Flying in the Face of Adversity

By 6 a.m. a sliver of moon and the sun were both up, and as he usually is at this time of day, so was crop-duster Milt Taylor.

He makes a living flying a few feet off the ground. On this morning, he was north of Fresno, moving at 140 mph, skimming five feet above 20-foot-tall pistachio trees and laying down pesticides over 165 acres to kill stink bugs and beetles.

Crop-dusters live by their peripheral vision. And flying this low, Taylor was looking for telephone wires or irrigation pipes--farmers usually don’t paint them, and the dull gray metal makes them hard to see and easy to hit. “Either one can eat you up,” said Taylor.

He spotted many things, but not a young couple still asleep and naked, two lumps covered by a sleeping bag in the bed of a pickup parked under pistachio branches along a popular lovers’ lane inside this vast 10,000-acre ranch.

Seconds later, Taylor roared almost directly over them in his one-seat, canary-yellow monoplane, leaving behind a white mist with a hint of a sour smell and two suddenly very alert interlopers.

Unlike an incident near Fresno this week in which 21 farm workers were hospitalized after being hit by another crop-duster’s spray, no one complained this time about being sprayed. But the incident illustrates the increasingly tight vise squeezing the state’s crop-dusters, whose numbers are dwindling in the face of California’s tough environmental laws, soaring insurance costs, homeowner complaints and the loss of 1.2 million acres of California cropland over the last 20 years.

Several crop-dusters also are killed each year in California--so far this year the death toll is two--in midair collisions, by flying into wires and farm equipment, or by pesticides that burst into flames under their wings.

There are only 450 crop-dusters left in California, down from about 1,200 a decade ago, a faster rate of decline than in the rest of the country, where 5,000 crop-dusters still fly.

About 80 California crop-dusting firms have closed in the past decade, profit margins remain slim, and the constant task is to be more efficient. Larger crop-dusting firms buy out smaller ones, and they purchase new $400,000 turbine-engine aircraft with bigger wingspans to spray more land in less time, equipping them with satellite navigation systems to pinpoint spraying.

Larger firms also pad their fleets with helicopters because they fly slower than planes and can spray more precisely on small farm plots near urban neighborhoods. About 25% of the crop-dusting in California is now done by helicopter.

But in the San Joaquin Valley and in other mainstay agricultural zones where farms can extend three miles, an airplane is still the fastest way to lay down pesticide.

“This is the last true flying,” Taylor said. “We’re like an artist who is painting a field.”

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Taylor, 53, is a survivor. He has taken on work from three other crop-dusters, one who died, two who quit the business. His small firm, Milt’s Flying Service, operates out of an airstrip next to a cotton field in Dos Palos, a northern San Joaquin Valley community. He flies full time, has one other pilot working for him and in a good year earns $100,000.

And he is planning to pass his business to a new generation. He is training his son, Nathan, 20, to take over. “I ask him every day if he’s sure he wants to do it,” Taylor said.

Less enthusiastic about the future is Tom Mills, 61, a crop-duster in the Imperial Valley since 1960. He is not sure that his small firm, Mar Aviation, can survive. And long ago he made sure that his son did not follow him into the trade. “There’s three tough things in this business. Starting in it. Staying in it. And getting out of it,” Mills said.

Mills and Taylor are old friends who see a different future. But both agree that crop-dusting is a stress-ridden business. Pilots may fly 90 hours a week, often at night, and must memorize hundreds of fields to avoid striking hard-to-see objects that can kill them.

Crop-dusting dates back to the 1920s, when pilots sprayed arsenic and lead over farms in the South. Bug and weed killing by air caught on, and for decades crop-dusting was a ramshackle trade. A pilot could strap some tanks on a biplane and call himself a crop-duster.

The business has changed, but not the need for sure-handed flying. On his recent pistachio run, Taylor flew in at dawn over an airstrip carved into a grove at the S&J; Ranch. The wingspan on Taylor’s plane is 50 feet, and there was a 90-foot gap between the trees, so his margin of error while landing was small.

