This happened a week ago, but I went to coach at a soccer camp (Indiana) and had very limited access to the net:
I am originally from St. Louis and then lived in Louisville, I now live in Rensselaer, Indiana…my first real taste of small town life. I was out getting a long training ride in when I saw two small planes coming and going at a low altitude. Based on my city/suburbs experience I assumed they were practicing touch and go’s at some small airport nearby. Well, as I am riding one of these planes flies over me at 100ft. or less. Three thoughts flashed through my head:
Wow that was cool.
The airport must be on the other side of that cornfield.
I don’t see any buildings, I hope it isn’t about to crash!
When it got about 200m in front of me the plane let loose with chemicals over the cornfield! A cropduster! At that point I decided a reversal of direction was necessary, thanked God that the wind was blowing away from me and that I was a few hundred meters up the road. Now my wife keeps checking to see if I am glowing when she shuts the lights off for bed!
that’s funny…i grew up just south of there in Crawfordsville, IN…at times when i am back to see my parents and have training rides i have seen some interesting things…drafting behind a combine…airplanes that just land in fields…many funny looks to my spandex…gotta love small towns.
For me, it’s these really cool converted P-51 Mustangs that the paper companies use to spray their stands of pine trees. They’re turbo-charged monsters. They don’t sneak up on you. You know they’re coming. They haven’t gotten me yet, but I figure it’s just a matter of time. I live about 2 miles from the airport and I love it when the planes head out and return over my house. For single-engine planes, they’re surprisingly large.
I’ve stopped by the airport and visited with the pilots of these planes. The planes are amazing. They have their dusting area laid out on a computer in the cockpit. (Our county has vast acreages devoted to forestry.) The pilots take off and land. The computer does the rest. It guides the plane straight to the target, lines it up on a flight grid and opens the hoppers precisely where the last load ended. It’s really slick.
The unfortunate part is that, as I understand it, they’re treating the trees with fertilizers that make them grow WAY faster than normal so they can be harvested in only 7 years. The trees are being grown for lumber and the rapid growth makes for inferior quality wood.
Are you SUUUUUUUURE they’re P-51’s and don’t just look like P51’s??? I’m a civilian pilot and from what I know about the plane the Mustang’s stall speed is way too high to go slow enough to spray and from the old guys I’ve talked to it’s also a very difficult plane to fly slowly which is not conducive to crop dusting. And computerized controls on a 65 year old airplane??? It’s probably a crop duster like the Thrush or AirTractor which can look like P51 from afar.
that’s pretty funny–and intimidating. i have friends who live in fowler, and otterbein, before that. i’ve been there a couple of times and can picture this whole scene perfectly. it’s entertaining to read, but i probably wouldn’t be laughing a lot if i got a chemical coating during a bike workout.
be careful…
peggy
I live about a half mile, as the crow flies, from a regional airport in NE Ohio. They’re having an airshow this weekend with some old warbirds - A B-17, B25, bunch of biplanes, Japanese Zero, and even a Soviet-era MIG jet fighter. They were buzzing the house yesterday afternoon.
There’s absolutely no way you can grow a pine tree in seven years large enough to use for lumber (2x4, 2x8, etc, etc.,). No matter grafting properties, family lines, species crossings, super seeds/seedlings (which there are), etc., etc.,. Now you can harvest nearly anything for pulp and paper use no matter what size. But still a pine stand at seven years of age there would be very little net economic insentive to harvest it even for pulp or paper. Age 12 to 15, different story. Can definitely get economic value (pulp) out of a stand. Also the fertalizer would have less to do with the growing properties of the pine but the origin of the seed/seedling would be the larger indicator of growth properties. Just and FYI.
We have a sawmill a few miles away, and the owner/operator is this 70+ year old guy who will tell you for an hour and a half about the rapid growth and big space between growth rings and weak lumber. Alot of old growth here, and because of a tornado last fall, he is busy.
Oh yeah, to keep it on topic, the local tri goes right by the sawmill.
Are you SUUUUUUUURE they’re P-51’s and don’t just look like P51’s??? I’m a civilian pilot and from what I know about the plane the Mustang’s stall speed is way too high to go slow enough to spray and from the old guys I’ve talked to it’s also a very difficult plane to fly slowly which is not conducive to crop dusting. And computerized controls on a 65 year old airplane??? It’s probably a crop duster like the Thrush or AirTractor which can look like P51 from afar.
Actually, I’m NOT sure. They look so much like them (particularly with that HUGE single prop on the front and the intake on the belly) that I ASSUMED they must be derived from the P-51. If it’s not a P-51, it’s certainly influenced by aspects of the P-51 design … a bit like the new Specialized TT/Tri bike borrows from the P3 (to keep this somewhat on topic).
There’s absolutely no way you can grow a pine tree in seven years large enough to use for lumber (2x4, 2x8, etc, etc.,). No matter grafting properties, family lines, species crossings, super seeds/seedlings (which there are), etc., etc.,. Now you can harvest nearly anything for pulp and paper use no matter what size. But still a pine stand at seven years of age there would be very little net economic insentive to harvest it even for pulp or paper. Age 12 to 15, different story. Can definitely get economic value (pulp) out of a stand. Also the fertalizer would have less to do with the growing properties of the pine but the origin of the seed/seedling would be the larger indicator of growth properties. Just and FYI.
I’m not claiming to be an expert on the subject. I’m just relating what I’ve been told. But it’s a riding buddy of mine who is in the business of hiring crews and planting the trees that told me that.
I don’t care either way. I live in a house that’s about 55 years old and the wood is so hard you can hardly put a screw into a stud.
Yesterday, for some reason (maybe due to a lot of irrigating) I kept hitting huge swarms of gnats. I started seeing stars once since I was holding my breath to avoid inhaling them.
Never been hit by a crop duster but I have been hit by a spray rig making a turn in an orchard and misting me with some unknown chemical.
Manure trucks passing me are my all time favorite. There is also a cloud of dry manure trailing the truck that stick to you.
That’s interesting and kinda funny, though it would not be funny to have a load dumped on you.
I also live near an airport, but mine is bigger. I’m fairly used to having commercial jets flying low for landing right over my head. One day a couple of F16s came out of nowhere and went screaming over me. Scared the shit out of me at first because they were so low and loud. I was almost ready to jump in a ditch and duck for cover, but they went by so fast I couldn’t have done anything. It looked like they covered the 2 miles or so to the airport in about 15 seconds.
Just begging to have a singlet photoshopped on.
Actually when I read House’s post I thought of that scene and fantasized about flying the plane and chasing House on his bike.
That’s funny. The same thing happened to me on Friday. I was pounding down a infrequently traveled old-growth tree-lined country road in the aero position with my iPod blaring (save the speech); and up the road aways I saw something cross the road above the tree line. It was kinda freaky, but I passed it off as nothing (or a UFO or a flying cow). Later on down the road, one side of the road is marked with blueberry bushes, but that is not the first thing a saw . . . as a crop duster was just finishing a pass. It scared the shit out of me. I don’t think I got doused too bad, but I am growing something above my crack that looks like a tail.
