I'm in Florida trying to get my property here listed for sale and one of my nephews came to visit. Very good kid with old time values, home schooled and good moral character. He and I have talked 'airplanes' many times and he has been looking at different options to get into flying. He mentioned that he was very interested in ag flying and had checked into it a bit, then wondered if I could help or knew anything about it.

My question is, are there any training places that you guys know of or would reccomend in the southeast? He is currently living near Defuniak Springs, Fl but working in the Navarre/Ft. Walton Beach area.

Thanks!

I see this one advertised on Barnstormers. Can't vouch for the school, but may be a lead. Located SE of Tampa/St. Pete.

http://eaglevistas.com/

Jim

I haven't seen Ag Flight ads on Barnstormers in a while. Billy Howell must be pretty old by now. It was a good school. Some of us taught both zero timers and Ag. At any Ag school a primary student should insist on an Ag instructor for PPL and most of CPL, as well as Ag. What we learn first, we tend to retain most and go to in a crisis. For anyone who will spend every hour of most every flight very low, learning safe maneuvering flight techniques first is very helpful. Click on the signature box below for more.

contactflying wrote:I haven't seen Ag Flight ads on Barnstormers in a while. Billy Howell must be pretty old by now. It was a good school. Some of us taught both zero timers and Ag. At any Ag school a primary student should insist on an Ag instructor for PPL and most of CPL, as well as Ag. What we learn first, we tend to retain most and go to in a crisis. For anyone who will spend every hour of most every flight very low, learning safe maneuvering flight techniques first is very helpful. Click on the signature box below for more.

I worked for Billy for a few years, about 5 years or so ago, I can't recommend AG Flight enough.

For a "professional pilot school" they actually had great placement getting grads into AG seats.

The CFIs were HIGH TIME guys, you didn't see any hour builder CFI types and everyone there had a wealth of information.

Billy may come across as a salesman, but he is, in my life experience, a man of his word, which is quite rare and very needed in the industry.

Also a great place to learn to fly, just don't mind the gnats!

Oh yeah, here's his website
http://www.agflight.com

The guy that bought my dad's spray business went to Billy Howell's school in about 1990. He flies/owns a 502 Air Tractor and farming today and does a very good job.

Hi WW,

I would recommend networking and finding an operator in the region he wants to work in, and then offering his help as a loader for a season or two, before dumping a load of cash into an education for a career path he really may not enjoy once he's in.

The truth is most of us have an idea of what flying ag is, and what it really is all about ends up being pretty different. Loading for a season would give him valuable background knowledge, while giving him an up close and personal look into the nuts and bolts of it all. And BTW the 'nuts and bolts' of differing regions, or differing crops can and will vary greatly!

Fact; how well one flies really doesn't have much to do with how well one applies, and that is the only thing the grower is concerned with. Learning to fly like Bob Hoover, may keep you alive. Getting you a top dollar seat, will require a whole different set of skills.

As to the schools themselves, they get tremendously mixed reviews amongst pilots and operators. I believe that while there are always some that are better in some areas than others, any one of them would be better than nothing. I also believe that the vast majority of people who have negative things to say about ag schools are just not being realistic about how much knowledge goes into this career, and how much of that knowledge they can get from a school within the time allotted. The typical disgruntled ag school flunky starts with no ag background, minimal if any flying experience, and a very skewed perception of crop dusting built on the graceful sweeping hammerheads he sees a near empty agcat performing on a nice cool morning… He then can't wrap his mind around why he's not out there earning $300K a year doing the same thing after completing a two month course on his way to this illustrious career… Many operators do not put much value in schools either, and this is because many of them are guilty of the same issues… They get totally turned off by the kid who 'graduated' the ag school and expect he should be 'turn key' when the reality is that his going to ag school really should be treated with that 'license to learn' mentality many of us received when we earned our PPL.

Notice my use of the word 'career'… Most kids run through an ag school in a month +/- if they're already pilots, a bit more if they're zero timers… how many other 'careers' do you know of that turn into double/triple six figure incomes in that time frame? But that is exactly what the people that don't give the schools any credit are expecting. Those careers / seats do exist, but an ag school is just going to be a small portion of the education a person is going to need to get there.

I personally went to an ag school, and I have no doubt some of the things I learned there kept my alive through my greener years. I was also fortunate enough to have a couple 'break in' seats with operators who understood that they would have to invest quite a bit into me to get me up to speed. Maybe on the order of ten times what I learned in an ag school, and that was just to get me to a rookie level Because the learning just goes on and on and on… But I still don't discount what I gained from the school.

