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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0940.PDF
40 FLIGHT CHINESE AGRICULTURAL FLYING By HO FENG-YUAN, ASSISTANT DEPARTMENT CHIEF OF THE CHINESE CIVIL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION An An-2, one of the aircraft used in China for agri- cultural purposes, dusting' crops with benzine hexa- chloride. DESPITE the fact that only a modest network of air routeslinks the most important towns strewn over China's vastterritory, the use of aircraft for what is generally termed "airwork" has reached considerable proportions there. In 1952, aircraft were used for the first time for civil engagements other than air transport, and since then flying hours for airwork have increased ninefold. In many instances, when a crop-dusting aircraft appeared over the rural horizon, it was the first piece of modern machinery ever seen by the villagers. It came literally as a "boon from heaven," stunning the watching crowds, who were almost on the point of mobbing it. However, initial shock gave way to broad smiles when it was announced that the machine had come to the aid of the peasants to fight a local locust outbreak or help control the cotton pests. Once something irrelevant, the aeroplane has now become an implement aiding peasant livelihood. During the past four years airwork-flying by various aircraft of China's Civil Aviation Administration totalled 16,300 hr and covered a wide range of duties, including aerial photography for forestry and hydraulic project studies; forestry search; annual spring-to-autumn air patrols over an area of 600,000 sq km; mag- netic survey; control of locust outbreaks; control of other crop pests; and top-dressing. For 1957, the figure in terms of flying hours will be 2.5 per cent greater than last year. Technically, we in China have been on our own from the begin- ning in the field of airwork, except in equipment. Much was done on the spur of the moment, though we have been resourceful in improvization and we have been able to achieve what we wanted to do. In magnetic surveying, our technique is to fly a series of parallel tracks over the area under survey, with the aircraft going ruler-straight 80 to 100 metres above ground-level regardless of the terrain, with an allowable deviation of ± 100 metres horizontally and ±ten metres vertically. Even a slight jolt is undesirable because it will register a false gamma on the graph and thus mar the record. This means highly skilled flying and just the right kind of weather. Our chief difficulty in the past has been the lack of properly scaled maps for the area under survey; though even if one were available, it was likely to be misleading because of the changed appearance of the countryside. To help matters, the flight path was marked out in advance, which of course involved overland surveying. The aircraft used by us are Li-2s, An-2s and Aero-45s, each serving the purpose in its own way. In the case of the Aero-45 (a lighter twin not equipped with a driftsight) it was a very strenuous job for the pilot to counteract unavoidable bumps occurring even on fine days over hilly terrain. From 50 per cent Left, an Aero-45 on fire patrol over forests in the north - east of China; and (on the right), peas- ants on a co- operative farm watch a Po-2 crop-dusting. DIRECT from China comes this informative account of that country'suse of the aeroplane in agriculture. The article appears, with a few exceptions, as originally written in English by an official of the ChineseCivil Aviation Administration. (An account of China's air transport system appeared in "Flight" for November 30, 1956, page 861.) at the beginning, wasted flying due to deviation from course or bumps is now less than one per cent. Air photography requires even more exacting weather conditions and the trouble is that there are few days in the year which are fine enough. We are yet green in this type of work, and the growing amount of it finds us more and more pressed for time. But with scales of up to 1 : 5,000, pictures taken from our aircraft are providing valuable information for forestry studies and the preparation of topographical charts for hydraulic projects. Aircraft of the Civil Aviation Administration of China have been repeatedly called on to perform insecticide dusting jobs. Thrice they went combatting locust outbreaks in the marshlands of the Hungtze Lake (East China), China's most potent locust breeding-grounds. For a job like this, the An-2 is a splendid aeroplane which can take off from a makeshift strip of 600ft hurriedly prepared in wheat fields, yet uplifting as much as one metric ton of dusts or 1,000 litres of spray. Dusting can be done with adjustable nozzles and spraying from bars with any of the five sizes of aperture. Flying at 100 m.p.h. at 20 to 40ft above the ground, the aircraft releases dusts in a swath width of 240ft or spray to a width of 180ft. Another agricultural aeroplane we use is the Po-2, a lighter craft with a take-off run of 690ft and a load of 200 kg. Flying at 70 m.p.h. at nine to 20 feet above ground, it dusts or sprays a swath width of 60 to 120ft. Aerial control of locusts is now a successful routine operation bringing about in every case up to 92 per cent mortality among the insects. In a single operation in 1955, when ground combat failed to cope with the fast-breeding locusts, two An-2s cleaned up the pests over 74,130 acres in nine days. On average, an An-2 will do the work of 40,000 men, or in one hour the day's work of 300 hand-dusters. In 1957, 444,780 acres are expected to be air-dusted against locust outbreaks. Crops treated for pest prevention in the last two years include cotton, rice and wheat. While some of the operations are yet in the experimental stage, or intended mainly for demonstration, aerial treatment of cotton and rice pests is now a paying proposi- tion. One of last year's rendezvous was at Hsiatsin hsien, Shantung, one of China's chief cotton-growing areas. Although yields in this area have been on the increase, cotton pests are causing a ten to 20 per cent annual loss. As success in all agricultural opera- tions depends heavily on ground support, a headquarters was set up to co-ordinate activities two weeks before the arrival of the aircraft. Co-ordinated air-ground operations over a wide area involving many villages and hamlets are much easier now with the countryside united in co-operative farming. Reports rushed in from observation posts in the second half of June revealed that the tarnished plant bugs had grown up and were laying eggs, that second-generation bollworms were in oviposition, and that the snout beetles and leaf hoppers presented an equally menacing situation. Calculations were made to launch attacks at the most vulnerable stage of the insects' development with the greatest number available for annihilation, but at a time when they had done the least harm to crops. Word went round the villages to have all water wells covered up and cattle kept out of the area of operation. After a test operation on August 7, the following day a single Po-2 started dusting and spraying and continued until the 18th, with a let-up of four days due to rain and two days for rest. A total of 103,716 mou (a mou is roughly one-sixth of an acre) were dusted once with 1.5 per cent benzine hexachloride or with 5 per cent DDT powder and twice sprayed with 25 per cent DDT V - (Continued on page 56)
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