Visa issues aside, the Ag industry is very difficult to break into. You'll have almost no chance unless you spend a few years loading Ag Aircraft first. That's the 'apprenticeship' you'll need to do if you want an Ag seat. There is really no way of getting around that. Firstly, showing that commitment alone sorts out the folk who really want to go Ag flying from those who just think they want to go Ag flying. Secondly, it's the knowledge background you'll need prior to applying the chemical from the aircraft.
Thirdly, as an airline pilot from the UK you'll be perceived as someone likely to return to airlines, or to the UK, and no Ag operator is going to want to invest their time and effort in you - unless you load for a few years to demonstrate that you'll stick around.
Fourth, any ag company you join will likely already have a newly qualified Ag Rated pilot or two, loading aircraft, waiting for a seat - so you'll have to get in the line behind them.
Ag Companies aren't keen on airline pilots - sorry to say. It's just a completely different mentality, type of flying, lifestyle, personality, and background. You'll be seen as someone who set-up their career to push buttons on auto-pilot between big cities, whilst wearing a ridiculous hat and a joke of a tie - who the hell wears a tie when flying!?
You won't be perceived as someone who was ever keen on getting dirty in remote regions, or keen on flying between trees and under powerlines - or you would have done that in the first place, had it been the sort of flying and lifestyle that you wanted to pursue.
Sitting at some funny attitude like FL30 on autopilot whilst getting handed sandwiches and coffee has nothing to do with Ag flying, so your current experience is basically worthless.
Even flying at 100 feet is very different to flying at 2 feet. Flying 20 feet over the top trees and power poles is a very different perspective than flying towards and between then. Flying at some FL in a machine that takes half an hour to respond to a power change, and beeps at you when you bank or fart, is totally irrelevant to Ag.
I know a few Ag operators in Australia who are now getting Aussie airline pilots apply to them due Covid-19. Their attitude is to basically laugh at them - just like an airline recruiting team would laugh at someone's thinking they'd step straight into a 737 with only a background in flying VFR, single-engine, over crops, in the middle of nowhere.
Ag is kind of apart from the rest of the aviation industry. Most of the pilots are from a rural background and never wanted to do anything in aviation other than Ag.
Even city folk from Melbourne or Sydney who want to be Ag pilots are looked on with scepticism by Ag Operators - and not without good reason - how long are they going to stick around in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere before hurrying back to the city? What's their interest in farming? What do they know about chemical usage through the growing cycles of cotton, rice, wheat and other crops?
As an airline pilot, what do you know about fungicide application cycles on bananas, or defoliation timing on Cotton? Or Bloodworm control on Rice? Probably nothing, right?
What do you know about CP nozzles, or setting up Micronair atomizers to get the required droplet size? What do you know about decontaminating a hopper that held a herbacide with ammonia to prepare it for an insecticide? Screw that sort of thing up, and you'll destory a farmers million-dollar cotton crop!
Thus you need to do a few years working as ground crew before you start flying Ag and spreying chemicals from the air.
Without this background, and as an airline pilot from the UK, you're just not going to be seen as a good fit for Ag companies. And already you are saying you only want to do it to go firebombing. Firebombing would be great, but you need to regard Ag as a career, and not as a stepping-stone, or operators will see you as someone who is really not that interested in crop spraying / top dressing/agriculture, and they'll have no interest at all in having you fly their machines.
That said, if you can get a visa, and if you're prepared to work as a loader/driver/mixer for a few years, for an Ag operator, in the middle of nowhere, and thus show you're commitment, without any promise from the company you are loading for that they'll one day give you a flying position, then go for it!
But I bet you just stick to the 737. And that's what all Ag operators will bet you'll do too!
But best of luck! Drop me a line if you make it down to Australia and get a job as ground crew for an Ag operator!
Last edited by Jerry Springer; 3rd Jun 2020 at 04:00.