No, but again, those are words you and other make-believe artists here put in my mouth.
I said that not enough information is available, that of all the posters here, only one was there (you), and that one poster is inexperienced and low time, and hardly the yardstick by which to measure the matter.
Further, I never stated that the ag pilot did nothing wrong. I never stated that ag pilot did right...I stuck to the fact that an ag operator engaged in his business has the authority of regulation, per an act of congress, to operate outside Part 91...something that hasn't apparently sunk in.
Too many folks here seem to think that a radio solves everything. Now you'll notice that I never advocated going without a radio, or failing to make radio calls. In addition to ag work, I do other work, including donning my monkey suit shirt, tie, epaulets, and playing nice in the national airspace system as a regular pilot. One of those guys that's "above" guys like me...as one arrogant poster put it (or words to that effect). However...radios don't see traffic, and those that believe one who fails to use a radio is dangerous merely show their inexperience.
One may have twenty years in a Part 121 airline but moving to a different type of operation puts that person squarely in the student pilot seat. For those who have been tooling around in their Falcon 50 or B757 and think they've reached the pinnacle of knowledge, think again. If you think that one who doesn't have or use a radio is dangerous, you're only showing your own inexperience and foolishness. You're talking out of turn. If your sphere of experience were a little bigger, you'd know differently, and would realize how stupid such consel really is. Radios don't fly airplanes, pilots do.
I've met far too many stuffed shirts who really believed that the first action after donning one's mask in a cabin pressure loss situation is to set the microphone switch to mask...to establish communications. Talk. Too many who after even years of training and recurrency, forget that the first task is to fly the airplane.
Only a few days ago I watched corporate pilot after corporate pilot in citations, king airs, cheyennes, cessna 340's, conquests, and what-not, cut one another off in the pattern at an uncontrolled field. Their jabs at one another on the radio were far from professional. Their behavior was les than stellar. In an amazing turn of events, not a single ag pilot was spotted, much less responsible for the melodrama. Aircraft landing opposite directions, aircraft going around aircraft cutting one another off, aircraft calling and whining about who cut who off, who didn't call what, and aircraft broadcasting that they'd circled enough after being cut off and now they were coming in without apology.
Busy day, lots of starched stuffed shirts with their noses all awrinkle, and not a single agricultural aviator upon which to blame their troubles. Wow. Who'da thunk it?
Occasionally I get cut off by other aircraft. Shoot, while performing aerial dispensing operations, I've been cut off by private pilots and commercial pilots who thought they ought to be there, too. Two days ago I did a go-around because a corporate pilot thought he ought to use a different runway and despite my repeated radio calls giving position and progress in the standard traffic patter I was flying, he elected to utilize the opposite direction runway anyway.
Know what? I didn't write ten or fifteen pages of whining commentary opining that these folks were in the wrong, or go off on some freakish tangent about their profession, or dictate that they were beneath me. I simply went on with the day. I didn't seek them out to realign their faces. I didn't write their mothers and say bad words. I didn't even cry. I just moved on.
Seems mattpilot can't do that, nor can a dozen of others here. A few like hugh jergen can't help themselves...having nothing to contribute, they jump in to ply their usual claptrap.
When sitting on contract in the summer, I watch dozens of instructors and students and private pilots reinvent the traffic pattern every day. It's more entertainment than one could ever hope for in a theater. Often there, the only standard traffic pattern flown in a given day with an AIM-sanctioned cookie-cutter traffic pattern, and standard radio calls...is me...the only ag pilot in and out of the joint. Go figure.
Next some of you guys will suggest that skydivers carry radios...announce their altitude on the way down. How about a handheld...those factory installations are hard to do on a piggy back sport rig.
Like most of you here, I use TCAS every day...and like most of you, I know fully well that only Mode S Transponder-equipped aircraft appear on TCAS...a lot or targets are out there that don't appear. Now some of you might go so far as to suggest that an aircraft with no Mode S is a dangerous aircraft, merely because you have TCAS. But what about those other aircraft that don't have TCAS...far more aircraft are out there flying without it than have it. No, those aircraft aren't dangerous, and yes, they can be safely operated without TCAS or Mode S.
Likewise, I grew up as a kid flying tube and fabric aircraft that had no electrical system and no radio. Was that dangerous? Not hardly. As a kid, we used to fly a 200' traffic pattern, and very seldom did I ever climb above 500' AGL. Was that dangerous? No, not at all. Of it's own accord, no, it wasn't.
Pilots at uncontrolled fields often talk about the "active" runway, as if there were ever such a thing at an uncontrolled field. Pilots assume that they own a runway if they intend to land on it. Pilots feel that anyone who uses a different runway has committed a sin agains their race or their God, and merits a three hundred page thread on the subject based on their own ridiculous rantings. Like this thread.
