Almost spilled my coffee

JV · July 13, 2020, 12:00:50 PM

Enjoying a cup of coffee on the front porch this morning when a plane roared over the house at what seemed like rooftop level. It was an Air Tractor spraying our popcorn. He sprayed 70 acres before I finished my cup. Those guys have to have a lot of confidence in their ability to fly. The field across from us has power lines on one end and trees on the other end. I have a cousin who sprayed after he retired from the Air Force. His brother said when he landed one day there were soybean plants hanging on the landing gear. Talk about being close to your work. Well, it was quite a show so I had to have another cup of coffee and wonder what the rest of the day will bring.

Raider Bill · July 13, 2020, 12:07:10 PM

I was riding across big sugar in the everglades a couple years ago when a duster blew past me at what seemed plant top level. Bout crapped my pants.
We ended up pulling over and watching the guy for awhile. Quite a show of aerobatics. He'd get to the end and do a flip then come right back with no wasted time.

alan gage · July 13, 2020, 12:54:55 PM

They're about due to start spraying here. Always like watching them. Hard not to get excited.

Alan

sawguy21 · July 13, 2020, 01:27:20 PM

I have never seen fixed wing spraying, lots of helicopters which is not near as exciting, but have watched water bombers in steep terrain. Those guys have huge cajones, one mistake they are dead. No time for a Hail Mary!

Sedgehammer · July 13, 2020, 02:04:56 PM

Yup. Nuttin like some chemcals with your morn coffee. Brings it to life, so to speak.... :

JV · July 13, 2020, 02:05:40 PM

We used to see bi-planes and an occasional helicopter but now it's mostly Air Tractors. Not much difference in price between ground application and aerial especially if the crop is tall and the ground applicator could cause damage. With the popcorn being 7 feet tall that ruled out ground application. Couple a 750 hp plane at 120mph+ and gps they cover a lot of acres in an hour. Now they are talking about using drones to do application work. Lots of changes.

Speaking of corn, I just finished shucking some really nice ears of sweet corn.

Sedgehammer · July 13, 2020, 02:15:46 PM

Yummy

B-1 Lancer just blew over very close to the deck. Not sure on how high exactly, but very close.

Walnut Beast · July 13, 2020, 02:30:40 PM

Quote from: Sedgehammer on July 13, 2020, 02:15:46 PM
Yummy

B-1 Lancer just blew over very close to the deck. Not sure on how high exactly, but very close.

Good thing you weren't sunning yourself on a tube out on the water there 😂

Raider Bill · July 13, 2020, 02:35:56 PM

Quote from: JV on July 13, 2020, 02:05:40 PM
We used to see bi-planes and an occasional helicopter but now it's mostly Air Tractors. Not much difference in price between ground application and aerial especially if the crop is tall and the ground applicator could cause damage. With the popcorn being 7 feet tall that ruled out ground application. Couple a 750 hp plane at 120mph+ and gps they cover a lot of acres in an hour. Now they are talking about using drones to do application work. Lots of changes.

Speaking of corn, I just finished shucking some really nice ears of sweet corn.

I love good fresh sweet corn. Sadly it's extremely hard to find in Florida.

Sedgehammer · July 13, 2020, 02:41:25 PM

Quote from: Walnut Beast on July 13, 2020, 02:30:40 PM
Quote from: Sedgehammer on July 13, 2020, 02:15:46 PM
Yummy

B-1 Lancer just blew over very close to the deck. Not sure on how high exactly, but very close.
Good thing you weren't sunning yourself on a tube out on the water there 😂

I might've been. Ofcourse I'd be sunnyside up. Dunno about swim trunks..... :D

Walnut Beast · July 13, 2020, 02:56:41 PM

Quote from: Raider Bill on July 13, 2020, 02:35:56 PM
Quote from: JV on July 13, 2020, 02:05:40 PM
We used to see bi-planes and an occasional helicopter but now it's mostly Air Tractors. Not much difference in price between ground application and aerial especially if the crop is tall and the ground applicator could cause damage. With the popcorn being 7 feet tall that ruled out ground application. Couple a 750 hp plane at 120mph+ and gps they cover a lot of acres in an hour. Now they are talking about using drones to do application work. Lots of changes.

Speaking of corn, I just finished shucking some really nice ears of sweet corn.
I love good fresh sweet corn. Sadly it's extremely hard to find in Florida.

A whole corn 🌽 field a hop, skip and jump away 😂

mike_belben · July 13, 2020, 03:40:08 PM

First one i ever saw was near okeechobee while truckin a load of stone to loxahatchee. I thought he was gonna hit me at first!

Nebraska · July 13, 2020, 04:00:48 PM

We have a guy that flys over our place multiple time each year during spraying season, bright yellow spray plane, I think the pond and the tree rows are a visual marker he uses for orientation and maybe his normal approach to the airstrip 16 miles away..

SawyerTed · July 13, 2020, 04:12:28 PM

They used to spray tobacco around home. The landing strip the pilot used seemed like a postage stamp but he got in and out over the trees.

