce

 

[bcp]

A pair of these have been working on fires around here.

Bruce