We paid $5/acre for 5 gallon work 25 years ago. Where we lived there were 2 based there and no gypsies. I think it's down to meatservo's family outfit today. Lots of crappy 3 cornered 5 acre patches with wire on 3 sides. Those boys earn every penny and the gray hair that comes with them.

Ummmm. Ouch GB.

Spent October up in your state chasing wildlife with a helicopter. Too busy or I'd have given you some preemptive grief.

Meat Servo wrote:Ummmm. Ouch GB.

Spent October up in your state chasing wildlife with a helicopter. Too busy or I'd have given you some preemptive grief.

You're welcome here any time, lots of room. Might have to look you up this Fall for an elk recon. [emoji106]

Edit: oh yeah I'm so fulla shit. I asked my Dad...$5 not $15.

We've pretty much stopped doing "elk recon" but I'm sure a flight to see if your favorite camping spot is open or the trails clear could be arranged.

I wasn't even going to give you a hard time about the application rate. We don't get $15 an acre now, even for the helicopter. Farmers....

Raise the price on those cheapskates![emoji1]

I would think that the pilot shortage that is hitting the industry (including up here) is affecting the crop dusters as well. Since there so many opportunities to fly, are the days of making someone load for a year or two before getting in the cockpit are over?

Headoutdaplane wrote:I would think that the pilot shortage that is hitting the industry (including up here) is affecting the crop dusters as well. Since there so many opportunities to fly, are the days of making someone load for a year or two before getting in the cockpit are over?

In the Upper Midwest, the amount of aerial application has decreased significantly with the advent of the big ground spray rigs. Many of the aerial applicators are also running ground rigs now. But, when it's wet, aerial is the only way to go.

As you suggested, a lot of the sprayers in that part of the world are getting up in years. And, many of them are looking to pass the torch to someone else, by selling the business.

But, the loading, fueling, and learning the proper chemicals, application rates and handling, plus dealing with the farmers, the business end of the program is all part of the process. Flying the plane is just part of that complex. All this is not something you can just pick up in a short time.

And, generally the operators who are bringing along young pilots also own or have access to a Cub, Champ, or Cessna taildragger, so on days when the spraying is light, the boss can go out with his loader/pilot to be and teach him something about getting in and out of the fields. This of course, also gives the newbie the opportunity to build time for insurance purposes.

A new pilot also needs to work on an applicators permit, which process varies with the state.

Anyway, like any other job, there is an apprenticeship process, which has worked for decades, and still does.

As I noted, there's a lot more to aerial application than flying the airplane. Both are vitally important.

MTV

Hi Wes,

All good questions, but unfortunately this one, like the last one could have no other short answer other than 'it depends'.

Over in Marty's country, where it's 90% corn, beans and fungicide, those days may not be over, but it is certainly possible to just jump right in an airplane, with minimal training and go to work… After all, by that point you should at least be able to keep from running in to things.

The operator who likely has been working the region for years and has a vested interest in keeping it viable for years to come will manage which jobs go to whom, he will also likely know that up till now an all up gross wt airplane is heavy to you (let alone the typical Early Thrush load governed under CAM8 that would essentially be 5 times the modern equivalent of max gross in the same airframe …) consequently he will load you accordingly, and getting in and going should be no big deal.
I have known pilots with minimum time to earn the CPL who have started ag careers, and done well. I have know corporate / military / ATP types who went right in to turbines and started great careers… it is doable that way.


Conversely, there are seats that are just going to take that much time to learn… and if you want to start in one of those regions, starting without a major chunk of insight will be virtually impossible.

