You find more drifters in dusting and spraying
August 26, 2013 4:32 PM Subscribe
Mississippi Delta Crop Duster Pilot (7 minute video)
Crop dusting stories from around the same era at borderpilot.com
posted by exogenous at 4:54 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by exogenous at 4:54 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
I love that all the risk they talk about here is about the pesticides, and not the insanely dangerous flying this guy's doing.
Tail number is N52576, not sure but I think the registration was not renewed recently. 450HP for a plane that only goes 93mph, just crazy.
posted by Nelson at 5:11 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
Tail number is N52576, not sure but I think the registration was not renewed recently. 450HP for a plane that only goes 93mph, just crazy.
posted by Nelson at 5:11 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
this looks to be from the early 1970's
You'll find rather quickly that everything looks that way in Mississippi.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:14 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
You'll find rather quickly that everything looks that way in Mississippi.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:14 PM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]
Harhar. Anyway, dangerous flying? The Delta is that flat all over, and having gone over those crops as much as he has, the pilot undoubtedly had every little plot of trees memorized.
posted by raysmj at 6:19 PM on August 26, 2013
posted by raysmj at 6:19 PM on August 26, 2013
Oh man. Growing up in rural Wisconsin in the 80s (example: our school was "called "Cow Pie High" by our rival schools and us, meant as mockery by them and affectionately by us), I got to be near a lot of farm stuff happening. Our landlord was a farmer and I got to help out once in a while. One time, while a friend and I were walking out to the "dump" at the back of the property (yeah, back in the day when you just happened to have a giant 2 story sized pile just layin' around with no care for what effects it has on the environment), I saw a crop duster flying low and I always feel like maybe my memory is imagining it or something, but I swear to god, he flew right past us (not spraying at that point), stuck his head out of the cockpit and waved with a big ol' grin on his face. He had a mustache and exactly that kind of helmet. I remember being in awe and so psyched that we saw a crop duster flying.
I wish I could go back and see if my memory of the event was as vivid as I recall, as almost... stereotypical as it seemed (but surely, this video shows that yes, the stereotype is real, the goggled-helmet, the bi-wing plane, flying low...) The one thing that was a bit different was that the plane seemed a bit higher, but that's probably because it was a probably half way grown crop of corn(? do they spray at that point in its growth? I'm just going by what I imagine the height of the corn was in relation to me as a 5 or 6 year old child) so he was a bit higher in the air than this guy. Or maybe it's the same and it just seemed higher cuz I was so much smaller and the angles.
Also - he didn't seem to be going nearly as fast as the plane in the film, but I don't know if that's possible.
Anyways.
AWESOME FIND!
posted by symbioid at 6:30 PM on August 26, 2013
I wish I could go back and see if my memory of the event was as vivid as I recall, as almost... stereotypical as it seemed (but surely, this video shows that yes, the stereotype is real, the goggled-helmet, the bi-wing plane, flying low...) The one thing that was a bit different was that the plane seemed a bit higher, but that's probably because it was a probably half way grown crop of corn(? do they spray at that point in its growth? I'm just going by what I imagine the height of the corn was in relation to me as a 5 or 6 year old child) so he was a bit higher in the air than this guy. Or maybe it's the same and it just seemed higher cuz I was so much smaller and the angles.
Also - he didn't seem to be going nearly as fast as the plane in the film, but I don't know if that's possible.
Anyways.
AWESOME FIND!
posted by symbioid at 6:30 PM on August 26, 2013
If you’re into this sort of thing, the National Agricultural Aviation Museum is worth a visit down in Jackson MS. When the Smithsonian sent me there in 1998 to write about the place for their magazine Air & Space, I met Mabry Anderson, who gave me a copy of his definitive ‘insider's history’ Low & Slow.
Until then it had never occurred to me that Delta Airlines (which began in 1924 as the world's first aerial crop-dusting company) got its name from the Mississippi Delta.
posted by LeLiLo at 6:55 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]
Until then it had never occurred to me that Delta Airlines (which began in 1924 as the world's first aerial crop-dusting company) got its name from the Mississippi Delta.
posted by LeLiLo at 6:55 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]
Harhar. Anyway, dangerous flying?
