Have been thinking of things to post re;Ag Flying with rotorcraft. I
have to pay more attention to my work though! In many of my fields
here, they are irrigated with sprinkler pivots. Generally I'll have to
fly over them spraying to get the crops underneath. I haven't measured
the tallest points on them, but guess 25'? so I have to kind of
"blooper" over them while spraying. that often poses some interesting
control inputs and that caught my attention today. It requires quick
inputs but absolutely smooth ones to keep things on an even keel. Much
too difficult to describe aside from doing a pitch pull to go up, and a
cyclic push to keep level followed quickly by aft cyclic to flare on
the other side while lowering the collective and then level with cyclic
again, and all the while manipulating the throttle to keep rpms right.
Another point on the turn-arounds, I stay in translational flight all
the way thru so if the engine pukes, I can do a decent auto from
anywhere in the turn.
Got pretty close to some trees on a downwind pullup yesterday. I got
into the shadow, the window was a little dirty, and I lost my depth
perception. So, I realized I'd have to use some other visual points for
my pull up. Nothing dramatic...no pine needles on the booms or no tip
caps smacked ggg and didn't brush my skids in the tree tops.....close
enough to make me whistle though...
Have had my loader take some photos and one day we'll get them up.
Often when the wind is calm, the spray hangs in the air and I fly back
thru it which makes my windscreen look like some one sprayed furniture
polish on it, or milk. Its a bitch when you are flying into the rising
sun and obstacles in front of you. bad enough flying into the rising
sun anyway but with a dirty window its worse.
Been flying 8-9 hours a day with some great weather.
Cheers from Finlander country.
Rocky