Farken Ag Pilot!

[avbug]

What do you do if someone does that to you in a car on the road? You get really pi$$ed yell and probably use a gesture that we all know well.

No perhaps that's what you do. Some of us are a little above that...gave it up along with childhood years ago. You should try the same.

Long time lurker, first time post. I have a "little" bit of experience in aviation safety and regulatory compliance. The ag pilot was unsafe and broke the regs.

Apparently very little experience. Exactly which regulation did this pilot break? And this, based on the second hand reports of a low time inexperienced pilot?

avbug,

Recently the respect I once had for you has been going down the drain, and you've just hit rock bottom. Usually you're the first one to advocate safety, what happened to this here?

Ooooh, you're killing me. I've lost your respect? However will I sleep at night? Get over it.

I'm a big advocate for safety...including the fact that any pinheaded yahoo that thinks the radio spots traffic is a flaming idiotic safety hazard. For many of the "professionals" who responded here to condemn without knowing anything more than what an inexperienced low time pilot posted in anger...it only confirms what I already well know. 90% of the pilots out there aren't worth their weight in dung. Seems more than a few have weighed in here.

According to the only information we have, the ag pilot did *not* remain clear and give way to aircraft conforming the the traffic pattern.

Not at all. What we have here is rampant speculation. Many, many times I've cut ahead of traffic that had eons to land...rather than trying to stall out snaking around the pattern behind them, I went ahead and landed. Did I do something dangerous? Not hardly. I was practically tied down and home in bed before they ever made it to the runway.

The original poster seems so confident that an ungodly disaster was imminent that by his own admission he began making radio calls on behalf of the ag pilot...a ridiculously stupid act, but one that he felt compelled to do. Far outside his own privilege...yet he did it. And here the lemmings that have posted have climbed aboard the same mindless stupid mentality, clamering to hammer the ag pilot for something that not one of them has seen.

This very afternoon I landed an airplane in Bermuda Dunes, California. I went around after a king air decided to ignore my radio calls and enter the runway, departing the opposite direction I was landing. continued north and east, turned around, and landed. Not a big deal. Over the next hour, I listened to pilot after pilot whine, argue, cry, and kibbitz on the radio, making accusations about "you cut me off," and this nasty remark and that. Each one a fractional or corporate professional aviator, biting and seething at one another, each fighting over who got to get to the runway first. Not a whole lot different than the story that mattpilot told, except no ag aviator as the scape goat here.

Such crap.

 

[wmuflyguy]

Some of us are a little above that...gave it up along with childhood years ago. You should try the same.

Ah...but you haven't gave up calling people "stupid" or talking down to them.

 

[Vector4fun]

Over the next hour, I listened to pilot after pilot whine, argue, cry, and kibbitz on the radio, making accusations about "you cut me off," and this nasty remark and that. Each one a fractional or corporate professional aviator, biting and seething at one another, each fighting over who got to get to the runway first. Not a whole lot different than the story that mattpilot told, except no ag aviator as the scape goat here.

Not much different from this webboard either...

Ah well, job security for us ATC types. Where's my striped shirt and whistle?

 

[aucfi]

The original poster seems so confident that an ungodly disaster was imminent that by his own admission he began making radio calls on behalf of the ag pilot...a ridiculously stupid act, but one that he felt compelled to do.

I'm a big advocate for safety...

Sounds like he was increasing safety to me by giving others a heads up. Hows that stupid?

 

[PCL_128]

Sounds like he was increasing safety to me by giving others a heads up. Hows that stupid?

Well, you see, avbug thinks that radios are nothing but a hindrence to his flying. He would prefer that everyone trust their eyeballs to finding the traffic. Nevermind the fact that all airplanes have huge blindspots and it's impossible to spot everyone. These newfangled radios are just too much for avbug.

 

[Xav8tor]

(Avbug)The reg(s) in part 91 broken, and the inapplicability of part 137 to the incident described, firsthand, by a pilot there, has already been correctly cited to you. Give me the same situation as a hypo, and my position is unchanged. Nobody, not even in an ultralight, has a good excuse (except for an emergency) for not having, and using, a radio in the pattern at field open to public use. Forget the regs and think SAFETY. If a midair had resulted between the ag plane and any other plane conforming to the pattern, regardless of the "see and avoid" concept, with the possible exception of a contributory negligence state (and I doubt that), a pilot who did that alleged would pay through his nose.

Perhaps I missed the point you are attemting to defend on a day I missed class in law school because I was consulting doing trial prep on a major crash case (one of many I've done). Or maybe I missed something at the many schools, seminars and conferences I attended while Director of Safety at two airlines. Then again, perhaps I was wrong when the same thing happened to me when I was flying a standard pattern (carrying paying, sked 121 pax) and was cut off on relatively short final by one of those hard-working above the law ag types with no radio who just had to get one more run in before the light/humidity/temp or whatever meant he had to wait until tomorrow. Finally, maybe I need to rethink everything and fold up my highly successful aviation safety related biz I have had for a decade now. There's more, but that "little" bit of experience should entitle me to express an opinion I usually get paid quite well to give should it not? Again, thank you for welcoming me to the board. I'll zip up now.

