Posted: 4/24/2013 7:39:20 AM EDT
|
So I was browsing a thread in GD and the topic of being a cropduster came up... I must admit, it intrigued me. Just from my google-fu it would seem to be a growing field that pays decently and looks like a lot of fun without all the hassle that the airlines bring with them.
Anyone have experience with this? Evidence to the contrary? I'm still trying to decide what to do with my life going forward (within the aviation industry), so your input is appreciated. |
|
*I have zero direct experience with it, personally, but I've been around the block long enough to hear all the stories.
The totality of what I've heard for decades can be summed up here... There is plenty of seasonal money to be made in it IF You can convince them that you will fly anything, anywhere, any time. If you're not spraying you're not making money. Spray wrong and you're losing them money. When you are spraying, you're starting at first light and burning long hours, surrounded (literally) by chemicals that you, otherwise, wouldn't let near your body, in the harshest flight regime. I'm surprised that the Discovery/History Channel hasn't made a reality tv show based on it, yet. It's one of those jobs that sounds cool as fuck until you honestly face reality. |
|
I had posted this in another thread...
Do you know someone who crop dusts for a living? Talk to them and get their perspective on it. It's a lot of fun but you'll work hard for your money... from dawn to dusk every day the weather is decent all throughout the growing season... and if you do it long enough chances are that you'll hit wires, trees, fences, or _______(fill in the blank) and have at least one accident. Plus all the chemicals you'll be inhaling are pretty nasty. If it's something you're set on doing then keep at it. If you get on with a good operation the money you'll make in 5 months of dusting will last you all throughout the winter on top of what you put into savings. Quoted:
Three of the eight guys in my crop dusting (aerial applicator) class died as a result of piling it in. Two right away the other from some aggressive form of leukemia attributed to being covered in chemical after the crash. The best time to pluck a wire is :30 minutes after sunrise, on your third or fouth consecutive 17 hour day while flying downwind many hundreds of pounds over gross weight. Squinting through your Ray Ban's, SPH-4 visor, the aircraft's visor, and the fingers of your left hand trying to block out the sun that is at the same level as the wires. You'll know you cut it not by feel but by sound. It's a twang not unlike a banjo. It gets your attention because you won't see it because of the sun but because not many things in or around airplanes sound like a banjo. My fist wire was a godsend. The wire after being cut took out the stall horn flapper. After listening to that damn horn for 8 hours a day for weeks I can't explain the relief when that incessant noise ceased. The next time you cut a wire, and there will be a next time you'll know what that twang is. No other type of flying has you at the ragged edge of the envelope for so many hours of the day. 3G turns every minute or less for hours and hours every day . Always looking forwad to that last hop of the 17 hour day, trying to find the high beams of the pick-up truck lighting up that dark gravel road you have to land on. Respirators are no fun. Neither is diarrhea for weeks at a time from chemical exposure. No co-pilot to watch the store while you go back to use the lav... It will certainly leave you with stories to tell... |
|
Quoted:
I had posted this in another thread... Do you know someone who crop dusts for a living? Talk to them and get their perspective on it. It's a lot of fun but you'll work hard for your money... from dawn to dusk every day the weather is decent all throughout the growing season... and if you do it long enough chances are that you'll hit wires, trees, fences, or _______(fill in the blank) and have at least one accident. Plus all the chemicals you'll be inhaling are pretty nasty. If it's something you're set on doing then keep at it. If you get on with a good operation the money you'll make in 5 months of dusting will last you all throughout the winter on top of what you put into savings. Quoted:
Three of the eight guys in my crop dusting (aerial applicator) class died as a result of piling it in. Two right away the other from some aggressive form of leukemia attributed to being covered in chemical after the crash. The best time to pluck a wire is :30 minutes after sunrise, on your third or fouth consecutive 17 hour day while flying downwind many hundreds of pounds over gross weight. Squinting through your Ray Ban's, SPH-4 visor, the aircraft's visor, and the fingers of your left hand trying to block out the sun that is at the same level as the wires. You'll know you cut it not by feel but by sound. It's a twang not unlike a banjo. It gets your attention because you won't see it because of the sun but because not many things in or around airplanes sound like a banjo. My fist wire was a godsend. The wire after being cut took out the stall horn flapper. After listening to that damn horn for 8 hours a day for weeks I can't explain the relief when that incessant noise ceased. The next time you cut a wire, and there will be a next time you'll know what that twang is. No other type of flying has you at the ragged edge of the envelope for so many hours of the day. 3G turns every minute or less for hours and hours every day . Always looking forwad to that last hop of the 17 hour day, trying to find the high beams of the pick-up truck lighting up that dark gravel road you have to land on. Respirators are no fun. Neither is diarrhea for weeks at a time from chemical exposure. No co-pilot to watch the store while you go back to use the lav... It will certainly leave you with stories to tell... Stories to tell: www.borderpilot.com is an interesting read. |
|
Not too mention that you may very well end up flying a piston-engine plane until you build time dusting.
