Crop dusting

[Jpilot23]

Looking to get into crop dusting. Anyone know of any places to go to get an endorsement/flight experience?

 

[avbug]

What's your background and experience?

 

[mcjohn]

I hear most of the pilots are expected to work as loaders first. Pretty important to know the full in and outs of all aspects involved I guess.

The equipment they fly nowadays tends to be technologically advanced turbine powered aircraft with GPS swath guidance and HUD. "Crop dusting" as many still call it today goes far beyond agriculture. The agricultural side may be shrinking while spraying national forest for tree killing bugs or eradicating mosquitoes at night near the cost is huge business. Aerial Application is the new term.

I imagine getting insured on that type equipment would require the pilot to have more than 1000 Turbine PIC with at least as much tail wheel time. Not an easy niche to get into in my neck of the woods (the southeast) and I have an Ag-pilot in my family. Best he could do was hook me up as a loader at an operation down in FL. (I declined and towed banners instead.)

I towed banners in small little crop dusters and such to build around 700 hrs of tail dragger time and now I fly turbine equipment at a regional airline. This would be a good formula for meeting the insurance req.s but that's about it.

Avbug can describe the harsh realities of the job.

BTW, common sense tell me that any of those rare crop duster schools you may stumble upon are a total rip off.

 

[Princedietrich]

Listen to avbug, he's probably forgotten more about ag flying than you could learn in 5 lifetimes. I have to experience in the field myself, but I can definitely say that you need to be ready to muck around in some truly wretched chemical sludge before you even see the inside of the plane.

 

[The_Russian]

Oh, the dreaded swath!

 

[TWA]

Go easy on him avbug. I remember the last time this came up...