The reason all ag planes look alike is that they are designed to crash. The pilot is on the trailing edge of the wing but way up high where he can see. This gets him as far from the engine as possible. The hopper is in front of him so the chemical will go forward onto the engine and not on him. And he has a wing to absorb the energy rather than his butt as in a high wing.

I don't know how to make these photos bigger? ZZ?
Set up for suspension/slurry fertilisers.

So I'm still just a back to back slobberin fool but I'm proud of this one field. I can turn tighter but this is boweevil work n paid by the hour. First almost all day 9 hour flyin day today, life is good n whisky is great!!!

55Wagon had a helluva day!!!

This thread makes me so happy.. Always wanted to know a little more of the inside world of an Ag pilot.

Great pictures, Pilot Reports

Y'all Fly Safe.

Man Luke, I am so jealous! I'd love that view on my way to work everyday...

It was a great day. Thanks for the pics luke! We've been blessed with some crazy nice weather, rain and some nice little bugs.
Some days chicken, some days feathers.
Been enjoying the chicken lately.
You guys busy rob? Wanna come fly a thrush in the south for a while?

Aeropod. Not to be a nay sayer but that would be a wall of challenges there man.
Not saying its not possible but probably a whole lot more in depth than you would think. I would say if your dads not a retired ag pilot that hill may be to steep to climb. But hey, nothing's impossible!

55wagon wrote:You guys busy rob? Wanna come fly a thrush in the south for a while?

My valley is probably the busiest of the bunch right now, but with everyone else being dead it probably wouldn't take much arm twisting to get it covered

An oldie but goodie, phermones on onions ;



Although this system is now severely dated, the M3 on a big screen, running airstar, and intelliflow for flow control is still my favorite guidance and flow control combo ;

Every eleven to thirteen days for thrips. Can't beat it with a stick. Onions are a fine crop.

Did a stint in this Flaptractor in the summer of '08. bcp'r gt-401 who owns and operates an AT-502 (on the wing) like other aggies on this forum is conspicuously quite in this thread

Had only flown a couple 'small framed' AT's prior to this (400,402 etc...) and was never quite impressed. I have flown a -34 500 gal. Thrush along side -45 powered 602's for several seasons and aside from stuff with longer ferries, I've never had a problem keeping up, or even outworking them... this one with the -60 and working on pivots was a real sweet combo. The man sized cockpit and 20 mph speed increase vs a Thrush weren't all bad .

Learned a few things right off;

Week 1) AT's have a better leading edge material than earlier Thrushs. Hitting a pheasant pushed the leading edge clean back to the spar, and even though a couple nose ribs were flattened out like pop cans, opening up an inspection hole we were able to pop the leading edge right back so well you couldn't tell anything ever happened.
Week 2) Losing a flap motor in a loaded up 602 makes it an enormous pig in the turns... Losing a flap motor in a Thrush is almost a non event...
Week 3) having a sleep deprived loader to flip nozzles for you without double checking his work is a bonehead thing to do... Had young Nick change the nozzles from the 3 GPA set up to 5...or so I thought... Young Nick actually shut every nozzle off.... Put 600 gallons on for a pivot, 30 more in the rinse tank, and full fuel (218 gal.) to get to the farther sand hills of NE again... (hmm maybe spraying NE from CO isn't my strong suit...) Get to the field and couldn't squirt a drop Radio call of shame once again... and again some measure of pandemonium (this was a new to the operator airplane). We generally don't care to bring loads back (specially not full ones) but most AT's are certified to land at full up gross, one pleasant bonus over the Thrush (which isn't, and doesn't like landing with a real big load on)... 602's do land like a dream, so a total non-event... Note to self- don't be a bonehead in the bosses 2 million dollar airplane... rest of the season was A-OK

Visiting with my former Ag Flight student who worked for Jack Frost in the Delta, I asked him what the two extra blades on his 802 meant? "That means you have arrived," he said. I did get him to admit that the 802, about the same weight as the Cobra, flies like a Grayhound bus.

