John Gooden in First State Aerial Applicator’s AT-301 spraying barley over the Demarva Peninsula in Maryland.

David Hrupsa owner and pilot of First State Aerial Applicators says the AT-402 is the best plane he’s flown. He now wishes he had gotten one years ago.

Flying the fields or the First State

At northern end of Chesapeake Bay, around Kent Island, you can often find 23-year old John Gooden flying a radial engine Air Tractor AT-301 spreading rye, wheat and barley seed along the shoreline. Like a buzzing yellow dragonfly swooping and turning above the 200-mile long bay’s tributaries, Gooden’s work is one small part of the Chesapeake Bay Program, a massive state and federal restoration program to reduce soil erosion and pollution into Chesapeake Bay. Soil erosion and pollution caused by a doubling of the population around the bay during the past 10 years now threatens the very life of the nation’s largest and richest estuary.

John Gooden is a pilot for First State Aerial Applicators, Inc., an operation owned by David Hrupsa, with two base of operations, one in Felton, Delaware and one in Pantego, North Carolina. Hrupsa flies an AT-402 in North Carolina while Gooden operates the AT-301 in Delaware.

The finger of land comprising Delaware is a patchwork of mixed timber forest and small (average 40 acres) cultivated fields sliced by suburban development around the Highway 13 corridor. With his father and brother, Gooden farms and raises about 50 head of beef cattle on 800 acres near Felton, Delaware, a few miles south of Dover. Popular crops for the area include wheat, barley, soybeans, potatoes, tomatoes, lima beans, sweet corn, peppers, and cucumbers.

Gooden began flying at age 15 and earned his commercial license at 18. He started his ag flying career with a Cessna Ag Truck five years ago. Between then and now, he’s logged several hundred hours in a variety of ag planes. By the end of 2005, Gooden expects to have logged 500 hours in the AT-301, spraying and spreading cover crop seed over the Delmarva Peninsula. He applies 2-1/4 bushels of seed per acre. He says the AT-301 is well suited for the small fields that dot the rural areas around the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. The plane, built in 1981, has 1800 hours on the airframe; the engine has 650 hours.

David Hrupsa farms 350 acres in Delaware where he grows corn, soybeans and wheat. He spends most of his time there during the winter months. Hruspsa’s home is adjacent to his operation’s 4,000-foot grass airstrip and hangar.
Hrupsa logs about 300 hours each season in North Carolina. He considers the AT-402 the perfect aircraft for his work there. At Pantego, he operates off a 2,600 foot runway and says he has no problem with a full load on the short field. David does herbicide application in the northeastern parts of North Carolina over reclaimed marshland that’s very organic, almost like peat.

“I wish I had purchased a 402 a long time ago,” Hrupsa says. “I’m amazed at the performance. It’s perfect for what I do in North Carolina.”

As Hrupsa sees it, the rampant population growth in the Delaware area not only threatens the waters and wildlife around Chesapeake Bay, but casts a shadow over his Delaware ag operations as well. The population around Chesapeake Bay has doubled from 8 million to 16 million in one generation’s time. New housing additions, horse farms and acreages are gobbling up farmland at an alarming rate. When David Hrupsa built his Delaware operation’s grass runway 15-years ago, it was located in a fairly remote area. Today, four doublewide mobile homes squat at one end of the runway. With his dry sense of humor, Hrupsa says he’s become much more attuned to the public relations aspects of aerial ag operations.
What the future holds for Hrupsa’s Delaware ag operation is an open question. Because Delaware farms are disappearing at a fast rate, Hrupsa is looking to further expand his aerial application activities in North Carolina, where field sizes average 2,500 acres and there’s less suburban sprawl.

The North Carolina operation may eventually become Hrupsa’s primary base, if the Chesapeake Bay area population explosion doesn’t slow. In the meantime, Hrupsa predicts that John Gooden will continue to do crop application work with the Chesapeake Bay Project, for the very reason that the area’s population pressures makes conservation efforts so vital to preserving and restoring the Chesapeake Bay.