Recap of week one.

T

t-cart

Active Member
This was my first week back at work full time since "retiring" a few years ago. And what a week it was.

I had done a little bit earlier this spring but this past week it hit the fan. I knew what was coming. I was hoping for a slow week to get back in the groove but it didn't happen like that.

From Monday morning at 6am till around 11am Saturday, I put 52 hours on the Thrush and about 190 takeoffs and landings.

I didn't hit anything but I did have a couple of pucker up moments. First one happened as I was coming back to the airport for another load and smelled smoke. I started looking around and then the cockpit started getting smoky. I was just about to land in a field or turnrow when the smoke started clearing and the smell started to lighten up. I was about a mile from the runway so I got back and landed and stopped to take a look. Turns out the radio had "fried" for some reason. I talked to the boss and he said that it had happened before, so after checking it out, I determined it was safe to go, so off I went without a radio.

Second OH CRAP moment happened as I was trimming a field with a big warehouse type building on one side. I started in on my trim pass beside the building and as I got closer I saw two guy wires coming off the top of the building into the field. Luckily, I saw it and pulled away from it and all was well except for needing some new underwear.

After being out for a few years, it all came right back to me and it felt like I had never quit. I also realized that I still have the same "good" habits and unfortunately, I still have some of the old "bad" habits. I'm working on the bad ones and trying to do better.

All in all it was a great week. I posted a few weeks ago about my first day back this year and how I felt physically. After a week, I am sore from my head to my toes, but I feel great.

We are off Sunday, then back at it 6am Monday.
 
Quick math here... ~190 landings in 52 hours... that comes out to be roughly 3.5 landings per hour. :panic:


Sensing some fertilizer work??
 
ctab5060X said:
Quick math here... ~190 landings in 52 hours... that comes out to be roughly 3.5 landings per hour. :panic:


Sensing some fertilizer work??
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Lots and lots and lots and lots. Spraying a few hours in the morning and then fertiliing the rest of the day.
 
t-cart said:
Lots and lots and lots and lots. Spraying a few hours in the morning and then fertiliing the rest of the day.
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How many more weeks of fertilizer do you think you have?

Oh, I managed to overfly your part of the world the other night before it got too dark. There is a lot of water still standing from all the rain!
 
ctab5060X said:
How many more weeks of fertilizer do you think you have?

Oh, I managed to overfly your part of the world the other night before it got too dark. There is a lot of water still standing from all the rain!
Click to expand...

Usually it would be about six weeks or so but due to all the rain, it might stretch longer than that due to some guys not being able to get in the fields yet.
 
t-cart said:
Usually it would be about six weeks or so but due to all the rain, it might stretch longer than that due to some guys not being able to get in the fields yet.
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Think how much longer it would be if they were using ground rigs.

I always wanted to do ag flying, but had some friends in the business talk me out of it. They said I was better off in corporate flying, because starting out in ag flying is too hard now compared to when they started.
 
RynoB said:
I always wanted to do ag flying, but had some friends in the business talk me out of it. They said I was better off in corporate flying, because starting out in ag flying is too hard now compared to when they started.
Click to expand...

From what I hear its all about tailwheel time, turbine time would obviously also help. The possibility of renting a trike over a tailwheel is significantly easier, much less very few places let people solo in a tailwheel. This is some of the reason why I'm seeing it hard to get into.
 
t-cart said:
Usually it would be about six weeks or so but due to all the rain, it might stretch longer than that due to some guys not being able to get in the fields yet.
Click to expand...

That is what I figured.

Have any farmers thought about/mentioned in passing about aerial seeding with all the rain?

Talked to a guy from the corn belt a couple of days ago and he said they were having problems getting corn in the ground due to all the rain. :panic:
 
ctab5060X said:
That is what I figured.

Have any farmers thought about/mentioned in passing about aerial seeding with all the rain?

Talked to a guy from the corn belt a couple of days ago and he said they were having problems getting corn in the ground due to all the rain. :panic:
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We normally seed a lot in the precision level (zero grade) fields, but we are doing a lot of seding for guys that have always drilled. Just got the call this afternoon to stay at home tomorrow.:rawk:It's been raining since Saturday night and not supposed to quit until tomorrow(Monday) sometime.

Funny story about the zero grade fields. One of my old customers was one of the first to level his fields and was talking about it in the coffee shop one morning before levelling the first field. The other farmers thought he was crazy and that he wouldn't be able to drain the water off in a timely matter. They were really giving him a hard time when he poured his coffee on the flat table. Some of it got on everybody sitting around the table and he said "How's that for timely draining". Funny thing is that he has now been doing this for fifty five years, and all the other farmers in the coffee shop that day are either dead or have all precision level fields.:D
 
t-cart said:
Funny story about the zero grade fields. One of my old customers was one of the first to level his fields and was talking about it in the coffee shop one morning before levelling the first field. The other farmers thought he was crazy and that he wouldn't be able to drain the water off in a timely matter. They were really giving him a hard time when he poured his coffee on the flat table. Some of it got on everybody sitting around the table and he said "How's that for timely draining". Funny thing is that he has now been doing this for fifty five years, and all the other farmers in the coffee shop that day are either dead or have all precision level fields.:D
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Poetic justice at it's best!
 
Recap of week two.

This past week started slow due to the rain. We finally got back in the groove Wednesday. Didn't really have any "Oh Crap" moments this week. It was kind of boring actually. After we got started Wednesday, we flew quite a bit. Shut down Saturday evening about 7:30pm. Was off today.

It's going to start getting interesting this week because a lot of beans were planted last week and they will start popping out this week. The stuff we spray on the rice will kill the beans which = very agitated farmers = $$$$$.

All in all, after the week started, got a lot of flying done and made a little change. A good week.

4:30am really comes early!!!:)
 
Swen said:
From what I hear its all about tailwheel time, turbine time would obviously also help. The possibility of renting a trike over a tailwheel is significantly easier, much less very few places let people solo in a tailwheel. This is some of the reason why I'm seeing it hard to get into.
Click to expand...
I've got both the tailwheel and turbine time. I actually talked to an ag operator in KS about buying his operation. He was retiring in a couple of years, and was taking on a partner. The idea was for the partner to learn the business, and then buy the entire operation after a couple of years. But, as I said before some friends in the biz scared me away from it. My wife was not happy about the idea either.
 
RynoB said:
But, as I said before some friends in the biz scared me away from it. My wife was not happy about the idea either.
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I can believe that. An ag pilot I load for has no problem flying, but he would never want to own/manage an ag business. He claims the liability and risks are too high.
 
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