9 members · 6 posts · Agricultural aviation
Spray pilots and the people who load them. Wire hazards, drift, turnaround technique, season pay, and how to stay alive doing 140 mph ten feet off a bean field.
Hazard reports welcome and encouraged, with the field location and the date. No arguing about chemicals here, there are enough places for that.
Oliver Trask (pinned)
post hazards. wires, new towers, guy lines, anything that went up since last season. give me the county and the date you saw it. this group exists for exactly one reason and thats it
Gus Ferraro
took ollie's advice and spent three weekends loading for an operator two hours from me. no pay, no promises. got offered a seat for next season yesterday. posting because i almost did not go, and because everyone in this group told me the same thing and they were all right
Oliver Trask
people keep asking how to get into ag and the answer has not changed. show up in the winter when nobody is flying and offer to load. thats it. every operator i know hired their pilots off the loading pad. nobody has ever been hired off a resume in this business that i am aware of
Oliver Trask
new met tower west of the county line, unlit, went up sometime after april. i almost put it in the same category as a fence post from a mile out. they are legal and they are nearly invisible against a treeline. slow down on your first pass
Oliver Trask
season pay for anyone asking. i get paid by the acre not the hour so a good week is very good and a rainy week is nothing. averaged out its solid money for about five months and then i drive a truck in the winter. anyone telling you ag is easy money has not sat out three weeks of rain
Gus Ferraro
Banner tow guy asking a real question. Is there a path from towing to ag, or is it a different world entirely? I have 900 hours of low level and a tailwheel endorsement and no idea whether that counts for anything.