My experience of the two schools mentioned above is minimal, although I do know, and have flown with folks that went to both. The guys in Fla are newer, and have a newer approach to it. Our newest pilot trained with them, and after a season in an Agcat followed by an entry level season in a Turbine Thrush is now in a top notch year round seat in a 510 Thrush. I've flown some long hard nights with him, and say he's been schooled up pretty well.

If you'd like more insight on that particular school, I can see what he has to say.

Take care, Rob

Well said Rob. My experience with spraying, Billy, and even the Kingsleys is very dated. After the military, more research goes into Ag than any other industry. Equipment, and pilots, that don't keep up, are setting out behind the barn rusting. Old technology is valued only in niche markets. I have started a few in single pilot, single plane operations this century. Not as many as last century.

Much heartfelt thanks guys!!! I copy pasted the thread and forwarded it to the nephews. I really hope they follow through with the dream. One of them also expressed a deep desire to get into missionary flying and I suggested that he also get his A&P if he wants to go that route.

A number of my students are now spraying. They all got into the job the way Rob described: Get a job loading with an operator that may offer you a seat down the road. These kids all graduated with a four year degree in Agronomy, and came out of school with an applicator's certificate for MN, plus Commercial, Instrument and at least 20 hours of tailwheel time.

Many of the operators I talked to in that part of the world really prefer to train their pilots themselves, at least in the specifics of getting in and out of the field, etc. They prefer someone with really good basic flying skills, and they'll show them how they want the ag work done, rather than having to retrain someone who learned somewhere else, and maybe some bad habits.

Many of the operators in the upper midwest believe that an agronomy degree is a good thing for a sprayer, since the sprayer is often the "expert" that the farmers rely on as to application of chemicals and timing, etc.

Two of my students went to work for Wilbur Ellis, which is allegedly the largest aerial applicator (and a big chemical distributer). Started out loading for a couple seasons, and working into ground rigs, and flying ground crews around in the company 180. Third year, they put them in a 400 Pawnee that they keep for that purpose. Next year they're in a AT 402 turbine.

Local operator in Crookston hired one of our students as a loader, then bought an Ag Truck (the operator runs an AT 502) for the young man to start in. Next year the Ag Truck was traded for an AT 301, and two years later, it was replaced by an AT 402. And he's cycling in and out of the boss' AT 502 now.

All the kids that I dealt with that got into the business did it that way. Only one of them got specific "ag training" on their own....they were all trained by the operator that hired them.

MTV

Mike,
Thanks for the detailed reply. When I was in Florida, I had explained to the nephews that this was probably the best route to take and I am very glad that you and others on here have stated your advice. I have no knowledge of 'crop dusting' other than growing up on a farm and watching them.....Oh, and I watched both "Planes" movies!! Dusty Crophopper is my hero!

Mike,

A number of my young military pilot friends have found the realities of supply and demand in aviation degrees. Can a VA student do the Ag flying program but get a degree outside aviation? For someone interested in Ag flying, an entomology degree would be profitable. The bug guru, in people crop areas, make more than the pilots.

Jim

contactflying wrote:Mike,

For someone interested in Ag flying, an entomology degree would be profitable. The bug guru, in people crop areas, make more than the pilots.

Jim

+1

I worked for a entomology consultant during school. This was in Lubbock during the early days of the bowl weevil eradication program. Got to see first hand the interaction between Farmer, Entomologist, Chemical rep and applicator. Very interesting. I was going to Tech on the GI Bill (Engineering)....and flying on the side, some of my class mates were doing the same but studying Entomology or Ag Engineering. They were loading when they could, towing gliders on weekends and "checking" with us when they could. Final plan was to get a seat after graduating in operator's piston planes. Worked out for all involved. Tough "internship" to beat. Hard work, but worth it.


Bill

How much to ag pilots make? paid by the hour, day, or just salary?

Rob will have more current prices. I started in my own Pawnee and made $4.00 per acre for plane and pilot at two gallons total volume per acre. The last I sprayed with my CallAir was $10.00 per acre for ten gallon work and $7.50 per acre for five gallon work on vegetables in 1994. The first I worked for an operator was $0.75 per acre in 1995. The last I worked for Kingsleys was $8.00 per acre for the plane and $1.50 for the pilot in 2009 at one gallon per acre volume. Around 25% for plane, 25% for pilot, and 50% for operator has been pretty common. Kingsleys spray 75,000 to 300,000 acres with five to seven airplanes including two turboprops. The big variation is that most of it is dry farming. The number of years between dry years here in SW Missouri has gone from five years average to more like seven this century, however.

