Wow,

Small fire west of here, 10K acres or so. 802 and Thrush are flying overhead dropping retardent on the fire. Helicopters too.

I'm stuck in the office beating my head on the computer. This has got to be like chinese water torture. When's the next one flying over. Not to sure what the empty cruise speed of a 802 is, but they be moving right along back to reload.

Hey with Capt. Kirk on the site, maybe he could beem me outa here!

Fly safe, Bub

An 802 sprays at around 130 to 140 knots, if that's a clue. They move right along.

Good luck on the fire.

MTV

95 gallons an hour will get you between 185-200 miles per hour with no spray gear on.
Typical ferry with spray gear is 170 and spraying at 155-160 miles is common at usually around 80-85 gallons per hour.

Hey, it's just as bad at home. Since I live on the departure end of 30 they fly with-in 300 feet of the house at about 25 agl. It's better than work as I can sit on the poarch and sip a cool one while they fly by. Today at work all I could do was listen and sneak a peak every now and then.

George, How do you figure the spray rate at those speeds? What size of nozzle? Is it gallons per acre with a % of AI in the tank mix? I know ton of questions. I've sprayed quite a bit with ground equipment, just a spectator with air equipment.

These SEATs have some type of fire gate for the retardent. Pilot was saying about $1.5 mil set up.

Be safe, Bub

Yep, fire gates up the ante substantially. Good news is they hardly ever fly much, and they get paid NOT to fly most of the summer. Insurance guys love SEATs.

I talked to an insurance guy last spring, and he'd written a policy on somone who has four of the 802 SEATs. Said the highest time airplane for the year was 150 hours, and the owner was happy.

MTV

lowflyin'G3 wrote:95 gallons an hour will get you between 185-200 miles per hour with no spray gear on.
Typical ferry with spray gear is 170 and spraying at 155-160 miles is common at usually around 80-85 gallons per hour.

WOW! By my estimate, that works out to be about $330/hr in fuel alone! So how many acres do you cover in an hour? I use to do about 15 acres an hour on a tractor.

Bub,
The nozzles I run are CP flat fans on a carousel that have three tips installed. We generally target about 40-50 pounds of boom pressure overall no matter the rate. My small tips give me about two gallons per acre all on @ 40#'s. So they will give me close to three @50#'s. My middle tips give me 5 gallons per acre @40#'s. and my large tips give me 7 gallons per acre @38#'s. All those rates are at a 60' swath. If I want ten gallons I narrow up to 50' swath and run about 52#'s of pressure with the large tips.
Those are the common rates 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 gallons per acre. I can turn some off or mix and match if I need some middle rate while maintaining proper boom pressure.
Calibration is easier than ever with the flow control. I just tell it how wide of a swath and how much total volume per acre I want. I put in the total amount loaded and just push the handle down. It counts down the gallons sprayed, and makes small adjustments to the boom pressure to maintain a constant rate per acre no matter my changes in groundspeed (it is slaved to my GPS).
JRStripe,
Productivity in ag as you know from running a tractor is dependent on type of work, weight of material when seeding or fertilizing, how many acres per load, field size, and ferry distance. The 802 is quite productive overall as you may imagine, and even lethal when in close on good running.
My personal operations with that aircraft cosisted of pine tree fertilization (all dry, lots of ferrying) and row crop work in Arkansas, mostly rice (full variety of both high and mid volume dry fertilizers, and high and mid volume liquid spraying.
I think my average in rice was around 180-220 acres per hour spraying 5 gallon work (usually 750 gallons or 150 acre loads). My high was around 320 acres an hour on mile runs of five gallon work within three miles of the strip.
Fertilizing with urea we hauled around 4,500# loads and it mostly went out at 100# per acre. So if in close we could do 4 loads an hour that would be the same, about 180 acres an hour. If ferrying and down to 2-3 loads an hour it would be more like 100 acres an hour.
Potash or Sulphate can get around 60-85 pounds per cube so if you have the runway you can pack around 7,500#-8,500# loads. That pays off when ferrying due to the reduced amount of total loads to haul.
Most pine fertilizing is urea at 386#'s per acre, so 4,500#'s only goes about 12 acres per load. LOTS of loads even in the 802. It was reallly monotinous in the 400 gallon turbine Ag-Cats doing 6 acres per load! Usually with the ferrying in timber we did 2-3 loads per hour, sometimes less when ferrying outside of 20 miles.
There are some links on my site, http://www.cropjet.com, you may like.
Hope this provides some insight for you.

George,
Nice web site, read the whole thing.... twice.

One of these days if I ever can, I would like to come over and watch you work some.

Let me know if you ever get over to BNO, as I'm sure with things burning up they will be in need of range land stabilization. I was down on the Alvord yesterday, had a big fire down there last summer with no after fire work. The blow sand is bad! Just about has the road side ditches full.

Anyway you get over this way I burn a darn good rib eye.

See ya, Bub

Hey what do you know about AT 301 with a 600 P&WY? Any good?

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/gallery ... 02.7.6.jpg

If this works, here is a picture of a 802 headed to a fire in the background, from my front yard.

If it didn't work, check my album, or latest photos.

Bub

Well that sucks! Check my album.

