Patrick i am a farmer and ex truck driver that sold my trucking business to get my Commercial and IFR ratings. am 61 and plan on spraying in the panhandle of Texas. Not easy to do but would like to visit with you about it when you get a chance.

Amazing! You really do a nice job narrating, whether on the ground or in the air...you must have incredible spacial awareness. I just found your channel and really enjoyed watching an afternoon's worth of flying "crop dusting" Gig'em :)

Good stuff man - don't ever get complacent...

Learn something every day. Today I learned about saggy power lines. I will never look at them again and not try to judge how much of a load is on them. I will also have a little fun with that bit of knowledge. Glancing at them , " hmmm. Not a big demand today " Powerlines aren't sagging that much. Do what ? Lol Tnx , fly safe. I've often heard about crop duster pilot flying under light wires. You are the first pilot I've seen do so. Yea, I'd fly with ya.

Thats a cool job.Wonder how it effects the microbes in the soil?

We call them cotton bugs, boweevills here in NC

Awsome.

I’m looking between apprentice in a trade or going to school to be ag pilot, would you recommend the job and lifestyle ?

Address I can send an $0.85 mic cover to?

On average, how many days do you fly per month and what months do you not fly in ?

I've been flying light aircraft in the bush for thirty years, and I STILL think you guys are bonkers. Definitely a breed apart. Respect.

What’s your tail number I live and work around where your flying I’ll keep my eye out for your plane I build shop buildings and I’m outside in the summer and love getting to watch the ag pilots of nea fly! 🤘🏼

would you please tell me what that LED bar is on the cowling? Does it show you remaining fungicide levels?

Im an A&P about to take my checkride for Private. How do I get into what you are doing? I live in upstate SC. I want more time with my family without taking a paycut. Great video

Awesome video, thank you for taking us along with you, I'm a 100% disabled vet, and you are living my dream, to nice, Thank you!

The water sticks to the windshield because the boundary layer is moving very slowly. The big droplets run off quickly because they stick further out from that boundary layer, which is why the smaller droplets move real slow and sometimes don't move at all...that first mm of boundary layer is hardly moving at all, so if you get a small enough particle to stay within that slow moving air, it won't blow off regardless of how fast you're going. Dust on a ceiling fan is a good example of this. The wiper that Air Tractor uses is hot garbage, it's a universal wiper that they use on Mac trucks and metro buses with a design that goes back to the 60's (the rest of the wiper assembly comes from the same vehicles if you need replacement hardware). I threw that wiper in the trash and installed a 20" HD scrubblade on my 502 instead, it made a world of difference but even just a basic modern wiper blade is a big improvement. You have to modify the mounting point on the blade itself, which is super simple to do, and then add some stop points on the windshield frame to limit arm travel in both directions (if not, the arm will be blown off the windshield and won't have the torque to return), but it clears the entire windshield off like a dream. It'll wipe coron and fungicides completely off, roundup and malathion is no problem, it'll even get rid of most dried up bugs. Relocating the spray nozzle to where the lightbar is made a huge difference too, the propwash and slipstream has more time to accelerate the water so it kind of pressure washes the window. I had a problem with the new spray nozzle (it's just a tube) acting like a venturi that sucked water out and spattered the window every time I dove into the field, so I drilled a small hole at the base of the nozzle facing forward and that fixed it. Seeing as how much more effective the entire system was, I ended up using it a lot more and ran out of water frequently. To fix that, I tapped into my rinse out tank and got rid of the tiny little tank under the seat used for the windshield washer. Had plenty of capacity at that point, and I add a little capful of concentrated washer fluid in there every time I fill it up, so it's more effective than straight water. Bonus is that the rinse out water cleans the hopper even better now, and sometimes I'll use it to momentarily spray down the hopper window part of the way through a job if it's nasty to see through it again. If you have some down time, go out and buy a 20" wiper blade with a steel frame (the ones with aero spoilers for more downforce don't work in our application) and just see how easy it is to install it, just takes a single hole drilled through, that's it. If you want more downforce on the blade, just copy the newer 710 Thrush and add yourself a little aluminum spoiler plate to the thumb screw that holds the blade on. It's a good winter project if nothing else, and you'll never go back to that worthless strip of rubber that Air Tractor slaps on everything.

BEATS A PAWNEE!

