Rocky ---- "YOUR FIRED"

That's right..... Your fired.

Pack up your bags and scram.

Your no longer needed.

R-Max is on it's way to replace you.

Lighter, smaller, newer.

Never complains, needs no food, never goes to the toilet.

No beer or hangar talk at the end of a day.

Knows exactly where it's at all the time.

No more hitting wires.

Hard to believe but technology is catching up with the AG flying biz.

Yamaha is about to replace you.

Just saw a demo on a national science type program here in Canada.

About ten feet long, with a liquid cooled 250 CC engine.

GPS controled it can be set on auto pilot from take off to landing.

It will alway fly the right course down to the inch.

Start it up, clip on a (small) one or two gallon tank of AG spray, and
away it goes. It knows exactly where to go to take up where it left
off.

When empty it flies back to the nurse station and within seconds the
empty tank is pulled off and a full tank snapped in place.

A little pricey at a million dollars, but at the end of a day you can
drive it home on the back of a pick up or small flat bed and maintain
it in the comforts of your own garage.

Cheap on fuel, the fuel tank looks like it holds three gallons.

And if you think that it will take a while to catch on, according to
the article Yamaha has already sold over two thousand of them.

They can knock one off the assembly line in a matter of days.

Yikes...... The wave of the future is here.

So pack up the bags Rocky.

We feel your pain, but your about to be replaced by a robot name R-Max.

Obviously the military and civilian agencies are looking at it.

It can hover or circle or follow a programmed track over the dirtiest
of locations and send back info instantly by telemetry.

They have demonstrated it following suspects trying to escape
detection, so law enforcement might be interested.

Shiver wrote:


A little pricey at a million dollars

Slight addition here folks.

The million buckies is for a military version with all the bells
and whistles.

The initial machine design was requested by the Japanese government
for crop spraying and that version sells for about one hundred
thousand buckies.

The government found that young people didn't want to get into
agriculture so they asked Yamaha to design a machine that was
highly automated, easy to fly, cheap to operate and would
interest young people to stay or get into agriculture.

The hopper holds 11 litres.

Shiver wrote:
Shiver wrote:


A little pricey at a million dollars

Slight addition here folks.

The million buckies is for a military version with all the bells
and whistles.

The initial machine design was requested by the Japanese government
for crop spraying and that version sells for about one hundred
thousand buckies.

** Shiver
This came out about 10 years ago and not much has been done with it. It
doesn't have a lot of application unless you are going to go into a
really high threat environment (like spraying weeds that glow in the
dark around Chernobyl) and its limited load makes it impractical.
Once again the Japanese came up with an ingenious solution to a non
existent problem!
I trained a number of Japanese pilots for All Nippon Airlines, and
Japan Air Lines. One of them became Chief Pilot at ANA and some are
still flying there as senior pilots. They could be trained for ag work
if they desired but like many, ag flying is such a special field that
it takes special people to hack it.
Cheers
Rocky
still doing flight instruction now with phyxed wing doing some basic
stuff with new Marine/Navy officer pilot selectees.

The government found that young people didn't want to get into
agriculture so they asked Yamaha to design a machine that was
highly automated, easy to fly, cheap to operate and would
interest young people to stay or get into agriculture.

The hopper holds 11 litres.

"Shiver" wrote in message
...

Your no longer needed.

R-Max is on it's way to replace you.

In the scheme of things, the pilot isnt the expensive thing in ag-ops. The
extra 200lbs
and few hundrred bucks a day pales in comparison to the other expenses. Tiny
UAVs
can't compete. Maybe one the size of a Huey could, but no one would let it
fly without
a pilot onboard.

Bart

Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:

its limited load makes it impractical.

I hear you.

At 11 litres even I figured out it would take a while to spray an acre.

But I gotta admit that it's a cutey, and I'm sure it will find some
practicle applications down the road.

So is the spraying season over for you yet or are you still busy
with AG work.

Shiver
My ag season is over until next year. Will attend some conventions and
get some continuing educational credits for my MN ag license probably
next Feb +- then spray again up north. I suspect it will be my last
season too.

Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:

My ag season is over until next year.

Well take some time of for yourself and family.

YOU EARNED IT.

You're hired.