That's pretty funny rob.
Maybe we could get the whole air tractor vs thrush thing fired up.
I have yet to fly a tractor myself! Want to just because but have zero desire to work one long term over a thrush just from the many things i hear from pretty much everyone that's flown both. The list is endless! There's only a few things I like about a tractor better and they're all creature comfort or aesthetics.
1 being they're like having power steering and the stick sits higher. 2 the cockpit size and layout. 3 the large baggage(needed rarely, but saves from having to put my bag in the fuselage daily up north). And 4 I do have to say I think they have a cooler look. Dam nose on a thrush looks like it was thrown together in the dark!
A thrush is more forgiving of my stupid mistakes from what I hear. Like that last second pull up that caught you off guard. A thrush goes up, a tractor, maybe.
A thrush can turn tighter and get into tighter spots better to. It "fits" if you know what I mean. You wear it.
The gear may be stiff but holy smokes is it stout!
I know from working on both of them the thrush seems alot better built to me to.
Thank you air tractor for the wing spar mod to!!
Still wanna fly one tho! Gotta see for myself!
Seems to me if thrush didn't have so many business problems over the years there would be a lot more of em. People just got scared of having support and Leland capitalized on it. But I don't think his new design was all an improvement.
Funny little story.
A guy I know who's been spraying for many years and owns tractors due to the reason above, was at the tractor factory several years back.
He asked Leland what he thought about vg's on them. Leland said dOnt need em. If the wing is designed right you don't need all that stuff.
He said, o you mean like a wing that needs flaps to turn?
Leland didn't laugh.

'55,

It's a funny thing ain't it? I haven't flown many aircraft I didn't like, in fact I just haven't flown many aircraft.... but the cult like following some of these things get is really funny... Watch a SEAT driver walk into a pilot shack sometime... talk about top-gun syndrome I mean I'm pretty sure some of those guys have a hard time getting their swollen heads through the front door

Typical SEAT Driver;

"Hi my name is 802 err... I mean Maverick... I fly an 802. I'm a SEAT driver and I fly an Airtractor 802. It's the largest ag plane in the free world. The 802. I fly one... an 802. It's so big it needs a type rating, but they wouldn't give me one ... screw 'em.. they don't know what it's like to fly an 802... they're just jealous... of my 802... anyways... my name is Maverick, and I fly an 802..."

Leland? ah Jeez... I mean really.... who designs a $2+ million dollar airplane that leaves the factory with plastic zip ties running up the whole length of a five foot tall gear leg holding the brake lines on? I mean really?

Anyways like him or not, I think Leland was the iconic kind of guy that made these companies what they were, and my personal opinion is that if Thrush, or anyone else for that matter, steps it up some, AT without Leland is ripe for being de-throned as the ag-av king...

Take care, Rob

I actually think this is one of the coolest looking creations Leland made. Here he is in Texas in his early days.

Some helicopter shots just to mix it up.

Some AT love for the thrush guys.

55Wagon wrote:

Aeropod. Not to be a nay sayer but that would be a wall of challenges there man.
Not saying its not possible but probably a whole lot more in depth than you would think. I would say if your dads not a retired ag pilot that hill may be to steep to climb. But hey, nothing's impossible!

Umm, for most mortals this would be accurate. But Tony's dad can pull off stuff that us mortals can't. No kiddin!

Thanks. cubscout

Can't begin to describe how I feel about these things.
And flying in them just makes it worse

Meat Servo, you win

I love heli's and love flying ag.... but IMHO it takes cajones to put the two together.... I mean really, here everyones drooling over Valdez STOL with impressive landings and take offs in the 100' +/- range, and you guys are turning loads every 8-10 minutes to 10' pad on top of a truck... and then pushing off the same truck heavy

The other thing I've noticed is the better a fixed wing guy is, the more graceful his a/c appears from the ground. The better a rotor guy is, the more angry his a/c looks... anyone else ever notice that?

Cool right boom shut off pics too. I swear by it on herbicide work, but I didn't quite get those ones... specially the second one...

Take care, Rob

Thanks David, this is a dream come true!!!

Great pics meat servo! That's some beautiful country ur workin in, and I'm jealous of the half boom spray, sure wish I had that for trim passes!!!

Did my first 3 gallon work yesterday n today, pretty freakin awesome



Got my first taste of the windmills today

Big fields are awesome, beats spraying the backyards with wires on all 4 sides I've been doin boweevilin