When I was taking pilot lessons my instructor had me run the emergency checklist close to home. The field I picked to line up on turned out to be the crop duster field. It looked like a pinhead from the air!

Ianab · July 13, 2020, 04:32:24 PM

Planes are the most effective way to spread fertiliser over hill country. This is an old post of mine about going up with the pilot to point out the farm boundaries.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=5951

This is one of the newer turboprop planes. They aren't flying as low as the spray applicators over flat fields, but when logging truck drivers are parked up filming you from above, that's fairly low.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2AmhKKSItg

goose63 · July 13, 2020, 05:09:52 PM

A friend of mine did that for a long time said he would teach my how to fly I thought that was a good idea the I told Don Iwas looking at ultra light planes and that was the end of flying leasons he still thinks I'm nuts

JV · July 13, 2020, 06:47:39 PM

We are in the flight path for aircraft landing at Grissom ARB. So low flying military aircraft are a daily affair. I retired from civil service several years ago from Grissom so I saw a lot of neat aircraft. Had a low flying A-10 this afternoon. Buy when one like this morning comes roaring over your head it gets your attention. :D

Old Greenhorn · July 13, 2020, 07:54:25 PM

This made me laugh. Where we live is a lot of corn farming and one of the largest producers in the state is in out town, right of the edge of the city of Kingston. I commuted to Kingston daily for work (about a 15 minute drive) down the main 2 lane road. About this time of year they would be spraying and on some occasions I would be startled wide awake on my drive to work seeing a duster drop out of the sky over the ridge headed right into my drivers side door, or so it felt. There was a ridge off to my left he had to clear and drop into spraying altitude in a very short distance, perpendicular flight to the state road. It would scare the bejesus out of me every time, but that first time, when I was 'new here' I nearly drove off the road and through the field trying to avoid a collision. :D ;D When I got to work, all upset and shaken, the guys in the shop laughed way too hard, and the stinkers kept laughing about it all day. At the time I didn't think it was funny at all and remember thinking "who flies a plane like that?"

farmfromkansas · July 14, 2020, 03:41:34 PM

This is not crop dusting, one time I was building a house a few miles from here, along the crick, and a military fighter plane of some kind made a low pass right near the house. I was in the garage cutting a piece on my tablesaw, and thought hard about hitting the floor. Crop dusters are common here, for a while they were not, because they would spray grass when the wheat was most vulnerable, and would spray the grass next to a wheat field, and then there was no wheat where the chemical drifted over the field. The plants looked ok, but there was no grain. That stopped people from hiring the guys, and they went broke. Now the crop dusters are a lot more careful about the wind direction and what crops are next to the field they are spraying.

hedgerow · July 14, 2020, 05:27:06 PM

My main home place farm is pretty close to the city so normally the crop duster planes won't come in my area but last year about this time of the year I was in the shop and thought a plane was crashing into the building and I went outside to find a crop duster spraying the section just to the north of my section. New guy farming that farm and he found one from a different area that would come in and spray. The local one so to speak that is 25 miles away won't spray in this area any more he used to years ago but too many acreages in the area now. It is fun to watch those crop duster guys.

Sedgehammer · July 14, 2020, 06:58:27 PM

We're directly under the flight path of large air force base. We're a ways out, so they aren't directly over, but they are varying distances above us. At times very close. I enjoy it.

sawguy21 · July 14, 2020, 10:33:34 PM

I was a hundred miles fom nowhere somewhere in Oregon when the truck started making a funny noise. It got louder and then almost deafening. I learned later there was an air force base not far away that did low level training runs. Never did see the culprit. Scared the bejabbers outta me!

Ianab · July 15, 2020, 12:27:45 AM

Farm where I grew up was in the foothills around the base of the Mt, so the Air force would use if for low level terrain hugging practice. Hide from radar under the hills etc. A couple of times I've been out raking hay and had a couple of C130 transports sneak up behind me. Going full noise at about 200ft.

Like you say, you look at the tractor and rake trying to figure out the weird noise, then WOOSH. :D. I bet the pilots would have chuckled too "Watch this guy on the tractor up ahead jump".

Then there are the places where it's a tourist attraction to stand under low flying jets :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dzCrxhu_sw
And yes we've done it. ;D

thecfarm · July 15, 2020, 05:27:55 AM

I was outside eating lunch with my co workers,3-4 of us at a camp ground. Heard a whoosh and there was a jet flying over real low. We all looked at each other and said, that's odd, no engine noise. About than BANG and I do mean BANG!!! Sure did jump us all. Than we knew what had happened.

I did see a crop duster spraying a apple orchard once well driving down the road. I could hear the engine just a working as he did a quick turn!!

Ed_K · July 15, 2020, 09:13:52 AM

Had a couple C130s go over last night while reading in bed, shakes the house a little. They are fun to ride in too. Flew all over Thailand at 10k'. We used to spray the blueberry fields back when. One of the bils had to ride with the guy to pick out which field to spray. When it was my turn they quit spraying >:(.