No BS -- how is cropdusting as a career?

I think it would be GREAT. It doesn't pay a lot, but the flying is good. I still think about doing it. There are several schools that advertise in Trade-a-plane -- give them a call!

 

My knowledge of the field (no pun intended) is terribly out of date so I hesitate to give an opinion, but since I have been remiss in my posting of late - I'll give it a shot.

Between 1974 and 1976 I was the Chief Flight Instructor of the world's biggest Agricultural Pilot training school in the world. The basic flight traing was done in PA-18s and a fleet of 4 - 450 hp Stearmans. The practical training was provided by a fleet consisting of all then-currently flying ag aircraft, Piper Pawnee, Cessna Ag Wagon, Grumman Ag Cat, and a Thrush Commander.

Being a good Agricultural Applicator - what you call "cropduster" is not a job for a "cowboy" pilot. The hours are long - some flying is actually done at night when the plants are more suseptible to absorbtion of ceertain chemicals. When things are slow - no one is getting paid - when things are busy - there is no way to get all the work done in a timely fashion.

Before you consider anything having to do with the flying, ask yourself how much you know or want to know, about what the job actually entails. Would you know a nematode from an aphid if a farmer asked you? Do you know how a defoliant works - fertilizers?

If you are willing to become a farmer at heart, then you will need to become a practical aerodynamicist as well. Enough about theory - you have to understand how the airplane flies. There is no time at the end of a 12 hour day to do density altitude calculations to figure out if your airplane will pull out at the end of the field at the end of the first run with a heavy load.

Finally, you have to be an astute mechanic. Everything from the engine to the flight controls to the spray equipment has to function properly if the job is going to get done. That's a lot of grit under the fingernails.

And finally, there are no old bold ag pilots. If you think you are bold - you are already too old - don't even think about it.

 

Aerial Application...ne Crop Dusting would be the last thing that I would go into now. I was a "tag along" when I was a kid in the late 30's and early 40's and that was a life for gypsies who had a love for flying and no future. Half of them were killed. In the 60's I knew several guys who were crop dusting in eastern Washington and they were starving when they were dusting and coping with engine failures and other disasters. All of them quit before three years and several of them were killed. Leave it to crazy kids who have to learn what the old timers learned before they quit.
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All due respect to you, Russ. I'm certain that you would be a good and survivable crop duster but as a 14 year old row flagger I got a good look at the crop dusting business from the ground up...literally. I got to hang out with the pilots and fly with them in their Travel Air's and saw several of them killed just before the war. One , who was like a father to me, survived several crashes only to be killed as a passenger during the war. After the war I worked with them for a while when the Stearman was used mostly and got to fly a few but it was still almost profitless and still damn dangerous. It's fun and exciting but I wouldn't do it.
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As a friend of mine who used to do it said, "If the flying doesn't kill you, the chemicals will!"

 

You broached a subject that I have wondered about for years. I rode in the hopper several times going back to the strip after a day of flagging and having the dust blowing around. I didn't know what they were using but I have a hunch that it was an arsenic compound. One of several that they were dusting celery and lettuce with. Crop dusters aren't the normal kind of pilots but a couple were very careful and conservative in their approach to dust a field but each one made a mistake like the others did. The best of the bunch was killed in the war as a dead-heading passenger in the ATC.
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