Years ago we used to have some farm crops sprayed and fertilised using aerial application via a Pawnee,which carried 500kgs of chemical.
The pilot was either South African or Rhodesian,and around 50 years old.
When I asked about the fatality rate he told when you get to his age you are past all the fatalities!
He flew under all the cables,and had a cutter bar thing in front of the cockpit in case he hit anything.
In fact he hit some power cables on another local farm,and put the whole area out for a while but he survived.
When he was applying stuff in small areas I had to mark for him by standing under his path with a flag.
He used to go over me at around 10-15 feet,I thought it was great but was a lot younger then!
Imagine what the health and safety bods would say about that today?
He also told me although it was a single seater he had taken the occassional passenger, if they were very pretty.
I smiled my best smile, but no such luck.
Lister
