yikes.

That dudes cajones are bigger than that cornfield he's dusting. Seeing those towers go past in the dark is the stuff of nightmares.

Oh. Noooo Thanks

That's crazy!

Is there an advantage to dusting at night that I am not aware of ?

well, yes....
cooler operating temps
smoother air
less human impingement
better chemical efficacy
.and yes, there is the down side of limited visibility.
but it if you are working an area you are (intimately) familiar with, and we usually are. its not so bad.
in fact sometimes, its indescribably awesome

3Blade wrote:Is there an advantage to dusting at night that I am not aware of ?

That depends on what you're aware of ...

Some generalizations between night and day work;

It is generally cooler at night
It is generally calmer at night
It is generally more humid at night

These three are significant if the region is naturally arid, (as regions where the lions share of this countries produce are grown).

a few other considerations;

Bees and other beneficials are generally tucked away for the night.
There is generally less human traffic at night. This can be a major player if you are working labor intensive crops such as produce, as most locales will not let you spray within a predetermined distance to humans, animals, bees, etc...
Wires (bare metal ones) are about 50 times more visible at night.

Of course it's not exactly all roses either... There are easily as many potential pitfalls to spraying at night, awaiting the unprepared or uninitiated... Some are pretty easy to identify items like trying to find the right field, judge the wind, or work with a far less amount of depth perception and visual cues. Some of the less obvious are things like dealing with the perpetual temperature inversion, or understanding how to make precision turns in a space too small to allow total instrument dependency and too dark to allow total visual dependency... This is flying right where they teach you not to be while training for IFR... Incidentally, the only ag airplanes I have been in that had any sort of gyros in them were ones that doubled as fire airplanes on government contracts and were thus required... when I said instrument dependency above I was simply referring to the use of a GPS to get you around the turn, and an occasional glance at an altimeter in the event that a guy loses a grip on how fast he's coming out of the turn...

Do the benefits outweigh the pitfalls? That totally depends on the crop, the region, and the particular app.... I don't know anyone who flies at night who would rather spray a field at night if the application could be done safely, and succesfully in the day, and I figure I probably know as many night aggies as anyone...

Take care, Rob

dammit Sandy..... I just spent a half hour rambling, hit send and it prompted me that you beat me to the punch, and so much more efficiently Shouldn't you be flying right now?

hi rob,
just transitioning back to days.
nice job on the details.
soooo many little things that can get you out there at night that you don't even think about in daylight. Like fumble around head down in the cockpit a couple of seconds too long, only look up to a serious case of FAGOWIES

Rob,

I flew a lot in the NM Guard with Dave Trujillo, an ex 101st Airborne Nighthawk pilot. He was the slowest, calmest, most careful guy I ever flew with. His white cloud cancelled out my black cloud. He slowed down a lot of us Air Cav cowboys from Vietnam. We were in Hueys, and very, very slow nape of the earth at night. I am really impressed with the speed you work at nights. Impressed, not envious.

Jim