Sunworshipper wrote in
:

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 14:26:42 -0500, Peter T. Keillor III
wrote:

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

So that's how its spelled ! I just hate how they make insecticides
smell nice now , the wife has to use the stuff in the house cause I
will not apply it in the house no matter how much she bitches about
ants or spiders. I should have got a jar of that dark purple powder
when I had a chance decades ago. Don't know what it was, but I bet if
you kept it on the property all the bugs would move away.

The worst time that I got exposed I had to jump in a canal to get it
off before it killed me and I recall being worried that I wouldn't be
able to get back up the steep banks in my condition. Can Boll Weevils
swim?

Ag-Cats are cool , I was at a crash site of one of those. Only thing
holding it together was the wires (from the plane) and the pilot broke
his arm. He pulled up into those really big power lines (the ones with
huge metal towers) , took the top half off a tree, chopped clean an
approx. 2.5' Dia. palm tree at its base next to water and upside down
, and then bounced and landed backwards and right side up in the
water. Wasn't his time to go.


Believe it or not back in the late 60s I used to work for a cropduster
flying an AgCat out of a small field in northern wisconsin, we sprayed
mostly potatoes and corn...he'd land on a dirt road out in the field and I
would mix the chemicals by hand!...talk about dumb! up to my elbows in that
crap! he used, among others,malathion. to this day I can smell that stuff.
many times there were spills of the stuff into little creeks and rivers
where we got the water for the mix.
Called a halt to it when I passed out in a truckstop,I stayed there till I
was well enough to travel, then went home, no doctor,no nothing...dumb!
They tell me now (and I believe it) that the chemical used to kill the
potato vines is in reality agent orange.