Sky Tractor’s Ag Cat favors Lund Eliminator

HILLSBORO, ND - In the early 1990s, Ron Deck of Sky Tractor Supply decided he wanted to improve the evenness of the swath of the company’s Ag Cats. One of the problem areas was coming from the center section of the booms. Invariably, the swath would either be light in this area or in some cases ‘load up’ with a heavy application.

Ron discovered that by installing Maynard Lund’s Eliminator center boom, that mounts forward of the landing gear, Sky Tractor’s fleet of Ag Cats’ swaths would vastly improve. Typically, applicators will space nozzles closer together between the inboard section of the right wing and the usual location of the flagger, believing the spray will fill in the gap under the belly of the aircraft left by the propeller ‘wash’. With the Eliminator, Ron found out this was no longer necessary. He also found out that his pilots could respond to the farmers’ requests to make their applications closer to the crop without the inherent streaking from a too-close-to-the-crop application. This closer-to-the-crop application also resulted in less drift potential.

Sky Tractor uses the CP nozzle. Because the Ag Cat does not travel as fast across the field as turbine powered ag aircraft, Ron uses the originalstyle, standard 30°, 45° and 90° deflector plates, depending on the application needs.

Pilots need not worry about The Eliminator causing aircraft tip-over problems. Although at first, the boom’s location may look precarious, being so low to the ground compared to wingmounted booms. The Eliminator is designed in such a way that its mount brackets will collapse from the inertia of the aircraft before causing the aircraft to cartwheel over on its nose. Operating four Ag Cats, each outfitted with The Eliminator, over the course of ten years, Sky Tractor has never lost an aircraft resulting from the installation of The Eliminator. For that matter, the company has never lost an Eliminator boom during its operations!

For clean out purposes, Sky Tractor devised a simple method to remove left over materials from The Eliminator while cleaning out the rest of the boom system. By installing a ball valve on the end of the boom with a quick connector, the pilot or loader can attach a small hose and route the contents of the boom back to a collector bin. A load hose with fresh water is attached to the boom ends of the wing-mounted booms and clean water flows through the entire boom system under very low pressure, being careful to not activate the check valves of the nozzles. Once all the material is removed from the boom, the system is flushed under pressure and collected for disposal at a later time.

Many Eliminators have been installed on ag aircraft throughout the world. It has solved many aerial applicators’ problems with prop wash, while allowing the pilot to make applications closer to the ground. By integrating a GPS system that will permit the pilot precise and narrower swath widths, reducing boom lengths to 60%, adjusting nozzles to create heavier droplets, utilizing right side boom shut-offs and operating closer to the crop with The Eliminator, an applicator can minimize drift to the point of almost nonexistence.

The Eliminator also eliminates the rooster tail (think driftable fines) common to most aircraft because of the prop wash throwing the spray particles high into the air behind the fuselage. The belly of the aircraft stays clean, even the tailwheel is clean. Ron says, “If you’re spraying the belly you’re not spraying the crop.”