That field road looks like runway plumb 40...40 miles outta town and plumb rough! Man! Those long runs empty you up quick, fast, and in a hurry!!! Ever met a fellow 802 driver named Chris Pulliam? He flies for Miles Flying Service in Bono, AR.
LOL, FLIGHT NAACP-105. I KNOW THIS FROM MY CHILD HOOD. MY STEP DAD WAS A DUSTER PILOT AND HAD HIS OWN PLANES. THAT SONG WAS PRIOR AND DURING THE CIVIL RITES MOVEMENT. FIRST TIME I EVER HEARD REFERENCE TO IT. BRINGS BACK MEMORIES. OH I STILL HAVE THAT 45 Of that song and others.
Military has a variant of the 802 for 'light" ground attack to deploy in places the A-10 cant go, or would be too expensive to deploy. The AT-802U and L variants. And they also have one for firefighting AT-802F. Very versatile little plane.
I worked 36 years as a machinist in aerospace now retired and have never flown. That must be an absolute thrill. They aren't called "air tractor" for nothing...
Just discovered your videos and can't stop watching... Don't know why other than it's so cool to watch... Tons of questions that I would love to ask... Fascinating
I have another video on my channel that is a bit more extreme than that. It’s called “wingover to landing” or something like that. It was from the wilder days of my youth, haha.
@@pcohen85 100% agreed, the lightbar makes it so much more fun. I wrote an external application in C# to do the Spray computer and lightbar. It is connected to MSFS. Also another app to do planning on. It uses a map to draw polygons to export to the spray computer via KML file. The job is also logged and can be viewed afterwards. I am still working on it to display live. I can advance the swath numbers on the joystick. The app currently create 8 different spray patterns. Discovered another 2 to implement. But the flight dynamics of the 802 is a challenge. Never flown one.
@@FritzWeinrebethat sounds awesome!! How can o help you understand the flight characteristics of the AT-802? I am happy to make a video explaining whatever it is you want to know.
Fritz, Patrick excuse my interruption. Fritz, u have never flown an 801, have u flown any G.A.aircraft? If u have ,, Patrick could conceivably compare any similarities,,if there are any.. And highlight the varied differences. No doubt Patrick as a professional came up like the rest of us. In a G.A. aircraft Love ur vids Patrick!! Please keep em coming !
5:43 thats just too badass. Can you control the prop blade pitch? Can't you also adjust the engine rpm separately from the proppeler rpm? Love that aircraft. It can be nimble enough for t/o and landing on fairly short runways. Turns on a dime when taxi 😂 But then the hopper opens up and inhales 8000 pounds of pellets! Thats a hell of a load for even a big truck. But that little PT6 is an absolute monster and hauls that weight with some speed. 🛩️🌽🚜
Yea I can control the prop blade pitch in a few different ways. The regular way is with the prop rpm control lever which is connected to a governor that will hold the rpm wherever I set it until the engine slows down too much and the blades run out of forward pitch. The second way is when the power lever is in a certain position aft of the normal stop and that is called Beta. In Beta I have a linear control of the pitch using the power lever. Beta is only used in the ground for slowing down and reverse.
I used to fly RC model aircraft in a large field located about 17 miles north of Alligator Alley (I-75) on US#27. Sometimes a crop duster like this one would land & visit. I said it looks like a fun job. The pilot replied that it is not, It is like a flying tractor with no air-conditioning. (It suck because it is hot). Nowadays large (Very large) drones are spraying fields. They have programed routes using user selected GPS way points. Just fill tanks and launch. The drones automatically return to launch sites when batteries low or when tanks get low. The drones remember where they left off and return to that location & continue.
"The PT6A is a two-shaft engine with a multi-stage compressor driven by a single-stage compressor turbine and an independent shaft coupling the power turbine to the propeller through an epicyclic concentric reduction gearbox."
The roads we used were shell roads just wide enough for 1 vehicle to go down. Watched my dad turn that agwagon around many times on those roads. Just curious, was that 200lbs to the acre? That fertilizer was going down really fast during your run..