Taylor climbed out of the cockpit in his standard work uniform: a fire-resistant jumpsuit, boots and aviator glasses. He stands 6-feet-3 and carries a red, white and blue helmet, badly chipped from cracking his head against the canopy during turbulent runs. His resume includes flying 367 Navy missions in Vietnam. There is a touch of John Wayne in him.

He owns two 20-year-old planes custom-designed for crop-dusting. They have 74 spray nozzles under the wing, and 400- or 500-gallon tanks--called hoppers--to hold pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers.

It’s a tight squeeze in Taylor’s cockpit, about one-fourth the size of a VW Bug interior. Wedged next to his seat is a fire extinguisher and a couple of bottles of water. Below the instrument panel is a window so he can see the pesticide sloshing around in the tank. On the floor is a lever, much like a car emergency brake, that he yanks to manually open or close the spray pump. It’s a bare-bones airplane with no air conditioner, and with the canopy always shut, Taylor can bake at 100 degrees on summer days.

Several years ago Taylor spent $30,000 for a Global Positioning Satellite navigation system that, he says, keeps him within one foot of his target line. Before that, he would hire four helpers, called flaggers, who would drive around and set up flags during the day, or guide lights at night, so he could spray the fields.

By eliminating the flaggers, Taylor figures that he has saved big on trucking costs, workers’ comp and safety equipment. He still uses a ground scout to chase visitors and to radio back wind information, and a worker to mix and load chemicals. Taylor also cut back from 152 to 65 clients to eliminate those slow to pay.

He constantly watches his costs. In his hangar, a tail wing with fabric freshly glued onto a wood frame was strung up to dry, the glue smell filling the room. His crew repaired it for $3,000 rather than buying a new metal wing set for $30,000. And Taylor’s planes have B-17 World War II surplus motors that are much cheaper than new turbine-powered ones.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s annual insurance tab for each plane is about $10,000, up from $4,000 a few years ago. He added crop insurance--in case the wrong spray drifts onto a crop--after one of his pilots sprayed herbicide on 30 acres of cotton and stunted the harvest. The farmer’s damage bill was $26,000. “I paid it,” he says.

Crop-dusters are quick to say that recent government restrictions have toned down the potency of the pesticides they use. And the insecticides Taylor sprayed over the pistachio trees are also used in dog flea collars and ant bait, said Jeff Van Bergen, pest control superintendent for the S&J; Ranch, one of Taylor’s longtime clients.

Many homeowners and environmentalists don’t see any artistry in crop-dusting. They complain about noise, dust and health risks that crop-dusters leave behind.

Dr. Marion Moses, a former physician with the United Farm Workers, notes that a key ingredient in Agent Orange is still sprayed to wipe out weeds, and that some pesticides have a chemical makeup similar to nerve gas. “I just don’t think we should be spraying nerve gas poisons from airplanes,” she said.

Some scientists say a big danger with aerial spraying is that chemicals drift at least five times farther than they do in ground spraying. In 1994 there were 155 possible cases of pesticide exposure from wind drift near farms, most from aerial spraying, according to the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

“Roughly 80% of all pesticides used in agriculture in California are applied by air,” said Moses. “I’ve seen too many cancers in children in the Central Valley not to conclude that pesticides [from] aircraft create a toxic environment.”

On Wednesday in Kern County, 21 farm workers, including three who were pregnant, were checked for possible pesticide poisoning after they began vomiting and suffering eye irritation after apparently being sprayed by a crop-duster’s pesticide drifting from a nearby field.

Moses says that even though crop-dusters often are following current laws, there are still many dangers.

“Just because we are not misapplying pesticides as badly as we used to does not mean it’s a good way to do it,” she said. “Pesticide molecules follow the law of physics, not the rules of the state of California.”

The problem of pesticide drift as in Wednesday’s incident is nothing new. In the end, Moses said, farm workers “take the brunt of it.”

