This is from the 1970s
I wonder what chemical it was. I suspect the flying was much the least dangerous part of the operation.
Those were the days. Only 40 years ago! Feels like a totally different planet…
What is the name of that plane ? Agent Orange ?
The world does look different indeed.
But try a “thought experiment”. Assume the internet doesn’t exist. No pilot forums, no email. And assume you fly only locally – say the Shoreham to Bembridge burger run.
There will be very little to get depressed about 
You buy a new map and a copy of Pooleys every few years.
If you are farm strip based, you escape all the airport politics and all the restrictive practices like not being able to work on your plane in the hangar.
You could exist like the Japanese soldiers who lives on the islands, believing the war had not yet ended.
I think a lot of what we get involved with is unneccessarily depressing – because of the internet.
I liked the footage of the flagman, or banderillero as they are called in South America.
DDT was the soup de jour, and you did walk on once the duster pilot had lined up. The PA-12 was regularly used, and Stearmans.
Seasonal work, and in the off season some pilots eked out a living instructing.
I wonder if the pilot in the movie ever got his beach side house?
Reminds me of the book “Flight of Passage”. The two young city boys searched all over the midwest to find those “crop duster strips” and those their “legendary pilots”. When they finally found them, they were quite shocked (and disappointed) about the “characters” they had come across and moved on.
Neat video. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a metalized Stearman fuselage quite like that before.
I spent the day in the hangar yesterday, working with the A&P who helps me with electrical stuff. As we worked, he explained the he’d put a new engine in his pick-up, with the intent of taking it from its current 300,000 miles to half a million. When he left I paid him cash, $40 – he wanted only twenty saying ‘oh, this is just fun’. At least one Stearman was flying at the airport and an AT6 too but I wasn’t counting or watching too closely.
I guess the ag business has changed a lot
The original video link has gone, so I’ll post it again below. I was surprised to learn today that the young duster pilot in the video was John T. Walton, who at the time of his death in an ultralight crash was worth $18.2 billion, the 11th richest person in the world.
RobertL18C wrote:
I wonder if the pilot in the movie ever got his beach side house?
I imagine he did