Here's an example,

In our region, pretty much everything is based on a 40 acre block.
Conveniently, as per normal practices we size our aircraft to make this one load.
The bread and butter of the region is produce… to keep it simple let's just call it salad… and for this exercise we'll just pick lettuce…

Lettuce like every other commodity goes up and down, but this season it seemed to hover around $20/box. Times that by 1000 boxes/acre and then 40 acres…. per load… What is that .8 Mill? almost a cool million

Average me out at 20 loads a night, and then figure out how much the value of one nights crop is that I am charged with spraying… Let's call that 20 cool million

Now back out the $300K (yes, that's three hundred thousand) the insurance company is going to hand you when you screw the pooch (notice I did not say if you screw the pooch). Kinda falls short of covering the not so cool lettuce

Now back to Marty's country… the only real way to screw the pooch on the crop is drift a herbicide on it and kill it… so as a NFG you'r not likely to be tasked with that job… That's an over simplification, because there are actually many other ways to get a crop red tagged, but it's just not that common. Back over in people crop land, herbicide is the least of your worries, because that's a no - brained. What bites people here is spraying a totally benign chemical on a block of produce, right next to another block of produce that it's not registered on. It might not even harm that crop, but when it turns up hot when they check it at the cooler, you just bought it… In fact, on that end it could even be a totally registered and legal chemical, but drifted onto a field that is farther along and consequently it is inside the labeled days to harvest (harvest interval) in other words , good crop, good chemical, bad timing… you bought it.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I said herbicide was a no-brainers is because it's so quick to tell on you… you're going to know tomorrow if youu screwed the pooch today. These other examples may not show up for months Just imagine how many pooches the new guy could screw before the first ones started turning up hot

So to draw a conclusion from all this, what you're asking is, will todays operator gamble $19.5 million a night of his own hard earned cash on a new pilot that flies really well but has never sprayed a load in his life. because there's a pilot shortage? … Don't see it ever happening that way in this neck of the woods…

Take care, Rob

Wanted to add a side note to that reply… In discussing the drift issue, I said 'when you screw the pooch' as opposed to "if you screw the pooch"

I said it that way because if you fly ag long enough there are three unfortunate things that are guaranteed to happen. They are ;

1) Wires… you will hit wires.
2) Wreck an airplane… You will wreck… at least once.
3) Drift off target. You will directly or indirectly hit something you didn't intend to.

None of this is meant to sound cavalier, or suggest that any of it should be taken lightly. It's just that all to often someone thinks that it's the cowboy flunky pilot out there that is going to be 'that guy' …. until their day comes

IMHO the best thing a person can do is recognize that these pitfalls are for real, and for everyone. Then study exactly what happens during the sequence and how to be prepared for them. By doing so they learn so much in the respective topics they really may never be 'that guy' but pretending it won't happen and then not being proactive about it is a sure as shit way to get bit…

Take care, Rob

$40 lettuce?[emoji857]

gbflyer wrote:$40 lettuce?[emoji857]

Sorry gb, I shoulda known better than to think I could just shoot from the hip and get past you . Further driving home my point is that you could split the value of the commodity plumb in half (which I went back and did) and it still doesn't make a catastrophic drift claim any more survivable …

Since produce is all out here, I couldn't get any up to the day numbers, but Salinas numbers are up if anyone is really curious. It's down right scary how much damage you can do with just a simple mistake…

The first operator i flew for pulled me aside early on and said;
"Now Robbie, I've gotta tell ya, I really don't care if you hit a wire, probably won't care much if you ball up that ole cat either… and as long as I'm being honest with you, I guess I'll just put it out there, ... I probably won't even lose a whole hell of a lotta sleep if you crash and die … but please, whatever you do, just don't end up in the wrong field"

Take care, Rob

Oh no sorry necessary. We got some $18-$20 lettuce once and couldn't spend all the money. And as the grower we only got half. Lettuce is a ton of fun...loved growing it. One crop out of 4 was usually profitable. Where we grew, it took a rain storm in Salinas to make the market, but man when it did....cha-ching!!!!'

Wires three, crashed airplanes three, wrong field one which the boss sent me to. Luckily in corn, it was just a free European corn borer spray job. Salad plots were so small and scattered in upper Rio Grande that liability was not so bad. Grower provided tthe poison. Chili and onions were tthe staples. Herbicides by air was illegal.

Roger on that ROB
You will hit a wire / you will crash and you will drift. I did all three and know absolutely no ag pilot who has not. Two have died. You have to have your head 100% in the game all the time and even then shit happens. Great flying though, after a 10 -12 hr day I was just pumped with adrenalin and never slept worth crap after a big day.