Join me as I spray fungicide on Garbanzo beans in Palouse Washington. Flying the Turbine Ag-Cat.
VIDEO HERE (15:34 minutes)
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I swear, if I ever have the pleasure of meeting a cropduster pilot, I'm gonna shake his hand and buy him a beer for all the entertainment him and his buddies gave me watching them work in the San Joaquin Valley, especially the ones that do shit like this:
man...an i thought steeplejacks wuz crazy
ReplyDeleteBack when I was in the broadcast Radio biz I used to think the tower painters were the crazy ones. 1,500 feet straight up and yes sometimes they fall down.
DeleteUsed to see them occasionally in the Yakima Valley when I spent summers with my grandparents.
ReplyDeleteBiplanes, no less.
For an 8 - 10 year old, it was the highlight of the summer.
There are bold pilots, and there are old pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.
ReplyDeleteWell, there are. But they're all crop dusters.
Deleteand especially the ones that do that shit at night!
ReplyDeleteBallsy. Nemo
ReplyDeletecherry point marines would do this all the time at core bank
ReplyDeleteI got to fly in a crop duster trainer several times when I lived in Firebaugh....it's a heck of a ride!
ReplyDeleteOne of my greatest memories was me and misses driving perpendicular to a field that was being sprayed unbeknownst by the better half. I waited till I could just make out the whites of the pilots eyes before facing passenger window and letting out a fake scream just in time for my co-pilot to turn to see nothing but prop and landing gear! The screech and the duck for cover was priceless! Cleaning stain from passenger seat cover, not so much. Bwahahaha!
ReplyDeleteYou are EVIL!!!
DeleteI like that in a guy.
I hate to tell you, but those were the lazy bastards. The way they did it on the sod farms in Illinois was to use a pole to lift the wires off of the poles and lay them on the ground. When they were finished dusting a field, they'd put the wires back onto the poles...
ReplyDeleteOf course, this wsa in the late 70s...
Those same planes rigged up with retardant tanks are called SEATS- Single Engine Air Tankers. At least two pilots of SEATS have already lost their lives this year fighting wildfires.
ReplyDeleteThose men, both in ag and fighting fire, are a different breed. Absolutely fearless.
Going to visit the paternal side of the family in Texas, once we crossed into Arkansas you sometimes saw cropdusters doing their thing over there. Always loved it. Crazy fuckers. I'm old enough now, I ought to consider it as a retirement career. Not a lot of years left to lose, and what a hoot!
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
Knew a couple crop duster pilots that were also jump pilots in Lodi. Great pilots.
ReplyDeleteAg-Cat was the only tail dragger, stick plane I've ever flown. Helped Grady, the local small field A&P guy with some repairs incidental to the annual. After the repairs he asked me did I want to take it up. Told him I had zero hours on a stick. So he stood on the wing root yelling at me up and down the taxiway for a half hour and the he says, "you got this".
ReplyDeleteThe next hour I'll never forget.
My favorite is the Air Tractor with a Pratt and Whitney PT-6 reverse flow air coupled turbo prop with versions as high as 1300 HP. There are armed military versions of that aircraft used for COIN operations. Made in Olney, Texas. The one in the picture is a Grumman, also a great plane. A lot of the turbo prop Grummans are conversions.
ReplyDeleteI have been through Olney, Archer city, Throckmorton, and others many times headed to Albany to deer hunt. Ft. Griffin is where Doc Holiday was till he moved north to end up with the Earps. Mikey the best steakhouse in the world is in Albany called the beehive. You need to go there and meet Ali or Nariman. Their life story is incredible. Tell them a Tulsa boy sent you. My friend and I road trip, 8 hours, on occasion just for the steak, and to reminisce since those hunts ended years ago.
DeleteMy father went to flight school with a guy who later flew a crop duster thru power lines and was killed. One of the aerial applicators in that area (Lower Rio Grande Valley) was Leland Snow, who built the first dedicated crop dusting aircraft and started Air Tractor. Besides that, Snow was locally famous for hooking the tail wheel of a Piper Cub on the guy wire of a telephone pole causing it to crash. His medical was out of date so he hitched a ride to his doctor in town and beat the inspector back to the scene of the crash. The inspector looked at the medical card, noted the date and said "hmmmm" but there wasn't much he could do about it.
DeleteI used to commute from Elk Grove, Ca to Lodi in the 80's by motorcycle. Tool and die apprentice. My goal was to ride all year rain or shine. Nearly made it. I always enjoyed watching the crop dusters strafe the fields with passes across hwy 99 right in front of me out there near Galt and Lodi. I got to work, or home with a buildup up yellow green gunk on the front of the bike many times. Good times.
ReplyDeleteUsed to enjoy watching them spray numerous crops and trees in Israel.
ReplyDeleteFlying below us on a local mountain.
F'n "A!"....Whidbey Is. F-18's-etc fly over my home regularly, almost rooftop..My own private airshow..I love-em!..The disgusting bitch next to me is always bitch'n..
ReplyDeleteWish they would drop a fuel tank, (if they had one) on her head...
A-6's were slower and I could get pics sometimes, not the new dudes-dudettes....
My next door neighbor is a crop duster, his airstrip borders the back of my property, get to watch his acrobatics all the time. Plus he has aviator parties a cpl times a year, with many cool vintage planes landing and parking there
ReplyDeletewe had a crop duster tangle his helicopter up in some powerlines in the area last week guess he lived .
ReplyDeleteA local guy now in his 80's used to be a crop duster. The first time he flew for me I kept seeing something dropped at the ends of the field. Turned out it was rolls of toilet paper or something similar used for markers. He had numerous tales of near tragedy and many of them funny as could be. I always wondered how his abilities with a plane were so advanced. Found out later that he had 564 carrier landings. Once he clipped a highline with a wheel strut, another time the just majored engine stopped in mid turn with a full load of chemical on the plane, yet he just continued on like it was all in a days work. Oh, and his main job was as a licensed pharmacist. He still stops at my shop on occasion and I do my best to drag old stories out of him. He thinks he boring me and he couldn't be more wrong.
ReplyDeleteGot to ground crew for a couple of crop dusters for a day. Great guys. Those machines are crazy, a flying stock tank filled with fertilizer.
ReplyDeleteMy brother works with them all the time.
That was very cool Kenny. Ohio Guy
ReplyDeleteSorry. Late to the party.
ReplyDeleteA relative flew SAC for a few decades. BUFFs. Had to go higher in winter since the wing vortex churned the snow and amd made them obvious to the interceptors. Had to be careful at the stop signs lest they total a harvester crossing on the "main". The BUFFs are the size of Manhattan. Screw them little VW fart-mobiles. My riding mower is bigger. Just sayin'.