Originally Posted by
Razorback09
Don't ask me why I'm interested lets just say i could never see myself flying for an airline. I find the idea of crop dusting very appealing. Its my kind of flying. I'm going to graduate school with a commercial, instrument rating, Multi rating, CFI CFII MEI all that good stuff. About 260 TT hopefully I'll have clocked around 100 tailwheel. My question is what else is required of me? I know from research I have to have some license involving the chemicals? Should I go through an ag pilot course first? Or just look for a place to load chemicals for a season? Not much info on how to get into this field on the internet. I seem to remember Agrinaut on here being a duster and he was very helpful with some of my other questions. I appreciate your help guys!
Its definitely not easy to get into, but not impossible. I have a friend that just started crop dusting this summer. He went to a crop dusting "school" of sorts last summer and spent the year building time and practicing low level flying and maneuvering. You need to get your tailwheel, high performance, and experience in a few different planes that are common (all which you get at the school). I think you end up with about 30 hours (10 hours in each aircraft). You will need to continue to build tailwheel time to meet insurance requirements, maybe around 150hrs or so, I'm not sure. If you can find a busniess to fly with using their aircraft, that would probably be best. My friend bought his own plane, a Cessna AgWagon, for $70,000 (has an IO-540 with a 3-blade prop, sick airplane!) and flys for a guy in montana. Talked to him about a week ago and he said he enjoys it.
Hope this helps, good luck!