Thanks for the feedback Coochief, I love hearing about how and what people are doing with regards to ag flying.
I will start by just saying that when I say "aggressive" flying, it is not quite what you probably think
. I am new to ag flying and still learning, but it is definitely more "aggressive" than any type of flying I have done before, but far from anything hard on the machine (except I am pulling a lot of torque getting off the truck occasionally, but try to be as gentle as possible and get it down a soon as I can) and I am very careful (or try to be) with everything I do. I try to be as smooth as possible and not just yank on the controls like crazy. I am definitely not of the mind set that I need to be doing things quickly or anything like that at this point in my ag flying career. That is one great thing about the company I work for and my chief pilot...absolutely no pressure and letting me take my time getting up to speed.
I would agree that I might be trying to bank it a little too much like an airplane, but I have been trying to do less of that (due to the concern with cyclic) and I have actually started trying to use more of the technique you are referring too. It has started happening almost naturally. I do try and use as little pedal as possible and try to use more of the natural torque of the aircraft to bring me around in the turns, while trying to stay in trim. I still feel a little awkward pulling up out of the field and bleeding off my airspeed , but I know it will only get more comfortable with time and practice. The last few jobs I have had, have had some wires so I am giving them a fairly wide berth and make more of a modified airplane ag turn to make sure I am safe coming in and out of that end. I am sure as time goes by I will become for comfortable with getting in and out of the field bordered by the wires, but I just don't want to rush myself and have a bad day.
Yes I have realized very quick that this airframe does like to weathervane and at times take a lot of pedal work to keep me facing the right way lol...
We use Tracmap and its pretty nice. I can set it up to fly just about any type of spray pattern and its super easy if I want to fly skip passes I can just bump the line to where I want it. Light bar and the coverage map make it nice to know how my swaths and coverage are coming out.
I spray basically everything and anything, lots of veggie row crops, cotton, corn, nuts, citrus...we kind of do it all depending on the time of year. Its still all new to me though, but its my dream job and I am having a blast...just want to be safe and make sure I am doing things properly.