Extremely dangerous, actually. My grandfather was a crop duster flying a Piper Pawnee. The basic approach was to dip down below any powerlines or telephone lines and skim the length of the field at about 10' and 125mph, only to pull back up at the end while avoiding anything on the other end of the field. Just in case you do strike a wire, there's a razor blade mounted down the centerline of the windscreen to keep the line from taking your head off and a stringer wire running from the top of the cockpit to the tail to keep a powerline from slicing the tail off.
Remember that you're doing this with just over a ton of what are fairly nasty chemicals sloshing around almost in your lap -- the fiberglass tank was molded to make room for the rudder pedals and the pilot's knees -- and dealing with your center of gravity constantly shifting as the tank empties. One good wind guest coupled with slow reflexes and you'll dip a wingtip into the ground. Back before GPS navigational equipment consisted of a section atlas, a sheaf of aerial photographs with hand scribbled notes on the topography and maybe a flashlight if you're going to be out late. My grandfather usually had a thermos of coffee, a sandwich and probably a bag of ginger snaps. (Once or twice there was supposedly a miniature poodle. We're an odd family.)
posted by nathan_teske at 7:40 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]
Extremely dangerous, actually. My grandfather was a crop duster flying a Piper Pawnee. The basic approach was to dip down below any powerlines or telephone lines and skim the length of the field at about 10' and 125mph, only to pull back up at the end while avoiding anything on the other end of the field. Just in case you do strike a wire, there's a razor blade mounted down the centerline of the windscreen to keep the line from taking your head off and a stringer wire running from the top of the cockpit to the tail to keep a powerline from slicing the tail off.
Remember that you're doing this with just over a ton of what are fairly nasty chemicals sloshing around almost in your lap -- the fiberglass tank was molded to make room for the rudder pedals and the pilot's knees -- and dealing with your center of gravity constantly shifting as the tank empties. One good wind guest coupled with slow reflexes and you'll dip a wingtip into the ground. Back before GPS navigational equipment consisted of a section atlas, a sheaf of aerial photographs with hand scribbled notes on the topography and maybe a flashlight if you're going to be out late. My grandfather usually had a thermos of coffee, a sandwich and probably a bag of ginger snaps. (Once or twice there was supposedly a miniature poodle. We're an odd family.)
posted by nathan_teske at 7:40 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]
Yes, but it didn't look any more dangerous than he really had to be, and I'm not kidding about the flatness. It's also crazy bright around there in the summertime. (I worked in the Delta many moons ago, back in the '80s and early '90s, and can vividly remember the planes flying right over my car on U.S. 82. A frightening thing, at first. This looked par for the course.)
posted by raysmj at 7:53 PM on August 26, 2013
posted by raysmj at 7:53 PM on August 26, 2013
Cropduster drones: At least somebody in Mississippi is thinking about them.
posted by raysmj at 8:09 PM on August 26, 2013
posted by raysmj at 8:09 PM on August 26, 2013
The Australian Transavia PL-12 Airtruk may be the world's ugliest (but most famous) crop-dusting aircraft. Aerial demonstration here.
posted by cenoxo at 5:13 AM on August 27, 2013
posted by cenoxo at 5:13 AM on August 27, 2013
Anyway, dangerous flying?
Did you hear the bit in the video about "if you don't occassionally cut a wire or clip a branch, you're not flying low enough"? Consider the pilot is never in the same place twice so isn't really familiar with the environment. Also the dusters make these crazy steep turns low to the ground, not much margin for error. Add in highly variable weight and it's even harder than it looks.
posted by Nelson at 6:55 AM on August 27, 2013
Did you hear the bit in the video about "if you don't occassionally cut a wire or clip a branch, you're not flying low enough"? Consider the pilot is never in the same place twice so isn't really familiar with the environment. Also the dusters make these crazy steep turns low to the ground, not much margin for error. Add in highly variable weight and it's even harder than it looks.
posted by Nelson at 6:55 AM on August 27, 2013
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As a result of that ban, the raptor population has really increased around here since I was a kid in the 70's and 80's. One effect of the boom in eagles and hawks locally is that the local seagull colony, one of the largest on the west coast of North America, is experiencing a decline (climate change is also responsible).
posted by KokuRyu at 4:36 PM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]