ag-training recurrency

[lanceair]

Hey all,
Well it's that time of year again. My boss is frantically trying to get his Thrushes ready to go for yet another season of ag-spraying. Last summer was awesome for us because all of our aircraft came back intact and they got lots of acres done. However, the summer before last, saw one ground loop and one crash, the former being explained off as a bad brake and the latter as "Get-home-itus" when he should have done a precautionary. Crop dusting is a risky business and their are lots of accidents each year some of which are preventable and others just explained off at being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I should mention that i am a flight instructor and not an ag-pilot and my goal is to set up a mini ground and air program to get the ag-pilots ready for another safe season. Do you guys have any suggestions as to the air and ground exercises i should include in a one day course?

Thanks in advance,
Lance

[Cat Driver]

I should mention that i am a flight instructor and not an ag-pilot and my goal is to set up a mini ground and air program to get the ag-pilots ready for another safe season. Do you guys have any suggestions as to the air and ground exercises i should include in a one day course?

If I understand your question you are saying you have no ag-flying experience and want to set up a ag flying safety course?

[DonutHole]

If that is true, that is genuinely scary

[lanceair]

Not at all. My boss owns a spray company and a flight school. I see no harm in going up flying with them (the ag-pilots) just before the season begins and helping them crack off the rust and perhaps review exercises they probably haven't done since ag-school.

[lanceair]

This would be purely in-house training and definitely not a revenue stream.

[Adam Oke]

Here is a twist for a different perspective; My boss has in house maintenance. Should I run a rust remover for my AME? I should also mention that I am not an AME, but I have watched him snap some bolts from time to time.

In all honesty, being a flight instructor with no ag experience, you will bring no added value to the table in terms of ag flying re-currency training. It is not exactly something you can just pick up and start teaching without having done it first. Have you thought about approaching one of the experienced spray pilots to run this course instead?

[DonutHole]

Im kind of wondering what kind of two seat ag aircraft they are running to do the training in.

[trey kule]

This is a troll....right?

You are going to "help" experienced ag pilots get recurrent.??? ..here is a program suggestion.
Keep them out drinking until 0200 and then get them up at 0400 to fly. Winters make them lazy, and you dont want them going into Withdrawl this early in the season.

I have read some ego enhanced posts in the past, but yours is pretty much right there with the best of them...I.would really like to hear what you think you can offer to an experienced agpilot, for recurrency better than another experienced agpilot.

This has to be a troll

[photofly]

Wow. Like flies round shit, gentlemen. Nicely done.

[Colonel Sanders]

The poor OP must feel like Ricky Bobby riding the bus:

[Bent wrench]

quote][/quote]The poor OP must feel like Ricky Bobby riding the bus:[

LMAO ! that's exactly how the Op is feeling right now, wishing he hadn't opened his mouth

[photofly]

Let's have a debate about how regular posters on Avcanada like to dance on the heads of less frequent contributors, for the entertainment of the gallery.

EDIT: Oh, I'm sorry - make that "let's continue the debate.."

[CpnCrunch]

As Adam says, your best option might be to hire an experienced ag instructor. Harv's air has done courses in the past, and there's a freelance instructor here in Alberta who used to own a spray company and did ag training in the past with Harv. However you might have left it a bit late.

[Beefitarian]

Ok, if I'm following the thread here, that's a clip from Talladega nights? I don't remember seeing it.

[Jonathan Goldsmith]

Hey all,
...when he should have done a precautionary.

Just wait for someone to beat up on Lance for ending a sentence with a preposition and completes it for him like this.

...when he should have done a precautionary washroom break.

[TG]

Well, I don't want to burst everybody's sarcastic bubble but I know guys at flight safety who are giving course on certain aircraft types (the Embraer Legacy comes to mind) while never having flown the aircraft itself...
I should be more precise: While never actually having flown anything bigger than light twin piston !
They do have hundreds or thousands hours on the Sim though. And they do know the aircraft systems inside out.

So yes, you can give a course on something you never touched for real.
Now, can you apply this to aerial work !? errrr ...

It would depend.

If lanceair is talking about removing the rust from basic flying (not spraying a couple of inches above ground and under wires like you all seems to imply) I see nothing wrong with that.
A tail wheel to do the job would be better! Go out, couple of touch & go, stalls, spins, etc...
If he is talking about a ground course, why not as well. You don't need thousands of flying hours do give a safety course on something. Just being well documented and know how to give the "message"

He is here looking for advises after all. So give some "constructive" ones instead of bashing him around like a little toy.

[Jonathan Goldsmith]

Go do some night flying with them. There will be a load that comes back twenty minutes later than dark.

[Beefitarian]

So TG, you figure he might be thinking of doing more of a classroom thing, with lot's of decision making type of discussions?

