Like to Fly?  Don't mind pesticides?

From the Wall St Journal | Aug 14, 2009

For Pilots Outstanding in the Field,
Killing Weeds From the Air Can Pay Off

By JONATHAN WELSH

SYRACUSE,
Kan. -- In a tough job market for the aviation industry, demand for one
niche is booming: crop-dusting. But if you're an aspiring pilot like
Ben Peterson, you've got to get past guys like Dusty Dowd.

Training The Next Generation of Cropdusters

3:03

Spraying
crops from the air takes a special set of flying skills. John "Dusty"
Dowd, Jr. has been honing his technique since he got his pilot's
license at age 16. The old school instructor says most of the young
pilots coming up don't have the right stuff, Jonathan Welsh reports.

Nearly
every move Mr. Peterson made at the controls of the 1947 Piper Super
Cruiser, used for training, elicited critical shouts from Mr. Dowd, who
was showing him the ropes. First Mr. Dowd, 58 years old, the owner of
Syracuse Flying Service Inc. and a virtuoso crop sprayer, told his
student to stop looking at instruments on the dashboard and simply
watch where he was going. Then Mr. Dowd pointed out that Mr. Peterson
had allowed a crosswind to carry the plane off course. As Mr. Peterson,
29, started a corrective turn, Mr. Dowd yelled that he was skidding
(using too much rudder) or slipping (not using enough). "Can't you feel
what's happening?" he asked. Mr. Peterson didn't measure up. Few do.

Mr. Dowd grabbed the controls in a huff, guided the Piper back to its original course and told Mr. Peterson to "try again."

"It takes a huge amount of endurance to survive an hour in the cockpit with Dusty," Mr. Peterson says.

Jonathan Welsh/The Wall Street Journal

Dusty Dowd, in one of his crop-dusting planes

The
torture is worthwhile because "aerial application" -- the name many
pilots prefer to "crop-dusting" -- is a hot field, thanks in part to
the recent farming boom. Crop-dusters spread fertilizer, insecticides,
fungicides and weed killers. Some farmers even seed from the air.
Skilled agricultural, or "ag," pilots typically make from $60,000 to
$100,000 a year, and those who own spraying businesses can earn much
more. Salaries for pilots at small airlines start at $20,000 and rarely
get anywhere near six figures.

Like many young fliers, Mr. Peterson was on track to become an
airline pilot. But airlines are struggling, canceling routes, cutting
pay and laying off pilots. He inquired about a co-pilot job with a
regional airline but lost interest after learning the starting pay was
$22,000. "You could almost do that at 7-Eleven," he says.

News reports in the aftermath of a commuter plane crash in Buffalo,
N.Y., earlier this year made the public more widely aware of the low
pay and poor working conditions that have become the rule for many
airline pilots. Fewer people are taking flying lessons, getting private
pilot licenses or buying planes. Even military fighter pilots are
losing out as drones get more missions.

Aerial application, in contrast, is on the upswing. Hours flown by
crop-dusters rose 29% from 2003 through 2007, according to the Federal
Aviation Administration. While most aircraft makers are in a slump,
leading aerial-application manufacturer Air Tractor Inc., in Olney,
Texas, is cranking out more planes than it did last year.

Pilots are drawn to crop-dusting not only for the money, but also
for the chance to be their own bosses and to do the kind of
low-altitude flying and stuntlike maneuvers one wouldn't dream of
performing in a big jet.

Jonathan Welsh/The Wall Street Journal

Dusty Dowd checks for weeds on the ground.

The
ranks of ag pilots have been thinning for years as experienced fliers
get older and retire. So the National Agricultural Aviation
Association, the industry's main trade group, is using the field's
newfound attraction to recruit younger pilots.

The main barrier? Gatekeepers like Mr. Dowd.

Largely because of high cost of entry, about the only way for
newcomers to get a job is through apprenticeships with established
spraying operations. Aspiring ag pilots typically start at the bottom
and often quit before they get a chance to fly.

Mr. Peterson worked for Mr. Dowd for nine months before leaving to
take a flight-instructing job in December. He drove trucks, mixed
pesticides and helped maintain the company's two spray planes. But he
never flew spraying missions because, in Mr. Dowd's eyes, he wasn't
ready.

In Mr. Dowd's mind, few pilots are. A number of candidates have
failed Mr. Dowd's tests because they couldn't handle the work or lacked
piloting skill. A couple of years ago he let a prospect live in his
spare room while teaching him about the business.

"The first day went well. At 3 a.m. this guy was up and ready to
go," he says. The next morning the man slept so late Mr. Dowd took off
without him. By lunchtime his guest had packed and left. "He never said
'Thank you' or 'Go to hell' or anything else. He kind of hurt my
feelings," Mr. Dowd says.

This past spring, he gave a friend's son a tryout. But the young man
didn't take instruction well and didn't like nonflying chores. He
walked out during the first day and called to apologize only after his
father insisted he do so.

This
summer, Mr. Dowd is working on his latest prospect, Jacob Mitchem, a
24-year-old student in Kansas State University's aviation program. He
is a flight instructor with about 900 hours in his logbook. An
internship with Northwest Airlines convinced him that he would be
happier spraying crops. He says the low passes and precise maneuvers
required for spraying constitute "a purer form of flying."

Mr. Mitchem knows that impressing Mr. Dowd could launch his career,
but failing could hurt his chances in a business where everybody knows
everyone else and favorable references are vital. He wants to make a
deal to work in Mr. Dowd's shop in exchange for instruction in ag
flying. He says he's willing to mix chemicals, overhaul engines -- and
take verbal abuse.

Dusty Dowd, born John Dowd Jr., learned to fly at a grass airfield
near the family farm in Warwick, N.Y. His instructors were World War II
veterans, salty and unforgiving, with detailed knowledge of how planes
behave. At 16 he began honing his aerial-spraying technique over his
aunt's onion field. Though fluent in flight instruments, he prefers to
navigate by sight and to let his senses tell him what the airplane is
doing. He says he knows a plane's speed by the sound of the passing
air. Over many years he has met dozens of pilots like Mr. Peterson who,
by his standards, don't really know how to fly.

Mr. Peterson considers himself a good pilot but is quick to admit
that he lacked a feel for what the plane is doing because so much of
his flight training had focused on instrumentation. He says his time
with Mr. Dowd was the best learning experience he has had in aviation.

To be a good crop-duster, he says, a pilot has to be intimate enough
with the airplane that flying it becomes second nature. Knowing which
controls to move and how to coordinate them precisely helps him feel at
home in almost any type of plane. But flight schools no longer teach
those basic "stick and rudder" skills, he says.

The problem with most pilots, Mr. Dowd believes, is that they work
to reach a certain skill level, become content and stop seeking
improvement. He worries that Mr. Mitchem's enthusiasm will eventually
wane.

"Jacob seems to have the right attitude, but he'll need to focus more," Mr. Dowd says.

"In the end he'll have to decide whether to settle for being a hack
airplane driver or become a real pilot who never stops learning."

Write to Jonathan Welsh at jonathan.welsh@wsj.com