 

[DC4boy]

PCL, perhaps your're missing his point. Too many pilots use radios as a primary source of traffic collision avoidance. When in fact, there are still several airplanes and pilots that do not use radios, and behold, traffic remains separated.


Course, that probably does'nt happen much outside the cockpit of your RJ.......

 

[jbDC9]

Man, this thread is still going??? Perhaps we should all take a time out and go spend some quality time with our TCAS and Trunk Monkeys. Maybe take him for a walk, let him crap on the lawn... then he can fling it on the neighbors front door. Can't you just feel (and smell) the love from our little TCAS monkeys?

 

[mattpilot]

PCL, perhaps your're missing his point. Too many pilots use radios as a primary source of traffic collision avoidance. When in fact, there are still several airplanes and pilots that do not use radios, and behold, traffic remains separated.


Course, that probably does'nt happen much outside the cockpit of your RJ.......

Perhaps you are missing the point of this thread. It is not about not using the radio. It is about landing on a runway in the opposite direction while someone is taking off and others are in the pattern.

Oh btw... nice job of avoiding the RJ question - i'll give ya 10 points for that.

 

[100LL... Again!]

Avbug turned into a tool on this thread.

Any A-hole who lands directly opposite the flow of traffic just to shave a few minutes off his flight can kiss my rear end.

Avbug's ultra-liberal interpretation of the Ag rules apparently gives him permission to be discourteous and conduct operations that are of questionable safety. You pull that crap with a regional aircraft coming the other way and cause a near miss, and I bet Mr. FAA is going to take an entirely different view that YOU about just what regulations you are entitled to dismiss.


Ever try to teach an old spray pilot to fly IFR by the way? I have, and it is a royal pain. There's a reason why a large number of them should stay safely below the rest of us.

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

90% of the pilots out there aren't worth their weight in dung.

I think avbug is worth his weight in dung.
I recall a day in a well-known, highly congested, Air Force pilot training pattern where my eyes...yes my eyes...detected an ag guy busting right through the pattern about 100 feet below my altitude. I made a simple evasive move and "saved the day" by letting the others in the pattern know there was an idiot in our midst (avbug would have had me say nothing?). This was not even an area that he was spraying, just cutting through our pattern to get from point A to point B. There's a term out there that of course, the all-knowing, king-$hit avbug has probably heard and it's called LEGAL-STUPID. Just cuz it's legal, doesn't make it smart. And no, radios don't spot traffic, a good VFR scan does. It's saved my bacon a few times, but willfully going against the grain on a technicality would place the guy (or gash) at the controls in your beloved home in the 90th percentile. Sorry to see the bug hasn't gotten any sweeter with age. Probably someone with a lot to teach. Pity all that energy is selfishly wasted on condescension.

 

[Xav8tor]

Good point on the radio not being the sole issue. In 2000 hours of instruction, most of it XC, and more than enough into such airports, some used by ag ops, that type of behavior and attitude towards safety (esp. of other pilots/planes), no radio and no pattern to speak of, seems to be the rule, not the exception. I dealt with it flying part 91, but when one of those guys endangered a whole ship of people flying what can only be described as some sort of jungle run low level perpendicular direct approach to threshold, that was my limit. Nobody's time is worth the couple of minutes it takes to fly the pattern and/or use a few hundred dollar radio to announce intentions, possibly saving a life...even your own.

Ag flying is dangerous enough. Why make things worse by successfully completing a ton of on the edge passes all day, only to get your wing clipped by a solo student in a 152 who didn't see you coming?

 

[Sniper Bob]

Ag pilots can spray and talk on the radio at the same time. I have seen and heard them (talk on the radio) while spraying the cotton fields that are about 1/2 mile from the control tower @ LBB. So any talk that it's "I'm too busy" or "It's too hard" or "my tummy hurts" or "it's MY airport, not yours" is a load of crap.

It's not the 50's anymore, boys. Radios are cheap (compared to the price of the ag plane). Install the radio and use it.


As a side thought, ever notice ag planes are the same color and same length as the "short bus"?

 

[mattpilot]

As a side thought, ever notice ag planes are the same color and same length as the "short bus"?

haha.. thats funny. I can't stop laughing

 

[DC4boy]

I find no humor in that. Short bus huh, come spend a day in an ag airplane,. Assuming you could even taxi it, you'll be a grease spot in amatter of seconds.


Stick to your auomatic flying bus, **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**.