Rugged Hill Country Topdressing

good day my name's Jimbo we are in otaro South Ireland New Zealand on top dressing Ops join us for a couple of loads as we spread fertilizer over this picturesque Farm there's several challenges that go with applying fertilizer to a block of this Dimension it is a 22,000 ft climb from the air strip itself to the top of this block while only being a 2 and 1/2 km lateral distance as the crow flies so you do a bit of quick math there and you'll see that she's quite a steep incline now we'll quickly go through some of the gauges in the cockpit here in the center on the top that's our light bar just underneath you can see a bunch of Lights there the orange light when that comes on means the hopper doors are open and we're currently spreading our fertilizer and you'll see it turns itself on and off because these are automatic doors and it's all set up so once we're flying over the block the doors will open automatically and they'll adjust for the ground speed so we get a what's called a constant rate spread and also when we fly over areas that are not to be SE the likes of uh this Creek or something underneath us a bit of bush it will shut the doors automatically and we've just come to the end of the Run we can see we're banking away to the right what we're actually doing is we're taking advantage of the aircraft being a lightweight due to all of the F we've just h out on that run and because we're lighter we can climb better and turn a little bit sharper and essentially we're working our way up the hill and using the light bar line ourselves back up and you see the doors are open there the orange light comes on now the rest of the lights you can see there starting from the left there's two green lights here one's just that the power's on the systems going the next one is armed so the system itself is armed and the doors will operate automatically and that's operated by a simple little switch on the joystick the next one the other green light that comes on periodically is the pump light when the pump is on that green light comes on like just there that's the pump for the hydraulic system itself which controls these doors the next light along is the Fault light if there's any fault in the system it'll let you know through this one thankfully that light hardly ever comes on and the next one is the logging switch if for whatever reason you need to turn this logging off or the logging is not working and that's linked to the GPS system itself so the likes of doing your proof of application run through that system and then of course finally the one we've already seen the orange light that comes on when the doors are open so we've already executed a reversal turn there and that was we'll go through that again on our next load but the essentially a coastal reversal turn we do that for a specific reason when we're operating up against the hillside here but you can also see back there spots where there's a bit of snow up here still so that gives a good indication of how high up we are beautiful area and that should just about be the end of our run right there and we hang a Louie lower the nose bring the power back and Coast on in Back to the air strip for another load and as we're on the dive down hill just underneath all the lights there that's the GPS system you can actually see the lines where I have gone and where I've still to go and as well you can see little areas that are what we call exclusion zones or Pathways that are not getting spread and to the left of that that's the hydraulic system linked to the hopper doors and if you look to the left of the screen you can see a green Paddock there that's where we're going to be landing it's a nice slope strip so we're joining a downwind at the moment and it ends up being a nice constant turn on to short finals it's another aircraft on there we'll see in a minute we're doubling up at the moment we're always in comms with each other I'll let him know that I'm coming into land and he'll let me know if he's about to take off or in this case he's not he's still getting the load so I carry on in nice view of the uh Creek underneath beautiful mountains of course uh all I'm looking at now is the air strip itself lining up how it looks with my air speed and my profile and as we come out on short finals Go Wings level and we ride the slope up just a wee little bit and we keep a touch of power on on this one it's a nice long strip as far as Landing is concerned and we need to keep that power up otherwise we stop a little bit too short and you can see old mate M's up there getting his load we'll pull off to the side and we'll wait for them to get done before we pull up ourselves and it probably doesn't sharp very clearly there but it's a it's a reasonable amount of slope Off the Strip so much so that the angle that I'm parked there that right Wings fairly well down ideally we want these aircraft parked Wings level they fuel cross feeds and it can overflow if you get too high on one side or the other but at least if we do it this way you can get a nice view of this 502 XP by the way getting its load and while we're waiting we could talk a little bit about doubling up and that's when you've got two or more aircraft working on the same job and essentially what we do before we start we'll have a sit down a toolbox meeting have a look at the maps and what we did is we we found a line straight line that sort of runs parallel with the entire once we've got that this is over the of R TR and then after all that we'd be done uh yeah I'm not really sure where I was going with all of that but what I am trying to say is we get our Paddock we chop it in half you do one half and I'll do the other simple as that and here's M's taking off now just a brilliant View and as he trundles on down how we chose it is that I was going to do the top half of the block and muz the bottom and we chose it that way cuz I've got the bigger hopper in this machine nice big engine it can haul a load bulky F that it is up the hill just a little bit more and a little bit quicker the only other thing we really discuss is the radio protocols when we make a call who's going to say what when and where which is typically just when you're one when you're taking off and one when you finished your load coming back to land and of course you can go as technical or as complicated as you like when you're sharing a block and some cases we'll have one pattern which is a race track and then do half and half that way so there's no hard and fast rule to this and there you can see the hopper lid I've just opened that up that's just off a little switch off to the side and that is hydraulically operated lid and there's also a little or inside the hopper itself which helps push the F forward and after in the hopper so you can get a little bit extra F in and that's the load coming in little bit of dust blowing through that's quite typical no matter what we're using and this organic fertilizer fish F I believe