Next new favorite aviation youtube

[bradp]

 

This looks pretty cool.  I always wondered about crop dusters and how they work.  

[RLCarter]

I’ve seen several of his videos, AirTractors are workhorses. Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley (southern tip of Texas) Crop Dusters were everywhere. As a kid the products sprayed were powder, hence the term Crop Duster. Now most all are liquid (water based) and it’s amazing how very little chemical is used per acre on most crops. Like all small aircraft it’s a shuttle between fuel or what you want to haul, the aircraft in the video is an AT502, which has a 500 gallon hopper for product. Leland Snow started here in Harlingen building Snow Aircraft (Spray Planes) the moved the operation to Onely Tx and eventually became Air Tractor. 

[carusoam]

Helmet, four point seat belt, w/airbag….

Tailwinds, trees, and wires… oh my!

 

Let’s see if @A64Pilot can add some color to this conversation…

Best regards,

-a-

[Will.iam]

That is cool.  I noticed the flaps come down on every banked turn is that automatic or is the pilot controlling them?

[RLCarter]

Had lunch with a spray pilot buddy of mine, the Snow Aircraft became the Thrush, Leland sold Thrush and after the No Compete clause played out Leland started building the AirTractor

@Will.iam I asked about the flaps during turns…. The 502 fully loaded won’t turn with out flaps (pilot deployed), once the hopper gets down about half (250 gal) you can generally leave the flaps up in the turns

[thinwing]

back in 2005 i think...we lost an air squadron member.He was spraying a large field that required multiple days.What happened is he struck a temporary meteo tower that wasnt there the day before.The farmer failed to inform him of the change and back then ,there was no requirement to report under 200 ft towers .his widow went to DC ,and lobbied for the change that required reporting any temp towers that posed hazard to air navigation. 

[RLCarter]

Yep, I live on the border of Mexico, temporary aerostats use to pop up every where down here, one contractor was on the field and would launch from the apron and the wind would blow them over the runway, airport manager didn’t say a thing so a few of us called the FSDO and put a stop to that crap real quick 

[carusoam]

Had to look up aerostat…

https://www.logostech.net/tethered-aerostats/

 

That would be a problem…..  

Best regards,

-a-

[RLCarter]

@carusoam this one is huge and has been there for years, about 50 nm from home base. The little guys are on trailers and moved around all the time, no guarantee on having a NOTAM, ATC might not ever know about them. ATC  has asked more than once if one was up and at what altitude, so they could warn other traffic