One of those videos you think you'll watch for 5 minutes and you end up watching the whole thing! I found it very interesting as growing up in Nebraska AG planes were a common sight. Later when I learned to fly I was able to learn a little more about it as my instructor for my CFI was also an AG pilot. But this video I found very informative as a lot has changed technology wise since those days. Thanks for sharing, stay safe out there this summer!

Awesome video! Great flying. I might go buzz some fields in msfs. Did I mention that I really suck at flying. It would be fun if Microsoft set up a plane like yours filled with spray to see how efficiently you could cover a field without killing yourself all while keeping your customer based on the job you've done. You have a great gig!!!

I've seen crop dusters down on South East Missouri spraying usully. I think cotton spraying for bowl wevels & other bugs. My dad was from that area & he always said you guys were a bit nuts doing that job. But yeah, as a pilot, there is ALOT going on. Great video.

A little help for the water on the windshield. I have same problem riding on my motorcycle does not want to shed the water even at 70. I use the new generations of the ceramic spray ons like NexGen. It is light years away from anything I have ever tried to use. No water sticks at all. Give it a try nothing to lose. Be safe, have fun.

Where are you from. Your spraying in Ark. I live here In Tenn boarding MO. and Ky.

What kind of poison are you spreading on these crops? And what are the long term effects on the people who consume these products? Do you even know and/or understand the implications of where you’re doing? Serious question.

Careful of priming booms over random fields even with insecticide. Could be an organic farmer lol

Takes longer to load than it does to dump! That must have been a 3 mile long field? 😂

Thanks for the ride-along……

Flying low and talking like nothing is happening 💪

What is the registration of your aircraft? I might have seen it in North Carolina flying at 775 ft over a field

Wow! My heart is thumping in my chest watching this! You are the pilot's pilot!

Patrick, always announce your intentions. What you are doing is expecting everyone else to announce their own.

Now I see why they put the orange beachball thingies on the powerlines here in Arkansas

These guys have to be good because like other dangerous jobs you don't get to go home if you make a mistake

How do you know how far to get over each pass so you won't spray the same area?? Love your channel!!

“Right meow” You watch Saltycracker?

As a young boy I was in love with cropdusting. In high school my best friends father flew and I got my first job as a ground crewman and flagger. My path to becoming a pilot was cut short with a head injury from football. My best friend made good on his promise to become an aerial applicator. Sadly, he clipped a cell tower guide wire a few years back and was killed. Long story short, aerial applicators are (no pun intended) a dying breed and there is a shortage of these pilots in 2024. That said the world's food supply would be 1/2 of what it is without ag pilots. And you my friend, are one of the great pilots that has experience and knowledge. May the Lord bless you and keep you safe!!! PS- "She thinks my (Air) tractors sexy!!!

My dad did this in the 70s😊

Patrick - would your skills be translatable to fire fighting out west?

WOW!

I really enjoy your Channel

where do you fly from...used to work as a loader boy during HS (30 yrs ago)and still love to watch cropdusters

air tractors 2of them crashed Shed into each other, Lubbock, Texas. It died pilot

“Man drops chem trails on unsuspecting cotton plants”

great video

Hey, just recently got the private pilot's book to start studying, so I'm still a long way off from getting into the air yet, but I wanted to ask: my big goal is to work with fire fighters in the lead plane or in the air tankers, and they require hours in low flying and this seems like a good thing to do to get those hours. What's the path to working as a pilot spraying fields?

Been a Corporate Pilot for 30 years. Always admired the skills of the ag pilots. Great videos. I appreciate the explanations and commentary when you’re 5 feet off the ground. Stay safe.

I see the airspeed and think 'economy cruise for the long ferry'... and then you pan to the torque setting! 😅 Driving a tractor x-country at about 2.5 mpg, I bet the US of A starts to feel pret-ty big? Love the short 👍

Do you ever make machine gun noises when you are rolling in on a field?

I've done ac & heating in Baytown for 25 years, I have flown Cessna 172 for years. So I went to Georgia in 2015 to see Billy Howell at Ag Flight, I loved it just never got the 60 grand together but now I wished I would have. I did the model planes in the 80's and then starting flying Cessna's. I am thinking about doing it. At 50 I still have great vision and the want to. Any tips are should I just stay ac & heating

Pilatus pt9. Not the porter which has the 502 engine

$400k a year, I assume expenses like plane payment, annual, fuel, repairs etc come out of that?