is what it was called uh a little bit Dusty there and occasionally you can get a bit of crazing on the perspects which is either side of the center windscreen not a huge issue if you keep on top of it just have to keep polishing if it gets too bad you might have to Quick cut and polish there's our load just about in there and it's quite a bulky F this stuff we're getting only a ton and a half and we're quite full there just under 3 ton is the max capacity for this aircraft and I'll be checking the trucks out the way stirring the porridge which is checking my controls are free check flaps are set and start pairing up and trundling down the air strip quite a touchy power control on these aircraft and I'll set my power and you'll see I've sort of angled off slightly to the right that's cuz it drops down a little bit there is a fence there that I wanted to clear and once I'm over this is where things start getting some somewhat technical you can see as well the a little bit of fur stuck in the hopper lid so I momentarily opened and shut it just to get it to clamp down so what I'm doing is I'm currently on the wrong side of the valley and I'm about to be pointing away from the block and we'll get into the Y very shortly but the aim of the game here is for the aircraft to be online at the right height at the right place all at once taking into consideration that it's A500 ft climb just to where we want to start sewing and top of the block is 2 1/ 12,000 ft and it's only about 2 and 1/2 K in a direct line so we we can't climb that quick as much as I wish we could so we're going to have to adjust things to make it fit so what happens if we get onto the block and we find we're not high enough we haven't climbed 1500 ft in that case we're going to have to do another orbit another orbit equals more time and more time equals more cost to the farmer and as we learn in our basic training every time we turn we lose some lift and we want to maximize our lift and maximize our efficiency so minimal turns is what we want if conversely we end up on the Block and we're too high then we've wasted a little bit of time climbing a little bit higher than we needed to of course we've got the option there to lower the nose and use some excess speed or convert that height into speed so there's slightly more advantage to that as opposed to being too low but ultimately we want to be exactly at the right height when we begin sewing now you can cheat doing this and that's through finding thermals some anabatic winds or any form of lift you can sometimes there's many waves that are running through these valleys and that's essentially what I was doing on the other side and I'm spending each load constantly looking for a little bit of lift here and there taking note of where it is and where it isn't and adjusting to where it could be so if for example there's more lift on this side of the valley where the block is it would make more sense for me to turn around early and start hugging that Hill rather than the other so these are the things that we do on route to the block and now you can see we are lined up and I will also mention I've got a backto back running here which is kind of like mowing your Lawns doing one run and then moving over little bits if I am a little bit higher as we start sewing there if I'm a little bit higher than I want to be rather than lower the nose and convert that height into speed what I do is I Advance the swath up to that run and start from that position there just to give me that little tiny advantage and again that ties into the beauty of these GPS systems it keeps track of where you've SE it's got a nice pretty picture you can look at you almost might be able to see it there so I know which lines I have and haven't done and I can to and frow all day long and at the end of the day know everywhere that I've covered just brilliant so now we start our climbing turn and I'm pulling away to the left first and that's on purpose to give myself plenty of room so when I come back around knowing that I am lighter so I'm going to perform a lot better but I still want to have enough room to turn back onto my line and having out the whole way this machine at this weight and power setting's got enough to do one complete hook around but we've got to make room for ourselves and give ourselves plenty of margin when it's required as we line ourselves back up onto the block and as we start sewing usual go through check everything's flowing lights are on all looks Ticky Boot and one difference with the these automatic doors you don't get the feel of the handle when you're getting low on fur but what we do have is a digital sight gauge on our GPS hydraulic system as well as a couple of Windows looking into the hopper itself so we can visually see roughly where we're at and we can cross reference that to our digital sight gauge and go from there and this block itself has got a couple of triangles up the top finish that run we turn away here it's a little bit steeper on this side of the block so I've given myself about the same room as on the other end knowing that the aircraft is lighter still the same thing we always want it out and if I'm ever in doubt I can always turn the other way and as we line back up you can see the dust from our previous run here magic spot orange light comes on we are spreading and keeping an eye on everything as we go D it's just a it's a beautiful spot there great place to be hard to beat like anywhere in New Zealand so there goes that I think what's happened there is I've run out of f halfway down a run so that that points out nicely that ideally what we want to do is run out a f at the end of a run we can't pick that obviously so we need to take note of that and what I'll be doing is writing down which run I'm on there and making sure we come back to that and as we join downwind again see the air strip off to the left again I'm talking to the other pilot there m make sure he's out the way he's already taken off on his load so we are cleared to come on in and you do this long enough you you get used to what power settings you need to be and what profile and and you get pretty proficient at doing these Landings and what we'll do is just keep that constant tune going all the way around onto short finals we're starting at vno as we turn in and by the time we touch down we'll be at our perfect air speed as we come over the fence put our wings level and ride ourselves up the strip bring the power back but keep a touch on for the slope and touchdown and we're we're keeping our loader driver nice and busy nice quick runs there and if you see that Skyline in front of us right at the top the The Horizon you can see there that's 22,000 ft above where we are now so that that might help put in perspective a little bit how close that is only a couple of KS away and how high a climb it is with such a a big load in this machine too now as Wayne moves over for us to grab another load and we'll head up top there for