Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

[jword2001]

Growing up in a farming community in N.M., I got to watch these amazing pilots often, here are a couple of clips of some crop dusters from the 'tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65KLN5gDHzI and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ekyN...eature=related

[KeithTurk]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

Those guys aint' right..... Nothing more then mentally incompetent will do....

Honestly NEVER met a Crop duster that hadn't stuffed one into the ground.... seriously.... EVERYONE of them has had an accident of one kind or another....

Not good odd's

[studemax]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

Used to watch them all the time as a kid around here - mostly converted biwings back then.
Nowadays, it's mostly Cessna AgWagons.

[98ciHemi]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

Those guys aint' right..... Nothing more then mentally incompetent will do....

Honestly NEVER met a Crop duster that hadn't stuffed one into the ground.... seriously.... EVERYONE of them has had an accident of one kind or another....

Not good odd's

x2

But the old Piper Pawnee make a great glider towplane.

[Scott Liggett]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

I've actuall pulled over a couple times to watch the nutballs work. My favorite was around Lodi who was pulling up last second on one side of the field to get over old power lines on poles. Then he'd fly under the high tension lines from the power station at the other side.

I honestly couldn't tell if these guys are crazy, adrenaline junkies, or this is just a part of the gig.

[sedandelivery55]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

My stepfather is/was a cropduster and one of the biggest alcoholics I've met. He made a fortune flying in the '70s and early eighties and quit flying after putting a couple into the ground. He made enough then to retire and live off his savings and stay drunk since. His cousin runs the business now and all my stepdad does is sit in his trailer house in a small park he owns and take in money from the trailer park and the lease on his planes, and drink his beer.
He offered to put me through flying school and get my license to dust and all he wanted was for me to work for him for 5 years. 600.00 an hour was the going rate for a pilot and he said he would pay for the 100,000.00 insurance policy and all fees required. The school alone was going to be around 10,000. and everything else would bring the cost to around 25,000.00.
I turned it down after thinking for a couple days. Never did care that much for flying and suicide is what it sounded like.

[BOOOGHAR]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

theres a stretch of road between houston and corpus christi that runs along the coast and I drove it bout every weekend when i was in the military and would see the crop dusters spraying the cotton fields, i almost hit a plane once cause it was flying so low, had to lay on the brakes or i would of clipped him in the landing gear

[Pumpkin]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

A friend of mine flies power lines here in NW Ga, and is always willing to take passengers. Very few go back for a second ride.

[Chassisman]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

Here in the central valley of Calif we see alot of CD buzzin fields...I used to flag for a company here in town...totally nuts.NOW....they do it at night !!!!!......you should see the light bars on these planes...insane.I know 7 pilots...most have balled up at least one plane...most have done in 3....one guy has 5 kills to his credit...lol

[truckpuller]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

A friend of mine flies power lines here in NW Ga, and is always willing to take passengers. Very few go back for a second ride.

if i am ever in Georgia, i will take him up....

A very good friend of mine sprayed with a chopper, a hillar i believe, he crashed it in the early 80's would have loved to rode with him in that, he had a cessna 182 that we flew alot of miles in, damn i miss that man...........

[joe_rocket45]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

He offered to put me through flying school and get my license to dust and all he wanted was for me to work for him for 5 years. 600.00 an hour was the going rate for a pilot and he said he would pay for the 100,000.00 insurance policy and all fees required. The school alone was going to be around 10,000. and everything else would bring the cost to around 25,000.00.
I turned it down after thinking for a couple days.

Man, I'd love to have that job.....

[Monk]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

See 'em all the time in Arkansas around the
Jonesboro area........spraying cotton.

You'll be driving along and all of a sudden
one will come up behind a tree line

Agricultural aviators
;D

[KeithTurk]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

So a quick story....

Folks often ask me if I miss flying and the resounding answer is "NO.... I miss teaching but not flying"

Most of that is true.... because so little flying involves real skills anymore... it's about playing Army and doing the Video game thing.... and that stuff SUCKS.... But back in the Day when I flew Cobra's and skill was required ... I loved wiggling sticks... Ag Flying is Very hands on .... and frankly chemically very intellectually challanging... So besides being raving lunatic's they are freaking awesome at wiggling sticks.... real pilot kind of guys....

K

[dieselgeek]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

I know a guy who flies the big cropdusting airplanes, he has 15,000 hours and never balled one up.

Our local cropduster has clipped a few powerlines but he was running the things that cut the lines if you hit them, so he technically didn't crash one either. I never asked him how many hours he had, but I went an visited him when he landed on my road to meet his tanker truck for a refill.

Pretty cool job if you ask me, and you only crash them if you make mistakes...

[BBR]

Re: Crop dusters, the best free show you will ever get!

My Dad worked for the SCS-USDA for years and years and one of their cars actually got hit by a crop duster. Plane hit it head on and one wheel hit the passenger side of the windshield and roof and promptly removed said wheel from the plane. He was coming under some power lines just a little too low. lol Dude didn't crash, but I can imagine the landing was not so pretty.