Oswald No-Till Farm Cleghorn, IA | Greetings,
I am not a pilot but have spent a bit of time with our former neighbor aerial applicator who brings his equipment up from LA for the summer applications. When spraying my field the other day, the helo pilot was actually a fixed wing operator who came up to help out to make sure they have enough pilots.
I watched him spray 120 acres for me the other night and couldn't have asked for a better job. By using the water truck portable landing site, field efficiency of a helo can be better than a big turbine fixed wing especially in odd shaped fields. The key efficiency is in being loaded with small batches with rapid (< minute) refills of pre-mixed product. Ground speed is likely about 1/2 that of a fixed wing but turns are shorter. There is no downtime heading from/to the local airfield.
I did a presentation on my ride with my former neighbor as he sprayed for me. I learned a lot.
http://www.tmaviation.com/application.htm
http://www.isafarmnet.com/2010OFNConfPresentations/ofnpresentations...
He told me that they really don't count on the wash to drive the product. They do have to account for turbulence on how their nozzles are set up such to achieve a good application pattern. Really, their concept is to atomize the product such that it fogs down into the canopy. He used the analogy that in a downpour under an umbrella, you will stay dry. Under an umbrella in a fog, you will get damp.
He said his booms are set up using some design from Alan McCracken who did a lot of work for BASF in South America.
http://www.agaviation.org/content/soybean-rust%E2%80%99s-greatest-f...
http://www.yorktonaircraft.com/documents/article2.pdf
The key thing to remember is that it is different than simply applying product in low volume water.
Good applicators are good applicators it appears to me just like good combine operators are different as well.
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Fungicide application methods... which is better?