it we'll go through a couple of things in the cockpit there right at the very tippy top you can see a little bit of red there that's a Qui for your head so you don't smash your head on the cross beams or cross bars up the top and just underneath that the coiled cord and the little black thing that's actually a uh map Reading light so this aircraft is not VFR capable and in some countries they operate egg Ops at nighttime while here we only use that night Ops for fing only and here comes the load gun in now Lids open of course and plenty of dust coming through which points out the next one the windscreen wiper there which has a windscreen washer attached to the nose some of them it's just underneath the wind screen others are further up the nose itself squirts water on there and that's to help clear all the debris and dust away when it's needed usually it's not in this case last of the load going in backs out the way get that load nice and shut and check the trucks out of the way stir the porridge do all our checks and away we go did you spot muz fly over us there as we bounce down the strip we pick up speed fairly quickly on account of the nice slope there we've got about 350 M that we use before we get airborne the strip itself might be closer to 500 but it drops down a bit just there before the fence and it's a little bit un undulating so we try and get airborne before that and we make our way across to the other side of the Valley now a lot of Veteran pilots who learned to fly and did a majority of their flying in piston aircraft will be extremely well vered in this hunting for Lift which is what we're doing here and myself being taught in the piston engine Fletcher I was forc fed this skill and it's certainly a very handy one to have and that's what I'm doing here picked up some good lift on the last load so I've gone just a little bit deeper into the block to see what else I can get and as well as that we get a nice view of all these beautiful stations on this side of the valley the majority of these Farms you can see are all sheep and beef as well as deer farms it's quite a bit of deer farming going on in this region and back the other way which we can't see too well there's plenty of viticulture and horiculture going on of course there's plenty of good wines that come from the Oto region but I know you already knew that and as we start our gentle turn back to the other side of the valley the last couple of things that we can see on the dash and the cockpit there just right of the GPS that's a horizontal [Music] stabilizer H Artificial Horizon is what I meant to say and attached to that is a speed tape tells you how fast you're going in the altimeter tells you how high you are above the ground and and you can sort of just see to the right of that the mvp50 that's a a little TV screen that's full of all the engine instrument gauges and I prefer this one a lot more as opposed to the analog steam gauges steam gauges being what we nickname them just because it removes all the parlex here in these and if you go over a parameter or go into the the yellow or the red Arc that we call it the whole thing goes red and it's it's very obvious that you're doing something that you need to fix whereas the analog gaug is just a little bit trickier especially that Parallax Z that one really gets me so here we go lining ourselves back up on the Block if we look at the light bar the numbers on the left side tell you how many meters off track you are while the numbers on the right side tell you your current swath number there's a row of LEDs across the top this gives you a visual indication how far far off line you are and to which side of the line you are if the LEDs are green and in the middle you'll bang on line while the row of LEDs across the bottom give you an angle offset indication the further the LEDs are from Center the more degrees off track you are and when you've got it perfected the top and bottom LEDs will both be green both be in the middle and that means you're bang on track and right in the center of your run and our orange line on and off and on and all I'm doing is checking visually outside that the F's flowing looking in the hopper window itself to see the fs also flowing and again we've got a couple of cameras that look inside the hopper always checking and making sure everything's operating how it should be and nice and freely and we get to our end of our run pulling out nice and wide there and doing that same what we call what would be known as a coastal reversal turn but a simple dumbbell turn and bringing it around nice view of the Shadow again and good tune we're shallowing it up as we get close and slowly lining us up with the light bar once we come in the center there we go boom orange lights on so now knowing how the light bar works it might make a bit more sense all those smaller movements I'm making that's just to keep us Dead online as best as can be for me the crucial ual part is the angle offset the lower LED lights they let you know you're about to go offline before you actually do so and just on these automatic doors the orange light that you can see that comes on and off what determines that is linked to the GPS itself and in that GPS you can predetermine the boundaries of the block you're working in now as you can see here we we actually finished everything up above us in the block so we're just doing a simple back to back here here and turning in the other direction nicely done here and look at that view gee was hard to beat pretty hard to beat that to go back to our GPS we can predetermine before we even start this job which areas you want for it and which areas you don't and then it's as simple as getting your ab line that reference stum we were talking about before and just flying these lines parallel to one another and letting the computer do its own thing yes know doors open doors shut and then it'll as well Link in your ground speed so it'll open the doors or close the doors and very small increments so it's calibrated to give you that same constant rate fertilizer and that's the end of that load same thing again Lower the nose bring the power back and we join ourselves for a downward just breathtaking around here and especially first thing in the morning here when the air is nice and crisp flying is just magnificent smooth not too many people about and turn ourselves on to finals once again already spoken to muz seeing where he's at what he's doing making sure it's all clear for me to come in keep that turn going around there we are coming out on short finals roll Wings level bring the power back slowly with just a smidge there and trle up and touchdown be youtiful well that's going to about do it for us I reckon hope you enjoyed that one you guys have a good one see you soon

Channel: Jimbo Burgess

Views: 8,881

Keywords: Aviation, Low, flying, Topdressing, cockpit, cropdusting, pilot, Jimbo Burgess

Id: s4TUijPU2Kk

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024