Large red spheres on power lines

Like others have said the spar is the main structure of the wing to the fuselage. It's common with crop dusters to come back with cuts from tree branches that go all the way to the spar (usually set in the first 1/4 of the wing). The A&P would inspect it and then we would clean the insecticide off with acetone and duct tape it. The critical leading edges have steel knives on them for cutting power lines and such. I've often wondered how much the stall characteristics change from having those.

I've yet to see a crop dusting pilot not duck when going under power lines and they have even a bigger knife in front of them. What is wild is plane crash scenes , I'm about up to about 5. I'd love to see a big plane crash site minus the people parts of course. Better yet getting a close up tour of flight 799+1 put back together.

After re-reading your description of the plane it sounds like he should have been stuck up in the lines or died. That plane is a total loss.

And after the pilot ducked and came through on the deck, I had to hit the dirt because he flew over me about 3' high. This was my dad, and I was flagging (before Loran and GPS). Yuk, that spray stunk.

One of our pilots was returning home, felt a slight tug (not good when you're flying), and looked back to see the messenger wire falling away. At the same time, the flare went off at a nearby chemical plant. He had clipped the little messenger wire on a high voltage line running to the plant with the landing gear, no damage to the plane. He didn't tell us for a while. I don't know if they ever figured it out.

One of our cropduster friend's son died flying into high voltage lines. It stopped the plane, then flipped it back onto the ground.

Pete Keillor

Are you missing a line here Pete?

So you had the pleasure of that job also. What was it , counting in twos to nine which is 18 rows over and over? That's how I learned to drive, mostly on dirt roads at 90mph. Some fields I'd come back to fuel the planes and clean the windows and drive back. 12 hours a day for a whopping $20 a week. I've got lots of stories like cleaning off that other tobacco from the landing gear and watching them drag the gear on the reservoirs and throwing up huge rooster tails. Or having Cokes delivered by parachute and listening to phones line conversations.

Or the fish out of water starry eyed flopping and ralfing from methelethelaceketoneparthyon. Or falling asleep when they go back to fill up baking in the summer heat in the truck and dreaming of some girl then buzzed by the first plane with spray a flying and the next plane coming down.

I heard it was the most dangerous job you could have. Wish I could remember some of the pilots' names , one still owes me $ for back rubs. My all time favorite was getting blown into the slippery chemical coated knives of the wing and landing gear while jump starting the planes. It was probably cause the pilot was pissed at the plane and or they thought it was funny, but it ain't no picnic leaning hard into the changing wind speeds right next to the prop. trying to unplug the jumper.

Sunshine in the shade

Yup, it brings back memories, not all bad, 14 paces or a chain for dry, about double that for spray. I've been asleep lying flat on my back in the rice field (dry) waiting for it to get light enough to fly. Yeah, the pay sucked, but I got to eat. If we weren't flying we were driving tractors or shoveling levees.

One of my funniest flagging episodes was when my little brother came in the house drunk about an hour before we went out to flag one of our fields. He took the low end, which meant he had to cross through the woods. He was barefoot and wearing cutoffs when he went through all the briars, but was feeling no pain. By the time we finished, the anesthetic was wearing off, and his legs were shredded. Talk about looking like a sick puppy!

Our plug-ins for the battery cart were behind the wing in the footstep hole in the fuselage (Ag-Cats), so it wasn't too bad to unplug.

Dad refused to apply methyl parathion. The EPA guys kept promoting it because of the rapid degradation, but too many pilots were dying. It's no damn good when you have to use a full face mask and carry an atropine injector to stay alive while killing some bugs.

Pete Keillor

gp , I've heard stories like that back in the DDT days.

NP I've met 3 of you so far. Had to keep one eye open at Gunner's. Plus , I kind of got use to cheap beer so you won't have to worry about the cost. I'm sure its commonly known now that AO was used just to photograph the forest floor. That's got to be some nasty stuff to kill a rain forest.

Has anyone invented a machine to pick un-defoliated cotton yet ? It has always bugged me how its grown then killed just to get the fussy parts off, sure seem like hardy plants before they get the axe.

Oh, one more thing Pete (you seem to know this stuff) what is the blue or green liquid stuff , has a name or smells like salt water to kill cotton? Wish I could have taken a chemistry and Latin class, boy that would sure get some looks in school. 'He must be sick.'

Beats me, I don't know anything about cotton. We mostly worked with rice (I do have a degree in chemistry, but it was a long time ago). I believe I did hear from a fellow I worked with that sodium chorate was used as well as amine salts. Chlorates are strong oxidizers, and might make a fire hazard. Amine salts and amines in general can be nasty.

One of our pilots would work the cotton defoliant season which came later than the rice harvest. He talked about full section fields in the Texas panhandle, and flying until he was totally exhausted, like

Pete Keillor

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:58:57 GMT, Dale Scroggins wos bumpin is gums abowt:

Here in Western Australia he orbs are put on hv wires that cross the landing aproach or takeoff line that big birds like pelicans use when landing on or taking off from lakes rivers or dams.

They are also used when one hv line crosses another hv line at 90 degrees so that if a plane it inspecting a line and flying along just above it will not hit the line that directly crosses its path above the line its following the orbs in this instance are on the top set of wires crossing .

jus my tu cents worf as a lineman of 20 years exp silver