New Zealand Crop Dusting.

[farri]

New Zealand crop duster and his turnaround times are amazing

[red750]

Video is featured in Deskpilot's thread "Awesome".

 

 

[IBob]

Minor correction, Farri: it's called 'topdressing' here, which is laying superphosphate, usually on hill country, to promote grass growth.

 

Aircraft have included Tiger Moths, Lodestars, DC3s, Beavers, Ag Waggons.

 

I had the good fortune to spend some time in the passenger seat of a topdressing Beaver in the '70s. We also hired topdressing DC3s for skydiving, having demonstrated we could fit 25 bodies to the rear of the hopper within C of G constraints.

 

And there's a topdressing Cresco operating off a similar strip down the road here as I type...)

 

 

[Garfly]

Here is some amazing footage of the same activity by a professional air-to-air mob (Tony Monk Films).

 

 

I presume this is the kind of equipment they used. In any case it's just beautiful to watch cinematography.

 

Tony Monk | The Gear

 

 

[robinsm]

Grew up in the north of NZ at the height of the Fletcher/DC3 top dressing era. Loved to watch the pilots land and take off from ridiculously steep farm strips. Very quick turn around as well. There is a site dedicated to ag pilots in NZ, especially the fletchers and DC3's. These guys, and their Oz counterparts put skill and daredevil back into flying. Awesome to watch them at work. (the DC3's were used as top dressing aircaraft mainly by James Aviation in the north of NZ, but one or two others were also used by different companies. They went out of vogue in the early 1970's)

 

The fletchers are tried and true,

 

Looking at that country, now you know why the All Blacks were such an awesome force in that era, farmers running up and down that sort of country all day.

 

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[IBob]

Grew up in the north of NZ at the height of the Fletcher/DC3 top dressing era. Loved to watch the pilots land and take off from ridiculously steep farm strips. Very quick turn around as well. There is a site dedicated to ag pilots in NZ, especially the fletchers and DC3's. These guys, and their Oz counterparts put skill and daredevil back into flying. Awesome to watch them at work. (the DC3's were used as top dressing aircaraft mainly by James Aviation in the north of NZ, but one or two others were also used by different companies. They went out of vogue in the early 1970's)The fletchers are tried and true,

Looking at that country, now you know why the All Blacks were such an awesome force in that era, farmers running up and down that sort of country all day.

 

.

Fieldair out of Palmerston North also ran a number of DC3s and Beavers.

 

 

[IBob]

It's also, unfortunately, a very dangerous occupation. These guys go literally from dawn to dusk when the weather is right.

 

The Beaver I used to ride in missed his line in an early morning ridge-top takeoff (no dew to leave wheel marks from his landing) and tracked off the side rather than down the full length of the ridge. Pulled his dump lever before leaving the ridge, but the superphosphate just doesn't dump quickly, bounced down the valley side tearing off bits of aircraft, and through a fence. Lucky not to burn (the fuel tank is in under the cockpit).

 

I wasn't there, but went out to view the damage. Standing at the start of the strip, you could see exactly how it would happen: visually, the land appeared to fall away the same in all directions: that is the line down the ridge top was anything but clear.

 

This was a very good pilot, he went on to do a lot of low level mapping in PNG and in many other places, fixed wing and rotor.

 

Curious further detail: pilots who were feeling the strain in Beavers were shifted to DC3s: apparently they were easier to work.

 

 

[kgwilson]

I owned a property near Glen Massey on the way to Waingaro Springs in NZ west of Hamilton. My neighbour had a steep strip where takeoff & landing were completed under 110kv power transmission lines. Originally most of the Aircraft were Fletchers & latterly turbine powered Crescos. I went for a ride in a Fletcher on one of his runs & the pilot was as cool as a cucumber. It scared the sh!t out of me. Flight time was about 4 minutes.

 

 

[IBob]

Today, the Cresco operating down the road is averaging under 3.5mins turnaround.

 

Crappy pics with very long lense:

 

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

Good shots though & highlights how steep some of the strips really are. I used to fly a lot from Hamilton south to Nelson & it was pretty much hill & tiger country most of the way to Whanganui. I saw heaps of top dressing strips and always figured that's where I'd attempt to land if I had an engine failure. The problem would really be what to do if I got down OK but stopped on the steep bit. Would the brakes hold?

 

 

[IBob]

Good shots though & highlights how steep some of the strips really are. I used to fly a lot from Hamilton south to Nelson & it was pretty much hill & tiger country most of the way to Whanganui. I saw heaps of top dressing strips and always figured that's where I'd attempt to land if I had an engine failure. The problem would really be what to do if I got down OK but stopped on the steep bit. Would the brakes hold?

Yep...long time ago I had a Jeep CJ5 and, in an early sharp lesson on how NOT to do it, got myself stuck on a very steep vertical climb: unable to go forward due to lack of traction, and the CJ5 handbrake had one of those useless pulls-out-from-under-the-dash things, and not worth a pinch of p**p.

(In fact, the brakes all round...very small drums...were completely inadequate.) I was backing down in lo ratio when she jumped out of gear, which left me standing on the brakes.

 

It was sheer luck, rather than any skill in high speed reversing that she didn't swing sideways and roll.............(

 

I guess there's a point where you groundloop rather than rolling into the rough...or up onto the steep bit????