Some activists have been winning ground against crop-dusting.

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Seven years ago, Shirley King lived next to a potato farm in San Diego County. When the farm was sprayed by a helicopter, so was her pony, which died a week later. She began talking to neighbors about the dangers of crop-dusting. After a farm was sprayed next to a trailer park and some residents had nausea and respiratory problems, she started Citizens Against Pesticide Exposure.

Now the county agriculture department has set up some restrictions on aerial spraying, including buffer zones between farms and homes ranging from 50 to 200 feet. “It’s inadequate” King said, “but it’s better than nothing.”

Tom Mills has heard all these gripes against crop-dusters, and has had his fill.

“A lot of people have never experienced a severe insect invasion” like the one in the 1950s when aphids devoured alfalfa fields in the Imperial Valley, he said. “People have lost respect for what it takes to produce a good supply of food.”

Still, Mills wants to stay in business, so he has adapted to the times.

In the late 1980s his company in Brawley, 20 miles north of the Mexican border, was losing $150,000 a year. He fantasized about crop-dusting in Montana, where environmental laws are easier, but he decided to stay.

His first step was to quit spraying lettuce, spinach and other expensive, quick-to-market crops; he shifted to alfalfa and sugar beets. “Farmers with high-valued crops have more willingness to sue” for spraying goofs, he said. Mills also stopped taking jobs near heavy residential areas.

His business now breaks even, but there isn’t any extra cash for luxuries. Mills doesn’t own a GPS navigation system. He still depends on human flaggers to guide him, even at night. Why crop-dust at night? “Insects and moths are flying and the birds and bees are home in bed,” he said.

Mills started out as a livestock farmer in Tennessee, but when his father-in-law, a crop-duster, moved to California, Mills followed.

Crop-dusting has been tough on his family. “I’ve missed too many graduations and wedding anniversaries. When a farmer calls, they need you now,” he said. His father-in-law crashed and died while crop-dusting in a heavy haze.

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For some crop-dusters, the years of stress, lawsuits and dealing with 20-plus government agencies are just too much. Wayne Handley was a crop-duster in California for 25 years. In 1990 he quit, and now flies at air shows. “I get more attaboys in one day than I did in a career of ag flying.”

Handley still feels the pain of the business, though. His ex-partner died in a collision with another crop-duster. And two years ago, his 24-year-old son died when his plane burst into flames while he was spraying sulfur dust, the most dangerous chemical in the trade.

All veteran pilots have a crash story to tell.

For Taylor, his big crackup was in 1984. He was flying over a farmhouse and his left wing struck a pipe that had been used as part of a 110-foot ham radio antenna. He hit the ground at 100 mph.

He keeps pictures of the crash in his desk. The photos show the fuselage and engine broken into pieces, the wheels scattered and a tail fin crumpled. Taylor’s legs, neck and back were bruised, and so were his feelings. “I’d flown 7,000 hours in that airplane for 10 years. It was like losing a member of the family.”

Taylor has three sons, and each one worked as a flagger. His two older sons, Taylor said, “hate planes. Too many years holding flashlights at night.” But his youngest son, Nathan, was different. “He could have soloed at 6 if his feet reached” the pedals.

For all the troubles in crop-dusting, Taylor figures that with a growing population and an increasing demand for food, there has got to be a future in it for his son.

Tom Mills’ son also learned to fly. But when he asked for a crop-dusting job, Mills said no. Too hard, too financially risky, and too tough on a family, he said.

Mills has flown a staggering 26,000 hours on the job, and his body has taken a beating. Years of pushing rudders and a throttle in one direction, then twisting in another to pull on a spray lever, plus the endless scream of the engine, have left him with neck, back and hearing troubles.

He is slowly cutting back on his own flying and he has hired two younger pilots. The next few years, he said, will decide his future.

In his area there are 10 crop-dusting firms, and Mills figures that “there’s a good possibility three” will go out of business.

“And depending on my attitude, maybe one more.”