PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Pictures of aircraft water-skiing? Genuine or not?
Old 25th Feb 2006, 14:10
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Flying Lawyer
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
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Lister Noble
he reckons they are mostly crop sprayer pilots.
They could well be.

I learnt to fly a Harvard on a farm strip in Texas many years ago, and my check pilot was a cropduster. We flew along Padre Island one day - largely uninhabited, just off the coast, stretching for miles along the Gulf of Mexico - and I took up his suggestion of doing some low flying.
After a few miles along the deserted beach, through the headset came 'D'ya want me to show ya low flying?' (I thought I was.) I discovered our ideas of 'low' were very different. Wow!
As we turned to head for home, 'D'ya wanna try it? I'll watch ya.'
'Yes, Sirreee!'


He took me up in a crop-duster before I left. (Single-seat, but a roomy cockpit - and many miles from any FAA eyes. ) His precision and low level handling skills were absolutely phenomenal.
I'd always assumed cropdusters stayed above, or climbed over, any telephone lines/small power lines stretched across fields. Wrong!
'No way, wires can kill ya! Gotta stay under wire height in case ya don't see 'em. Anyways, if the farmers round here see daylight under your wheels they complain to the boss and won't pay.'
The first wing-over from virtually ground level when doing a 180 at the end of a field took me a little by surprise (to say the least), but it was one of the most exhilarating and exciting flights I've had yet.

I was lost in admiration for his skill, but it was just another day's work for him.
Every man to his job, as they say.

FL

Last edited by Flying Lawyer; 26th Feb 2006 at 13:58.
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