With mostly irrigated work on mostly people crops, yearly expectations are stable. With mostly dry farming, yearly expectations are just hopes. When a crop is not a fairly sure expectation, the farmer is less likely to spray.

Headoutdaplane wrote:How much to ag pilots make? paid by the hour, day, or just salary?

Normally by a percentage off the gross. Some operators pay by the acre. Then there's other variables when there's a pilot flying a subcontracted airplane i.e "the corn run" for another operator.

A very standard pay in Canada is 20% of what the plane makes(gross). I have heard of other methods; pay per flying hour / pay per acre / flat pay for whole season. These methods usually work back to being similar to the 20%. Right now my rough calculations indicate that a pilot should get about 350.00$ an hour.

contactflying wrote:Mike,

A number of my young military pilot friends have found the realities of supply and demand in aviation degrees. Can a VA student do the Ag flying program but get a degree outside aviation? For someone interested in Ag flying, an entomology degree would be profitable. The bug guru, in people crop areas, make more than the pilots.

Jim

Jim,

It depends whether they can find a program that combines the flying with the course work. Our program was an "Aviation" degree, but with a specialization in agronomy. The GI Bill was VERY good to those vets in this program.

But, if they enroll in an Entomology BS program, the GI Bill will pay for that, but flight training would be separate, and reduce the entitlement more rapidly.

Finding a combination degree allows someone eligible for GI Bill benefits to get almost everything paid for.....a sweet deal, and well earned.

MTV

Headoutdaplane wrote:How much to ag pilots make? paid by the hour, day, or just salary?

Unfortunately in the first question, saying 'ag pilots' is almost as random as just saying 'pilots'… Between, varying application rates, varying season lengths, varying commodity values, and varying regions and all the ramifications that entails, what an operator makes varies tremendously.

The financial relationship between aircraft reserves / operator / pilot pay , that Contact layed out is pretty accurate ( 50 / 25 /25 ) for the recip world. For the turbine world it usually leans more to something like ( 60 / 20 / 20), but that's not too hard to understand when you factor in the price of a PT-6 vs the price of an R1340. Which would suggest Dogone's research leans towards turbines. Fortunately for the pilot, the speed and payload of the turbines will generally more than make up for the difference As a loose general rule, you can figure anywhere from 17%-25% of gross application rate for a hired pilot. And a very loose guesstimate of 100 acre/hr coverage. At this point many applicators are rolling their eyes and saying they do an easy 350 acres/hr, but they're also not telling you about the times they fire up, load, taxi out, ferry spray, and ferry back for a 20 acre load. The night before last I had one job, and it had to get done (in other words, no putting it off to tie together with something else). It was a seed crop, 1.6 acres of arugula. Factor that in to your acre/hr average

Contact's pay rates per acre are also pretty much on target as well when you factor in a little for inflation. Off the top of my head I've done 2 gpa (gallons per acre) work anywhere from $7-$10, and as much as $30 on high volumes 20-30 gpa. Our rotor work is almost double the fixed wing, but the cost to run them is equally as high, and the speed to fly them is equally as slow, so the net result for the pilot is very comparable. Dry work just shifts the equation to wt. but works similar.
Some measure of work may be bid as a bulk contract or by hobbs time, but the vast majority, specially the daily bread and butter is all done per acre.

Dogone's hourly extrapolation is also pretty much on target per my personal experience, but I try never to get too wrapped up in the initial numbers. For me the end net is all I worry about. I have had some of the lowest per acre jobs turn into great paying affairs, and some of the highest turn into jobs I paid to do . There are just too many other variables, and each job / position must be weighed on it's own merits / challenges.

The last fly in the ointment, is that flying ag for a living is essentially contracting. LIke all contracting, much of the financial success is going to be determined by the individuals drive, background and networking abilities and there ability to use those attributes in concert.

Net, net… I personally know many hired pilots who are happy flying seasonally and do $30K - $35K per year, and also many who play harder and turn $300K - $350K / yr. Although as with most careers, the 'heavy hitters' generally pay a reasonably steep price somewhere else, after all, it's all about how much time you want to sit in an airplane / heli. The same is also true about the step between being a hired pilot vs. an owner / operator.

Long answer for such a short question again… but hope it helps

Take care, Rob

A good picture of gross would be to fly over Kingsley Field and just look down. I started the three brothers in 2003 or thereabouts with one Pawnee. The next year another brother trained and another Pawnee. Third year the same. When I got to where I couldn't fly, I was safety officer. That got too scary to stay with. Go out there on a weekend and you will see why.