I agree, He probably isn't intending to load everyone in a 150 and "Really show 'em how to do a proper forced approach from 3500' agl." There was something in the OP that could have helped the rest of us know that.

my goal is to set up a mini ground and air program to get the ag-pilots ready for another safe season.

Might have been better if he hadn't wrote "and air" or just expanded on what they planned on doing in the air portion of the course.

Hopefully the pilots will want to participate, if they just groan at the "4 bar" they won't get anything out of what could be a good opportunity for discussion.

[pdw]

Not that many instruments ... (in the past anyway).

For inadvertant IMC and emergency exit of cloud/fog without instruments: Turn South (a floating compass at a 180 heading has same direction wandering as the turn tendency but shows it's turning that way at twice the rate it really is ... very sensitive) for keeping wings level while immediately positioning the elevator (stick) at normal position for 'full power climb', leaving full power until 'exit' is complete.

A buddy without instrument rating was participating in ferrying a group of crop dusters, and having entered cloud at low altitude (3000ft) after unsuccessfully making the '180degree turn' in time, used this method ("learned it from an experienced Ag pilot"), breaking out of cloud at around 12,000 ft before rejoining the group on the retreat.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Do you guys have any suggestions as to the air and ground exercises i should include in a one day course?

Thanks in advance,
Lance

I frankly do not see you having much to offer for air exercises but I could see you providing the intro to the ground school. Before they get into the nitty gritty of spraying I suggest you offer to do a review of the applicable CARs that apply to commercial ag work. Your guys probably know their regular spray areas like the back of their hand but if they have to go elsewhere a review of online weather products, FiSE frequencies, procedures to transit controlled airspace, and flight following would probably be usefull. Finally a review of company accident response policies is always worthwhile as many pilots are clueless of what not to do if they are involved in a incident/accident.

pm me if you would like to discuss further without the cheap shots.

[Beefitarian]

pm me if you would like to discuss further without the cheap shots.

Where's the fun in that?

[Adam Oke]

I frankly do not see you having much to offer for air exercises but I could see you providing the intro to the ground school. Before they get into the nitty gritty of spraying I suggest you offer to do a review of the applicable CARs that apply to commercial ag work. Your guys probably know their regular spray areas like the back of their hand but if they have to go elsewhere a review of online weather products, FiSE frequencies, procedures to transit controlled airspace, and flight following would probably be usefull. Finally a review of company accident response policies is always worthwhile as many pilots are clueless of what not to do if they are involved in a incident/accident.

pm me if you would like to discuss further without the cheap shots.

Duty Day/Duty Time and applicable exemptions for aerial applicators. Human Factors (ie. Fatigue). Restricted Airspace in the area. Applicator License Rules and Regs. All in conjunction with the annual CAAA Conference and Wire Watch Program review.

GPS (SATLOC/AgNav etc), Software (Mapstar/NavView) -- These are things that take me a day (or season ) to get back into the swing of things, however it still does take some ag experience to teach it well. I'm sure you could at least learn how to download files and teach that! I wish my crew knew how to download their own damn cards!

[ptifred]

I did my "initial aerial application training" (low-level flying and all the regulations for this job (aviation + agriculture) on a Supercub with a pilot who had never done any ag-flying, but he had lots of time doing aerial work and instruction (and tailwheel!). He had learned with experienced ag pilots what to teach and how to do it. I think this is the part you can do, Lance, all the low-level flying, the regulations, the equipment used on agplanes, tailwheel, etc.

For the real ag part, I have learned with ag pilots, on the field. There are several types of ag-flying (seeding, liquid or solid chemicals, small fields and large areas to spray...), and the job can also be different with various aircraft and equipment. For example, spraying fertilizer and herbicid on smalls and not square sugar-can fields in a mountainous area in Cameroon on a Pawnee is very very different from seeding rice with an Agcat over long and rectangular paddies in French Guyana. A Thrush doesn't fly like an Agcat, pistons ag-aircraft do not fly like turbine ones, etc.

And be careful, because you may like it and forget your students, to go spraying!

[TG]

And be careful, because you may like it and forget your students, to go spraying!

Salut Fred!

[lanceair]

I knew as much not to post on this forum. What a big waste of f---ing time. Instead i called up a friend of mine who's got thousands of ag flying time and teaches the course at a well established school. He was glad to help me and never once did i hear sarcasm or ridicule on what i wanted to do. Too bad i didnt think of calling him first.

I know there are decent pilots/instructors out there with tons of experience who don't belittle people for sport. Thanks to the very few responding to my post that helped out with some ideas. I appreciate it. To the other so called instructors, when a student or pilot asks for some advice is this how you respond? Do you gang up on him and grind them into the ground. Pathetic!