FROM THE COCKPIT

Bill Lavender bill@agairupdate.com

If you are like me and most ag-pilots, because of the uniqueness of the business of aerial application, you don’t want to read about the “C” word. So, I won’t mention Covid or Corona in this editorial. Oops, my apologies!

The June edition of AgAir Update is filled with a variety of articles. For those that turn to From the Cockpit early on in reading AgAir Update, here’s a short summary of what to expect on the following pages.

This month’s cover feature story is about the emergence of Thrush Aircraft, LLC as an all-new manufacturer of the Thrush airplane. AgAir Update visited with two of the three new Thrush Aircraft owners, CEO Mark McDonald and CFO Clint Hubbard. Board member John Graner was not available during the Q & A.

This article is not about the Thrush, per se. Everyone already knows the aircraft is a superb machine. What this article is about is how the new owners came to buying the company and their plans for the future. You don’t want to miss reading it.

AgAir Update is very fortunate to be able to recruit active ag-pilots as writers. Who better knows and understands what ag-pilots go through than a fellow ag-pilot who is able to express those feelings and experiences through the written word.

Three of AgAir Update’s regular columnists are Juliana Coppick, Tracy Thurman and Mike Feeney. Juliana is a Brazilian and U.S. female ag-pilot. She started her ag-flying career in an Ipanema and has risen through the ranks of ag-aircraft to turbinepowered Thrushes and Air Tractors. Her insights come from a woman’s perspective without the gender aspect. In this month’s column, Volo per Veritas (Fly for the Truth), Juliana writes about training and emergency procedures. Oh yeah, she started her professional aviation career flying heavy iron, turbofan aircraft for cargo.

Many ag-pilots have missed out on formal flight training. Some because at the time they started flying ag, there wasn’t any such opportunity, as was the case when I started in 1974. I have to admit, there was a school or two scattered around (Johnny Dorr’s in Mississippi comes to mind), but nothing like today’s training opportunities that include simulators and other mental-based techniques.

Tracy Thurman, one of our most popular writers, takes the reader on a journey flying ag in the dark of the night. Only a small number of ag-pilots can make this claim in their logbooks. It takes a special breed to face that darkness with a loaded ag-plane, maybe no horizon and the pressure to get the job done before daylight with threatening weather in the mix.

However, Tracy takes night flying to the next level in this month’s article when he writes about the weather and how it impacts night ag-flying. You won’t become a nighttime ag-pilot reading Tracy’s article, but you will surely have a great appreciation for the work these special ag-pilots do. Tracy ends the article with an all-important reference to old-timers, pros and the rabbit and the hair. Be sure to read it and see if you can relate.

Mike Feeney hails from New Zealand and has a long and colorful ag-aviation history, both in flying and helping to form a safety protocol for ag-aviation in New Zealand that applies worldwide ag-flying. In this month’s article, Mike writes about spreading superphosphate fertilizer in the beautiful Mangamahu Valley.

If you have never visited New Zealand, I can tell you firsthand that it is a challenge for agpilots with its valleys and mountains. More often than not, the New Zealand ag-pilot is taking off on a very short airstrip literally off the face of a mountain (well, maybe an extreme hill) using the downhill gradient to literally force the ag-plane into the air. And, upon the return for another load of super, uses that same gradient to land on what amounts to a postage stamp; maybe 300 yards long, if the ag-pilot is fortunate.

Mike’s description of this type of flying is mesmerizing and rightly so. Mike has written for other aviation publications and has developed graphs and formulas to calculate gradients and how they affect the takeoff performance of a loaded ag-plane; a well-qualified Kiwi.

Enjoy this month’s edition of AgAir Update! For those of you north of the equator when flying this summer, “Follow Your Gut”, as retired ag-aviator flight instructor Robert McCurdy would say. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t and deserves a moment of your time to closely evaluate the situation. This “gut feeling” often comes with experience in the seat of your ag-plane. But, it can also be present for the newbie ag-pilot as well; hopefully more so by erring on the side of abundant caution.

And in closing, I would like to express my condolences to the Grouleff family in the loss of patriarch Al Grouleff. I visited with Grouleff Aviation over 20 years ago in the San Joaquin Valley and Graham returned for a follow-up article once Al’s grandson, Greg, started in the business.

Mr. Al came along in the early years when aviation was getting a strong foothold in California. At one time, he was the western Air Tractor dealer, buying one of the first, if not the first, of Leland Snow’s all-new ag-plane, the Air Tractor. He was one of the nicest, calmest, easy-going men I’ve ever met; may he rest in peace.

Until next time, Keep Turning…