Bub,
You can come over any time. I'm fairly busy until September.
I appreciate the invite. My experience with the 301 is limited (about 10 hours) but I have worked around them and observed. They are probably the most productive of the 600 horse ag planes when ferrying is involved because they are fast. The older ones with the small tail especially. 135-140 m.p.h. no problem. A 600 Thrush may be a bit better to step up into that class of airplane though because you won't need to use the flaps as much when turning. I also feel they are not as rudder critical in turns. The AT's 301, 401, and 402 especially have been known to snap under and go in inverted if a guy pulls it out of the turn while uncoordinated. Not that it can't happen with others, just need to be more attentive in my opinion in the AT's. Overall they are great planes and very productive for how much you can buy them for. The spar caps need to be replaced at about 5k hours so make sure the situation on that when buying as it costs a bit o' dough!
G-

G.

Well checked the ad again on the AT 301A. Sure enough spar caps due in a short time, plus the 1340 is mid to high time. Like some of the twins on the market. Buy em cheap and pay 2x for overhauls.

Oh well I have time to just keep looking. Checked the Flying Tiger site. Interseting school.

Fly safe. Bub

I am currently working on my commercial license and am wondering how you get started with crop dusting. Or for that matter the fire suppression? BTW I just realized that this is my first post. Just wanted to say hi, Been lurking for a while and love the site guys!
Seth

sefro wrote:I am currently working on my commercial license and am wondering how you get started with crop dusting. Or for that matter the fire suppression? BTW I just realized that this is my first post. Just wanted to say hi, Been lurking for a while and love the site guys!
Seth

The Flying Tiger school is one that I would recommend. There is another one in Bainbridge Ga. There are others I'm sure. Most people start with an old recip. everybody get's 500 hours in the first year . The type of recip depends on what's available and what kind of work you are doing. Small tight fields and not much ferry time and an Ag Cat is hard to beat. Larger fields and add a little ferry time and I would want an old 600 Thrush, but I am prejudiced. Build the business, gain experience and you will be insurable in a turbine. AT's have a lot of issues. AD's and there's simply not enough wing, having to drop flaps to get enough lift to make it turn means to me that there's not enough wing. Don't let one get out of trim in a turn, accelerated stalls aren't recoverable. The old turbine Thrushes have a wing spar AD coming that will set a life limit on the lower wing spar cap. The life limit on the old recip's will be around 20,000 hours or so, so they should be OK. The new Thrushes wing spar life limit for the 500 gl series is 29,000 hours.
Don't forget the Weatherly as a time builder either, they are a good airplane. The Pipers and Cessna's just aren't big enough, although I have a friend with a -15 on a Brave and it is an excellent airplane.
welcome to the site

sefro,
What's your 20? And what's your motivation?

Lets see I am 19 and working on my commercial and cfi ratings. My motivation? I really like flying but the airline life style is not really that appealing to me. Other motivations? Crop dusters look cool and they have radial engines.. Does it get any better than that?
Seth

Seth,

Here are two that I've been looking at. Unlike you I am bumping the 50 mark and didn't get my private until I was 30. By then I was to far into a career with a family to make the switch into aviation. I'm working on the commercial also. However with a family I pay as I go and don't do anything that I need to borrow money for. So I passed my commercial written a couple of months ago and it looks like it will be April next year before I can tackle the flight training portion. Had to do the instrument the same way, written one year, flight the next. 2 kids in high school and the dollar has higher priorities.

So you starting young are on the right track. Lowflyin' G3 can give you some good advice as he's been around the patch a time or two.

Here is his site http://www.cropjet.com/

Two schools

http://www.flyingtigersaviation.com/

http://www.samriggsagpilot.com/

To me it looks like if your willing to move around you can get a bunch of experiance. I'm with you flying heavy metel doesn't appeal to me either.
I figure after I retire if I can get another 10 to 15 years of stick time I'd be a happy camper.

Fly safe, Bub

As this thread started a few days back the fire here that I was talking about is now over 120,000 acres. 5 helicopters, 4 SEAT plane, 4 Air Attack planes, some heavy tankers out of Redmond OR are on the fire, along with 1800+ ground pounders. So even though a 802 or Thrush fly's by the house every 20 to 30 minutes I still run out and watch.

However I can sit on the couch and watch them under the eve of the porch.

Bub

Skylane I see in your avatar your motorcycle an xr 400 or 600? I live in western oregon and sold my KTM250 to help pay for flight training. Where do you ride out there? sorry for the off topic.
Seth

Seth,

It's an XR600R to haul my fat A$$ around. Just got my son a KTM450 EXC for him. Last year we were riding on the Alvord Desert. He was riding a XR100 then, and a little big for it. So he whined enough that I let him on the 600 out in the middle of the desert. MISTAKE!

All I heard after that was I want a bigger bike. over and over. I finally said you want something I want something. He had to pull a perfect 4.00 GPA his 8th grade and win district wrestling, needless to say he did both. So we found this 2005 KTM 450 in Beaverton with 5 hours on it. Brand new and a good buy, so he rides that now and I have to work the 600 to keep up.

Anyway we ride all over the country over here, anywhere in the desert, Stinkingwater mountains, any two track works well.

Were about in Western Oregon are you? There is a flyin at 64S this weekend. Best rib eye steak you'll find anywhere.

See ya, Bub

I am in the portland area. Too bad I dont have a bike anymore or I would invite you over here and show you around the burn and the other local hotspots. Sooner or later I plan to get another ktm though so we will see. The 450exc is a VERY nice bike.. Hope your boy knows how lucky he is
Seth