INTERNATIONAL
TWENTY YEARS AGO
SLBGA’s dual cockpit Thrush with Dominica dual cockpit Thrush in background. Is it possible these two aircraft could be for sale?
St. Lucia — Island In Debate Of Ag Aviation
by Bill Lavender With the assistance of Dudley Beek, owner of Jamaican ag operation Dustair, and his son Nigel, traveling in Dustair’s MU-2, AgAir Update launched its Caribbean Excursion from Jamaica one Sunday afternoon, to return a week later after stops in St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Dudley and I have been friends since I discovered he had bought my 1200 Viper Thrush from Chuck Stone in the mid1980s. In July of 1997, my wife, Sandy, and I flew from Perry to the Boscobel Airport, near the town of Ochos Rios, A 26 | agairupdate.com
Jamaica for me to fly the Viper Thrush once again, more than ten years since the last time I had flown it (see AAU September 1997). That Viper Thrush, I have often commented, would take off with less runway loaded, than it required to land upon empty, with its huge three-blade DC-3 prop idling up front on the light weight 1975 model Thrush airframe. Since then, Dudley and Nigel have repaid me with a visit to Perry. And now, they were going to be kind enough to escort me through the Islands.
