is crop dusting dorky?

[UconnTim97]

Discuss...

[masraum]

You mean farting while you're walking??? No, that's not dorky. It's awesome if you time it right. Like walking past the cube openings of 4 or 5 coworkers right before they are heading to a meeting or puncher or something. That way they have to walk through it.

Or, at least, vie heard about that or something....

[Tom '74 911]

I think not. Considering the pass at about 3:12 this guy makes. . . dive bombing over and UNDER power lines and then avoiding the house at the end; I think it's not dorky - but I will say that I only speak for myself and that is only MY opinion.

[Seahawk]

Toe jam from Crop dusters have more stones than 90% of the dorks on this BBS.

[Burnin' oil]

"Crop dusting" is dorky-neutral. Crop dusters are cool, especially the helicopter dusters.

[audiman08]

Originally Posted by Burnin' oil

"Crop dusting" is dorky-neutral. Crop dusters are cool, especially the helicopter dusters.

unless they have big dorky racks...

[crustychief]

It isn't like the old days, notice the GPS on the cowl. Better living brought to you by technology and chemistry.

[widgeon13]

No! It takes rocks and nerves as well a excellent piloting skills.

[t6dpilot]

Crop dusting dorky? Hell no! What widgeon says 100%. I have often thought about what that job would be like. I might even be good at it since I spent enough time low to the ground like that in the 'six.

[cashflyer]

I started spraying in an Piper Pawnee.
Then I moved into an AT-301.
No crop-hawk, GPS, etc. Just an auto flagger that usually didn't work.

Not me or my pic - just pics for reference.
Pawnee

AT-301


The 301 is radial powered. The plane in the OPs video is turbine powered.

[Joeaksa]

Tim,

Come on out here to Arizona and will take you (and the wife if she wants) up for a ride. As a former crop duster and spray pilot, am guessing that 99% of the people on the forum could take about 2 minutes of our normal spraying flights.

Under the wires, inches from the plants (and the ground) and so on usually gets on most people's nerves in a short time frame. Some go silent, some jabber and some even try to grab the controls and take control. Not that they know how to fly but they do not like it...

Was just giving some dual instruction to someone recently who wanted to be a spray pilot. Finally sat them down and broke the hard news to them that they just did not have what it took to do this and that they needed to find something else in the aviation world to do. They locked up when we got near the ground and just not where you want to be.

You make a mistake flying most things and you have a chance to recover. Dusting you normally do not. Good friend of mine was one of the original pilots selected to the group of 10 to be the "Freedom 7" group of astronauts. He got bounced out due to what they thought was a funky heartbeat only to find out later that there was nothing wrong. Just over 10 years later after he retired from the Air Force he was crop dusting in the Dakota's when a bird flew into his windshield.

He could not see and went down hard in the field he was spraying. He had over 200 gallons of chemical in his hopper and he was covered in it, not to mention injured really badly with a punctured lung and numerous broken bones. Had to be cut out of the plane and he stayed in the ICU for a couple of weeks then into recovery. Hospital officials could not figure out what was going on as every bunch of flowers anyone brought into the wing where he was wilted and died within hours. Turns out the chemical he was spraying was oozing out of his body in such a high concentration that it killed everything around him.

Dusting is a young mans game and someone 20-40 years old is par for the course. If you see them at the local pilots hangout they usually have a lot of friends buying them drinks. What you do not see is the wheelbarrow they need to carry their balls out nor the life insurance policy that they have to support their family when they go down. Most spray pilots move on at age 35-40 as they realize that they have a chance to live and that chance is not being a spray pilot.

[scottmandue]

When I pulled off I-5 very late at night and got a cheap hotel room in a small farm town... across the street was an old plane with a radial engine... he fired that thing up around 5AM... that was not cool.

It is very cool to watch though.

[cashflyer]

To echo what Joe said, I quit flying spray planes when I got married.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by crustychief

It isn't like the old days, notice the GPS on the cowl. Better living brought to you by technology and chemistry.

That's a GPS? I thought it was a radar detector.

[LakeCleElum]

Crop Duster? So, I guess this thread isn't about the old motorcycle I rode in high school!!!! My friends called it a Crop Duster.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by LakeCleElum

Crop Duster? So, I guess this thread isn't about the old motorcycle I rode in high school!!!! My friends called it a Crop Duster.

Two stroke?

[t6dpilot]

Well said Joe, well said. Even though I do not know duster pilots personally, I know that Joe speaks the truth. Dusting is a dangerous game...

[Jim Bremner]

Epic Fart Stories..... - AR15.COM

[Dantilla]

I've stopped for gas at a few rural airports in the Midwest. Always keep a sharp eye for dusters, as they don't always talk on the radio, and they don't always land or take off on the runway aligned with the wind, as they will do whatever gets them back to dusting the quickest.

I will ALWAYS give them the right-of-way, as those guys are real pilots, earning a tough living.

I'm just a weekend warrior type pilot, probably just going back to visit relatives.

[944Larry]

Originally Posted by cashflyer

I started spraying in an Piper Pawnee.
Then I moved into an AT-301.
No crop-hawk, GPS, etc. Just an auto flagger that usually didn't work.

Not me or my pic - just pics for reference.
Pawnee

AT-301


The 301 is radial powered. The plane in the OPs video is turbine powered.

I started in a Stearman and then moved up to a Pawnee (AKA Flying Bar-B-Que Pit) Ended in a Jet Ranger and quit in 2000.