On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 08:28:37 -0800, Sunworshipper
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 08:55:29 -0500, Peter T. Keillor III
wrote:

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 23:25:49 -0800, Sunworshipper
wrote:

snip
And after the pilot ducked and came through on the deck, I had to hit
the dirt because he flew over me about 3' high. This was my dad, and
I was flagging (before Loran and GPS). Yuk, that spray stunk.

One of our pilots was returning home, felt a slight tug (not good when
you're flying), and looked back to see the messenger wire falling
away. At the same time, the flare went off at a nearby chemical
plant. He had clipped the little messenger wire on a high voltage
line running to the plant with the landing gear, no damage to the
plane. He didn't tell us for a while. I don't know if they ever
figured it out.

One of our cropduster friend's son died flying into high voltage
lines. It stopped the plane, then flipped it back onto the ground.

Pete Keillor

So you had the pleasure of that job also. What was it , counting in
twos to nine which is 18 rows over and over? That's how I learned to
drive, mostly on dirt roads at 90mph. Some fields I'd come back to
fuel the planes and clean the windows and drive back. 12 hours a day
for a whopping $20 a week. I've got lots of stories like cleaning off
that other tobacco from the landing gear and watching them drag the
gear on the reservoirs and throwing up huge rooster tails. Or having
Cokes delivered by parachute and listening to phones line
conversations.

Or the fish out of water starry eyed flopping and ralfing from
methelethelaceketoneparthyon. Or falling asleep when they go back to
fill up baking in the summer heat in the truck and dreaming of some
girl then buzzed by the first plane with spray a flying and the next
plane coming down.

I heard it was the most dangerous job you could have. Wish I could
remember some of the pilots' names , one still owes me $ for back
rubs. My all time favorite was getting blown into the slippery
chemical coated knives of the wing and landing gear while jump
starting the planes. It was probably cause the pilot was ****ed at the
plane and or they thought it was funny, but it ain't no picnic leaning
hard into the changing wind speeds right next to the prop. trying to
unplug the jumper.

Sunshine in the shade

Yup, it brings back memories, not all bad, 14 paces or a chain for
dry, about double that for spray. I've been asleep lying flat on my
back in the rice field (dry) waiting for it to get light enough to
fly. Yeah, the pay sucked, but I got to eat. If we weren't flying we
were driving tractors or shoveling levees.

One of my funniest flagging episodes was when my little brother came
in the house drunk about an hour before we went out to flag one of our
fields. He took the low end, which meant he had to cross through the
woods. He was barefoot and wearing cutoffs when he went through all
the briars, but was feeling no pain. By the time we finished, the
anesthetic was wearing off, and his legs were shredded. Talk about
looking like a sick puppy!

Our plug-ins for the battery cart were behind the wing in the footstep
hole in the fuselage (Ag-Cats), so it wasn't too bad to unplug.

Dad refused to apply methyl parathion. The EPA guys kept promoting it
because of the rapid degradation, but too many pilots were dying.
It's no damn good when you have to use a full face mask and carry an
atropine injector to stay alive while killing some bugs.

Pete Keillor