Air Tractor: Back on the farm, innovation flies high

Kevin Patchett approaches the end of the paddock a little after sunrise. He eases back on the power and steers his ''tractor'' to the left in a tight and noisy U-turn. Dust shoots out from underneath and sprays the side of a truck, the farmers looking on, and a once-white ute.

The wide flat plains of the southern Riverina are bathed in early morning sunshine, there is not a cloud in the sky, not a breath of wind about. Conditions are perfect for sowing crops. And today Mr Patchett and his tractor will be busy, he has about 45 tonnes of rice to sow on four farms.

After a discussion with farm owners Ian and Joe Rhodes about the job, and the loading of a tonne of rice into the tractor's ''hopper'', he climbs up the steps and on board for his first run.

Mr Patchett's machine is a tractor with a difference. It has wheels but not the rugged tyres of a farm tractor, it has a cockpit rather than a cabin, a propeller, rudder and wings. It is a tractor for the skies, a $1 million American-made ''Air Tractor'' aircraft, purpose-built for aerial agriculture work.

A tick after 7.35am and the Perth pilot is airborne and zooming towards the Rhodes' 82 hectare rice fields in Sanger, wet and ready for sowing. The 50-year-old pilot will fly in a ''racetrack'' pattern above them, setting co-ordinates 400 metres apart and then zooming in a straight line as he drops the rice.

With a run of sowing complete on the western edge he flies over the fields' southern end, banks left, completes a turn and returns over the top of gum trees. With a gentle tweak of the controls he tips the left wing down a little, straightens up and flies above the fields at about 200 km/h. The Air Tractor is only about 25 metres above the water.

As it flies away and the rice is released a translucent dark sheen can be seen underneath the plane. Then, the falling rice momentarily disappears from view, before thousands of seeds tinkle softly into the water - like an extremely brief shower of rain on a pond. Golden coloured grains are also scattered across the banks around the rice fields. They won't grow there but Mr Rhodes is happy they're there, and so is the experienced pilot. ''We get growled at if we don't get it around the banks. They [farmers] like to see it on the banks and around the perimeter of the block, just to ensure that it's actually in the water at the right rate,'' Mr Patchett says, during a brief stop on the ground before his 12th and last load.

''I've been doing it for about 20 years and I got into it like most of the guys in the game, you have a love affair with aeroplanes as kids. It seems like a more interesting way to make a living than flying airliners and that kind of thing around.''

Given the speeds, proximity to the ground and the obstacles like trees and powerlines, some would think working as an ''ag pilot'' - Mr Patchett say the expression ''crop duster'' is a misnomer because they don't dust crops - is a job of excitement and thrills.

But the laconic pilot gives a different perspective when asked to summarise his morning's work. ''It was pretty much run-of-the-mill,'' he says, matter-of-factly. ''They [the trees in the paddocks] were no problem - you can see them. It's the hazards that you can't see like powerlines and dead trees that you've got to be careful [around] and watch out for.''

He performs a job in which a bad mistake could be fatal; today alone he will take off and land tens of times on dusty farm runways. But he talks in such a measured tone that he could be a suburban accountant discussing a company's fixed assets.

''It's as safe or as dangerous as you want to make it. There's a lot of discipline involved,'' he says. Mr Patchett spends about four months a year at home; the rest of the time he could be spraying cotton in New South Wales or Queensland, mice baiting at Griffith or sowing rice in the Riverina. Self-employed, he is currently working for Victoria's biggest aerial agriculture firm, Field Air.

Watching from the ground as the plane soars above, Ian Rhodes is impressed by the performance. ''It's a job that only a few people can do, I think. It's a very risky job as you can see, with the trees that are in the paddocks … I wouldn't like to be in the plane with him,'' he says.

It's the first time Mr Rhodes has grown rice in seven years. About 1500 farms are growing rice this year, up from 1300 last year. Aerial sowing is Mr Rhodes's preferred sowing method. ''It's probably the quickest way and the easiest way to do it to get a better crop,'' he says. ''If we had done it on a tractor it would take us 10, 12, 14 hours.''

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