Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Crop
duster pilots graying as airlines, technology, thin the ranks
By
JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS
The Associated Press
WEBBERS FALLS, Okla. - Paul Gould is a pilot in a
career that could be flying into the sunset.
His dad was a crop-duster;
he didn't want the same for his son.
But Paul loved the work too much.
Still does, but worries at 49 who will take over when his heart gets weak or
eyesight fuzzy.
With the culture of the American family farm changing,
and the next generation of crop-dusters reluctant to stay in a profession their
fathers inherited from their grandfathers, the industry is at a
crossroads.
Crop-dusting, a job that is so much a part of Americana, is
graying. The average pilot age is about 60 and more than three-fourths of
operators have at least 16 years of experience, according to a survey by the
Environmental Protection Agency. Ten to 15 years ago, there were around 4,000
crop-dusting pilots. Today, the figure has declined by 20 percent.
"I'm
one of the younger ones," Gould said, summing up the crisis.
As the
decades-old industry takes stock of how it skipped a generation, it must compete
for recruits with the commercial airlines, where the pay and hours are
better.
Technology has become a foe, too. Million-dollar planes can fly
farther and haul more chemicals, but have priced some mom-and-pops out of the
business, some pilots say.
Genetically modified crops, such as
worm-resistant corn, are also cutting into business in several
states.
And there's crop-dusting's reputation as one of the most
dangerous jobs in the U.S. because pilots must fly so low to the ground and
navigate trees, power lines and other hazards.
"Right up there with rodeo
bull-rider," said Glenda Gould, the other half of Paul's
operation.
Four-thirty a.m. and Paul's out of bed.
Fast, but not
like it used to be, when a seven-day work week didn't ache as much and the jobs
weren't so big.
Minutes later, he's behind the controls of the 1980 Piper
Brave, the yellow beauty nicknamed the dump truck.
Then, the ritual:
swooping insanely low to the ground, spraying, pulling up over acres of
shoulder-high corn. An aerial ballet at 130 mph that still makes his wife cringe
to watch it.
There's been a crop-dusting business in Webbers Falls, an
eastern Oklahoma town of 720, since 1949, and Gould's is the only operation for
100 miles.
But it's not a question of the work. It's how long can he -
and hundreds like him in the business - hold out until the next wave comes up.
Five years? Ten?
He figures he can fly well into his 60s, maybe even 70,
if he has to.
Fast, but not like it used to be.
These days,
"you've got to look twice before you get in the business," warns Jim Criswell, a
professor in the department of entomology and plant pathology at Oklahoma State
University.
To most Americans, their image of crop dusting is Cary Grant
fleeing a low-flying plane in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest," but this
dirty, sweaty line of work began as an experiment 86 years ago in Ohio. Trying
to get rid of pesky moth larvae, a two-seat plane called a Jenny dropped
insecticide made with lead over the affected area. The environmental impact of
using such toxins would not be realized until much later.
The industry
flourished after World War II, as returning veterans found work during America's
agricultural boom of the 1940s and 1950s. Surplus military planes were enlisted
to do the jobs.
By the 1980s, most powdered chemicals were replaced with
liquids, and the term "crop-duster" fell out of fashion, replaced by "aerial
applicator." GPS systems in plane cockpits substituted for a pilot's
guesswork.
Today, the greatest deterrent for a young pilot wanting to
break into the business is how hard it is to get insured. You need 250 hours of
flight time to get a commercial pilot's license, and up to 1,000 hours before a
company insures you.
Enough claims can break a small business, since
there's only a handful of companies in the U.S. that write policies for
crop-dusters.
So pilots in training must start out with the tedious work
on the ground - cleaning and loading planes - and work their way up into the
air.
"That's probably where we've fallen down as much as anything, we
have probably raised the entrance barriers high," said pilot Rod Thomas, who
co-owns a helicopter spray business in Gooding, Idaho and has more than 30 years
in the business. "It's a tough industry to get into. Equipment is expensive,
insurance is expensive."
Once the newbies break in, keeping them in
proves even tougher.
Andrew Moore, executive director of the National
Agricultural Aviation Association in Washington D.C., said when it comes to
predicting how the industry will get its hooks into the next generation, he's
"not totally void of hope."
"Our challenges in bringing in new folks are
similar," Moore said. "The aviation industry has this challenge before them,
agriculture has this challenge before them, we just happen to have components of
both of those industries."
bilde?Site=BH&Date=20070905&Category=BUSINESS01&ArtNo=709050324&Ref=AR&MaxW=300