Crop Spraying
 

Hello All

Could anyone please tell me what the requirements are to be a crop duster? Could I do it unpaid with a PPL? Any info will be most grateful.

Cheers Guys

To my knowledge its not done in the UK.

Also its bloody dangerous.

MJ

You can do it in the South of Spain. I think they require 300 hour total time and 6000 euros for the Air Tractor course.

I think the company is called Faasa but not sure, if you want more details I can try to find out more...

As stated above you can't do crop spraying on a PPL.
It's not for the faint hearted and it is imperative that you get good training. You'll need it for the flying and for the handling of the chemicals. Most start off in the smaller piston taildraggers and then move onto the turbines. The good guys spray at night in Oz.
There's good money to be had crop spraying. The top guys in Australia earn about $A60-100,000 a year.

Any ideas on getting an Oz crop spraying job?

Contacts?

Got an FAA CPL,

Cheers mate :ok:

Best ask the D&G forums. You'll need an Oz CPL for starters. I think "Gwydir Air" is a good place to start looking for info.
Col Paye at Scone, NSW might be worth a look too.
From what I have gathered, you spend a fair bit of time on the ground being a groundy initially. Get a feel for the chemicals and the job that way. Tailwheel time is useful. You have to get an ag rating and work your way up.
Have a look at the CASA website for more info on the regulatory side of things.

I have heard of a couple of crop dusting outfits in UK, but that was a while back and I don't even know if they are still in buisness.

On the other hand there are plenty in US and Canada. Work is very seasonal and very hard. If the sun is in the sky, then so are you. So you can forget any home or social life between May and September.

This is 2nd hand by the way, I'm not a crop duster but have spoken to quite a few out here on the praries.

Pay is around $1.00 per acre, and apparently a 1000 acres a day is do-able.

However, if the pylons don't get you, the chemicals will.

Good luck,

Sax

I know two guys who used to crop spray. One has a very bad twitch, the other's in a wheel chair because his central nervous system is f@cked. they can't sue anyone as it was done in Africa, they don't even reliably know what chemicals they were sparying.

Be very careful!