Crop dusting!

[mcjohn]

Well, the journey continues. I was gearing up to tow banners back during the winter. Then I was hired by the local 141 flight school to CFI and was told I'd be busy and I'm not . Lately I've been considering going back to the banner route but I may have a much better opportunity! My dad went to a family reunion this past weekend and bumped into a distant relative of ours that runs a crop dusting business in S. Georgia and the fella told my dad to have me call him. Sweet.

Any of you ag. pilots out there have any advice to offer me before I make the call?

 

[MauleSkinner]

Sleep now, while you have the chance

 

[RightPedal]

Well, the journey continues. I was gearing up to tow banners back during the winter. Then I was hired by the local 141 flight school to CFI and was told I'd be busy and I'm not . Lately I've been considering going back to the banner route but I may have a much better opportunity! My dad went to a family reunion this past weekend and bumped into a distant relative of ours that runs a crop dusting business in S. Georgia and the fella told my dad to have me call him. Sweet.

Any of you ag. pilots out there have any advice to offer me before I make the call?

You need to get about a thousand hours of high perfromance tailwheel time before you make the call. Buy yourself a 235 Maule and fly it every day for a few years then sell it. That's what I did. After that you need one thousand hours of spray time before you're insurable.
You'll start out mixing and loading for the guy to learn the business. I made $6/hr for three seasons and never flew one hour. If he has a cessna or something you can fly a little along you may can work yourself into a seat if you're lucky. Thats the short story to it.
Then on the other hand you could be working a turbine by next season if you're a natural and you're with the right operator. Anything is possible if you can afford it. It's a wild ride for sure.
Good Luck

 

[Dangerkitty]

You need to get about a thousand hours of high perfromance tailwheel time before you make the call. Buy yourself a 235 Maule and fly it every day for a few years then sell it. That's what I did. After that you need one thousand hours of spray time before you're insurable.
You'll start out mixing and loading for the guy to learn the business. I made $6/hr for three seasons and never flew one hour. If he has a cessna or something you can fly a little along you may can work yourself into a seat if you're lucky. Thats the short story to it.
Then on the other hand you could be working a turbine by next season if you're a natural and you're with the right operator. Anything is possible if you can afford it. It's a wild ride for sure.
Good Luck

RightPedal,

I have heard from a few folks that you can really clean up flying crop dusters. They said that on a good day you could make a couple grand.

Is that true?

 

[kingsize]

RightPedal,

I have heard from a few folks that you can really clean up flying crop dusters. They said that on a good day you could make a couple grand.

Is that true?

Hmm, I'd be intersted to know if that's true. I remember doing a search on crop dusting several months back because I think it would be cool as hell to have a job like that. Here's a website I found: http://www.agaviation.org/aboutuspage.htm

I forget, but it seems like I saw something regarding pay, and that on average it was in $12,000-$20,000 range.

 

[DC4boy]

Yeah 12k-20k sound about right. Monthly......

 

[RightPedal]

RightPedal,

I have heard from a few folks that you can really clean up flying crop dusters. They said that on a good day you could make a couple grand.

Is that true?

These days it can be tough being a contract pilot. You almost have to be an owner/pilot doing all the work yourself. There are too many things that can cause a bad season these days, even if you are in the right part of the country.
I remember when a contract pilot could make $80, to $100,000 in a good season, but that's all gone in my side of the world. Farmers do all the work themselves now. Ag-pilots are no more than a 911 service nowdays.
Ag aviation is a hard business to be in and even harder to get into unless you were raised in it by Dad.
Just ten years ago there was around thirty operators within a hundred mile radius of me working hired pilots. Now there are three single plane operators and they are struggling. South Georgia had a good season last year I'm told, but who knows what this season will bring. My brother finally gave it up in 2004 after twenty-five years. I was forced out in 2000 in my first season due to a non-aviation related injury.
I know I sound like it's an impossible thing but with the right timing, plenty of money and the right attitude, it can be done. It's a hard and dangerous job but can be rewarding in many ways.

 

[agpilot34]

right pedal is correct, so listen to him before you go jumping in with both feet. I flew ag for four years, and had to quit because the operator I was flying for sold his 3 1340 radial engined Ag Cats and bought 1 turbine powered Air Tractor and started doing all the flying himself. I used to know a BUNCH of guys in the business, now I can count the number of friends that are still in it on one hand and have fingers left over. The only thing RP said that I disagree with is the insurance requirements. You CAN get insured with way less than 1000 ag hours, IF you have some decent tailwheel time (I'm not talking about a J-3 Cub either) and IF you are willing to pay the premium. My first season I had 300 hours of tailwheel, about 100 of which was in a friend's old light frame Ag Cat with a 330 hp Shaky Jake radial, but NONE of it was actual spray time. I had loaded and mixed for other guys for a couple of seasons, and already had my applicator's licenses taken care of, so I made a deal with an operator to pay half of the insurance premium for him if he'd hire me. It worked out just fine. The absolute WORST mistake you can make is to go into ag flying because it "looks cool as hell" or "seems like a great rush". Yeah, both are true, but I promise you, you will work your a$$ off. There will be days that you wish you had never seen an ag plane, let alone started flying one. There will be evenings you are so tired you can barely haul your butt out of the cockpit. Complacency will kill you quickly. That field that was wide open when you checked it two days ago may have a combine sitting smack dab in the middle of it now. Seems all the neighbors are just waiting for a lawsuit opportunity nowadays also. That big yellow airplane is a BIG target for little Miss Lucy that lives a mile down the road when her garden suddenly dies, or she takes ill with a sudden respiratory illness one day, even if you were just flying over on your way to a field 10 miles away. I enjoyed every single hour of my time flying ag, but even as much as I loved it, I'd think twice about going back to it today. My advice is to think about it LONG and hard.

 

[mcjohn]

Thanks folks. I've been hearing that same stuff from my family down there. Sounds like the farm life. I cropped tobacco for a summer when I was 15.....15 years ago. That was an experience that I'll never forget.
Turns out that my counsin's husband (J.R.S.) who has RCL in Dawson, GA is instructing at somekind of training school that is just about to get their FAA cert's back. So, for me, it would only be an instructing opportunity come fall for ab initio students.
The spraying season is just starting up right now so the school's on hold till fall.

He told me about a guy in Ft. Pierce that gets you started as a loader and supplies housing. Sounds like you really have to shovel some sh!t to get into the ag. business.

And BTW, about the business dying.....Night flying for mosquitos and national forest spraying will always be around. I know a guy here in W. North Carolina that travels from Louisianna to South Carolina doing that night work for mosquitos. That sounds like some seriously dangerous work. He told me how he does the vertical turns and everything only on instruments and a computer guides him on the swaths. Nothing to show him towers though. I think he's lost his mind a little doing it.

Good money. He said he made around 120k in 6 months.

 

[Huggyu2]

I remember meeting airshow legend Wayne Handley in 1997. He told us that crop dusting was the most dangerous thing he did.