Crop Dusting Aircraft + App
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Hello everyone - first time poster here.
I am a "former" crop duster (only for a short time... barely out of training. Had to leave the industry for personal reasons and never was able to make it back).
I would be willing to pay some seed money for a well done turbine Air Tractor, especially if it had a functional GPS lightbar and/or Air Hauler-style program where you can spray fields for money. Honestly though, just a typical Just Flight-quality Air Tractor would be absolutely amazing, and programming the light bar would not be too difficult. I would be willing to share what I know (it's not as much as a veteran but it's enough to start with). The GPS light bar could be paired with an "iPad" to show the spray pattern and give the user an idea of how well he sprayed a field. The real light bar can literally plot very simple points and automatically set up a spray pattern and would not require exceedingly complex programming. The real thing also can have actual fields "edges" drawn/imported into the GPS and you can more efficiently/precisely spray the field using that, but that is definitely not necessary
The Embraer 200 is not too terrible but flies kind of weird, and does not really have any simulated cropdusting "capability" other than a basic spray effect. Just does not feel right at all. Did not nearly satisfy my craving to get back into crop dusting at all.
There is a nice range of aircraft that Just Flight could model if they had reasonable success in selling this. Everything from the classic Air Tractor AT301 with a big ol radial and 300 gallon hopper all the way up to the beastly AT802 with a 16,000lb gross weight carrying 800 gallons of chemical. The turbines alone have 4 basic models in the lineup, with a few variants (i.e. the 802 has a military version as well as a two seater). Just like they've done with the Piper Cherokee/Warrior/Archer/Arrow family, they could make a wonderful lineup of Air Tractors. Theyre all similar enough that once one was complete, it wouldn't be a huge leap to create variants.
I strongly believe that if JF were to not only create a high end Air Tractor (I would recommend the AT502 for a good middle ground aircraft that is hugely popular in real world operations), along with some programming to give the user a mission/goal in doing good quality aerial application, this would sell very well! I'd be willing to pitch in some seed money for this, for sure!
Pretty please??
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The developer was going to release this as payware but gave up.
https://www.rikoooo.com/downloads/viewdownload/51/942
Not sure there has ever been much commercial potential for this kind of thing.
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Aside from the prop looking wierd and no working gauges, a 'quick & dirty' conversion will bring it into FS2020 too and I'm certain that could be improved.
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It would give you something to do once you've finished chasing the FS2004 chickens in the Curtiss Jenny.