That was 125lbs per acre and I’m moving between 150 and 160mph so it comes out pretty quick. Also the back hopper empties a bit faster than the front hopper on this plane.
Wow a self closing hopper We had to get up top and slam it shut Thx Was fun being a loader..driver Your average..when loaded.. for v1 is in the 70s.. rotate about 78? Nice engine glass
I don’t look at the airspeed indicator that much but I would guess with a full load it flys off around 80mph with 2/3 flap. The tail comes up around 60mph
Yea that’s pretty much how it goes. My first time flying a turbine engine and my first time flying an Ag Cat was the same flight and I only had about 600hrs total time. My boss showed me how to start the engine and gave me some pointers. It takes a real aviator to do this job for more reasons than people may think!
Flying Ag would be fun but man you work fast! Are there abbreviated checklists you're running through in every T/O landing cycle or is the work load generally pretty light with that type of flying?
I don’t use a checklist or anything. There really isn’t much to it as far as the actual airplane flying goes. For landing I just pull the power back, put the flaps down and land. For takeoff I push the prop forward, flaps 2/3 down, lock the tailwheel and get back to work. There are other things that have more to do with the application and/or application equipment that you want to make sure is set but the airplane itself is pretty simple.
@@77Avadon77 yes we do have to be careful about that. The cockpits are “sealed” but I don’t trust that so much. We use the wind to make sure we don’t fly through our spray drift.
Yea man that’s a nice field. We’ve got some pretty good running here for sure. One of our fields is 1800 acres and 3.5 miles long. It’s in corn this year so I’ll get to spray it later this month probably. I’ll try and remember to bring the camera.
You guys ever come up as far as Jefferson City? I worked line service at the airport years ago hot fueling air tractors on occasions just wondering if I ever ran into you and didn't realize it!
What kind of fertilizer are you using? Looks like miracle grow pellets? Is that actually a window in the panel that lets you see the remaining amount of contents? Also what kind of music do you listen to when you fly?
That was Urea which is 46% nitrogen. There are two windows however they only look into the rear hopper and you can’t see through them very well if the fertilizer is dusty. I listen to about everything in there. Mostly podcasts now because I’ve heard all the music. I spend between 400-600 hours a year in there so there is plenty of time to listen to whatever.
@@pcohen85 haha I thought you might say I only listen to ACDC or something lol. But I imagine at so many hours you've heard all the music you like to listen to already. I'm that same way when I'm in my shop welding. :)
Yea they run over it with a dirt plane and smooth it out as best as possible and then dont drive any tractors down it after that. We dont spray a dirt strip with anything but if it had grass we would spray it for weeds and fertilize it to keep the grass nice.
It is row rice and it’s really close to Arkansas but not quite. Row rice is awesome because they do all the hard herbicide with the trucks and we don’t have to worry about killing all the corn, beans and cotton.
I haven't explained it in verry much depth. It is basically the HUD for my gps computer that tells me how far I am off my line in feet , displays my laser altimeter readout, displays my groundspeed and my pass number. The Channel Ag Aviation Adventures has a really good video on the lightbar and how the GPS system works. Its worth a watch if you are interested.
Random video for me. Out of curiosity I searched "Air Tractor 802 price" to see how much one of those little crop dusters cost. Holy moly I almost choked.
It has something to do with using shape files and you have to turn off the light bar option to have the left and right yellow arrows displayed. I can’t remember what that option is called but it has to be turned off for the center lights to do that edge warning thing.
I usually watch the hopper lid when I am close to empty. When the fertilizer runs out the hopper lid will get sucked down tight by the negative pressure in the hopper.
It is there because I need to do math. There are plenty of calculations we need to do on the fly, most often having to do with spray/fertilizer calibration. For example: I have 83 acres left to spray and 349 gallons in my hopper.. what spray volume do I set in the computer to ensure I don't run out of chemical before I spray all the fields? There are a lot of variables that will throw off the calibration and I need to keep up with it throughout the entire job. The GPS computer also has a calculator function as does my phone, but ole trusty there on the panel is the easiest and most reliable source.
