OPPORTUNITIES FOR AERIAL APPLICATION
Nouseforaname: Don't mention crop spraying when you apply for planning permission. If you do, you will have every green-wellied tree-hugger within a thousand miles objecting to your application. If you are only going to spray your crops 15 times a year (that number of times you must be talking blight in spuds in a very hot and very wet summer) you should operate off a convenient field headland or farm roadway, which under the 28-day rule does not require planning permission. We have frequently operated Pawnees out of convenient pastures or stubble fields.
Moateair: Dont bank on the granular stuff. Many farmers in the main agricultural areas (Lincs/East Anglian fens) are going over to liquid fertilisers. Trouble with that stuff is that it has to go on at such a rate that a Pawnee pilot would need to be heaving on the dump handle to get it out of the hopper at a high enough rate. You are right to say that aircraft come into their own when we have a wet spring, but when did that last happen? You can no longer afford to keep aircraft and crews on stand-by, and pay the CAA fees and insurance, for the calls that may never come. Seeding stubble turnips was a nice little job for the Pawnee - until 2001 when, for a year, foot & mouth came and stopped sheep being brought from the north to the barley stubbles in East Anglia.