I thought about doing it and took some 'training' in a Grumman Ag-Cat; after the fifth flight (first actual application), I decided that I'd rather not quit my day job to suck on chemical fumes all day. |
|
Quoted:
The life expectancy is not very good. I have a now passed father in law and two of my wife's uncles all were crop dusters. 75,000 accident free flight hours, all three have or were killed by Alzheimer's. Only ones in their family's to ever get it. That said, today's chemical handling is much better. I don't worry about my brother in law who is still doing it for a living. |
|
My dad started dustin' when he was in his mid-twenties. He's 63 now and still doin' it.
He came from a farming family and has an ag degree from A&M. That helps a lot. He's also mean as fuck, makes work-a-holics look lazy and never takes a chance when he's flying. It's not a job for the flight jacket, Sprorty's type crowd. Think high-liability, high skill tractor driver. |
|
The question was: what are the differences between a fully loaded way over gross and a light or empty aircraft?
Heavy, climb rate of 50' per mile. You can only do this on really long fields with no obstacles obviously. The turns can take several miles to complete. For those of you that have had any flight training you may recall the first few times you went through MCA or minimum controllable airspeed maneuvers? That knife edge between controlled flight and a stall. The controls are mushy. A bank angle of over 5 degrees makes it feel like you are going to fall out of the sky. Light, this is the fun part. It's a huge power to weight hot rod. Take off in 300', turns around a point at bank angles that approach 90 degrees, nearly impossible to stall, it would just hang in the air with control authority even at 20 mph (airspeed was in mph due to easier spray calibration). The first loop I tried I didn't pull hard enough at the top and lost positive G and got spray out of the hopper on the windshield. I made sure it was completely empty before I tried that again. To sum it up, over the course of an hour you go from a plane that takes over a mile to take off to one that could take off in 300'. A plane that a five degree bank makes your ass clench the seat for traction to avoid falling out of the sky to a plane in a 110 degree power off bank that just hangs in the air like a leaf. They don't handle like a Pitts, waay more stable but you can crank on the controls just like an aerobatic capable plane. Terrifying, boring, exciting, every flight. |
|
Quoted:
The question was: what are the differences between a fully loaded way over gross and a light or empty aircraft? Heavy, climb rate of 50' per mile. You can only do this on really long fields with no obstacles obviously. The turns can take several miles to complete. For those of you that have had any flight training you may recall the first few times you went through MCA or minimum controllable airspeed maneuvers? That knife edge between controlled flight and a stall. The controls are mushy. A bank angle of over 5 degrees makes it feel like you are going to fall out of the sky. Light, this is the fun part. It's a huge power to weight hot rod. Take off in 300', turns around a point at bank angles that approach 90 degrees, nearly impossible to stall, it would just hang in the air with control authority even at 20 mph (airspeed was in mph due to easier spray calibration). The first loop I tried I didn't pull hard enough at the top and lost positive G and got spray out of the hopper on the windshield. I made sure it was completely empty before I tried that again. To sum it up, over the course of an hour you go from a plane that takes over a mile to take off to one that could take off in 300'. A plane that a five degree bank makes your ass clench the seat for traction to avoid falling out of the sky to a plane in a 110 degree power off bank that just hangs in the air like a leaf. They don't handle like a Pitts, waay more stable but you can crank on the controls just like an aerobatic capable plane. Terrifying, boring, exciting, every flight. It's stuff like that that would make the whole dying a horrible chemical induced death part worth it. 
|
|
Quoted:
Instead of crop dusting, look into SEATS (single engine air tankers)... Why dont you skip both those and go straight to space shuttle commander. Seriously, aerial application and fire suppression are incredibly hard to break into. Crop dusting is mostly a family business. Ie, you need to be born into it. You need to know a lot more than just flying. Chemistry and Ag business and just as important. And good luck getting an OAS card to do fire supression with less than 5000 hours. For 4 years i worked for one of the largest application businesses in Eastern Washington. 5 planes. I started on the ground mixing chemicals and driving trucks. After 2 years they trusted me enough to do the easiest fields with just dry fertilizer. Year 4 i was flying part time, doing liquid application, but still never herbicide. The liabliity was just to high for them to send me out with herbicide. At the beginning of year 5 they sold two 200 gallon piston aircraft and bought one 600 gallon turbine aircraft. There went my seat. I don't hold any grudge against them. They did what they needed to do to keep this business alive is a competetive envirnment. I went on to fly the bush in Alaska and couldn't be happier. |