Aerial Topdressing Anniversary

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 8

Aerial Topdressing Anniversary

May 27 this year will be the occasion of a very important anniversary for farming in New Zealand. It will be 21 years since the first commercial aerial topdressing and oversowing job was done in New Zealand.

The site was the property of Sir R. Heaton Rhodes at Otahuna, Tai Tapu, where on May 27,1949, about a ton of superphosphate containing a small quantity of certified grass and clover seed was distributed from a Tiger Moth aircraft flown by Mr J. B. Brazier, of Airwork (N.Z.), Ltd. Mr Brazier, who is now managing director of Airwork, the oldest aviation repair and overhaul organisation in New Zealand, said it was hoped that a function to mark the occasion might be held for farmer shareholders of the company in May. The first commercial venture in aerial topdressing and oversowing was in the nature of an experiment, Mr Brazier recalls, being done in collaboration with Lincoln College and Sir Heaton Rhodes. Earlier, on April 7, he said, calibration tests had been done with seeds at Lincoln to determine swath widths and weights distributed per acre, and it had then been discovered that different seeds had different ballistic characteristics.

The late Mr A. W. Riddells, head of the agricultural engineering department at Lincoln College, had then arranged for the work to be done at Otahuna. Mr Brazier said that the aircraft used at Otahuna, ZK-ASO, carried about 3001 b of fertiliser and seed at a time and had to be hand loaded. The hopper in the aircraft that day was designed and fitted by his brother, the late Mr Charles Brazier.

The hopper had an outlet about 4J inches square, in contrast to its modern counterpart which is about 24 inches by 8 inches, and Mr Brazier recalls that there was a little trouble that day with continuity of application. The report in “The Press" the next day said the ton was spread in about an hour’s flying, including two abortive trips when the feeding equipment in the aircraft jammed. If the same operation had been done manually it would have taken at least 14 hours, added the report. "The operation is considerably faster than with the use of horses and manual labour,” commented the Otahuna manager, the late Mr M. M. Fleming, “and there is every indication that the operation carried out by air will be much cheaper."

Mr Brazier said that subsequent investigations had shown this to be the case.

Before the Otahuna job Mr Brazier said that they did some trial work and initially in ignorance they had worked with lime and seed, and it had been the late Mr C. Wornall, who had suggested to them using superphosphate, of which a very much smaller quantity needed to be spread to the acre.

Mr Wornall himself subsequently went into the aerial-work field. Mr Charles Brazier, who built the hopper for the first job, also subsequently built the first mechanical aircraft loader, which was mounted on a 1928 Hupmobile. A hand operated winch was used to raise the boom and Mr John Brazier commented this week that it looked quite a Heath Robinson piece of equipment. Another brother, Mr Bill Brazier, also did work on the development of equipment for agricultural work.

Earlier in the same year at the request of Mr S. M. A. Chaffey, of Mount Possession station, Mr Brazier started dropping phosphorised pollard from the

air against rabbits on the station on March 6. The hopper in this case was a four-gallon tin with a drainpipe in the bottom as an outlet. A passenger travelled in the aircraft to refill the hopper and Mr Brazier recalls that because the material was treated with aniseed to make it more attractive to the rabbits there was a constantly changing stream

of passengers as they had enough of the smell of the aniseed. From these small beginnings a very important industry has developed. Be- i fore the recession in wool; prices had its impact more < than a million tons of lime i and fertiliser was spread from the air in the year i ending March, 1966. For a number of years, Mr Brazier i said this week, the aerial, work industry in New Zea-j land flew more hours than all other aerial organisations ' in New Zealand combined. 1 But for Airwork, which I was established in ton in 1936, agricultural work is only a small part] of its business. Its agricul-l tural aircraft, of which there] are seven, are now all | located at Rangiora and itj has a branch at Ardmore ini Auckland. 1 After World War 11, when! Airwork resumed business,] it was involved in the con-1 version of military aircraft! for civilian use and at one] time had a staff of 200 to’ 300 persons. At the function which Mr Brazier has in mind to mark the start of commercial aerial topdressing and oversowing, it may be possible to have an old Tiger in the field, and to do some topdressing with a Piper Pawnee that takes a half-ton load and of which some 56 were imported into New Zealand with 30 still being used in the aerial topdressing and spraying fields. Looking back over the years. Mr Brazier said the cost of aerial topdressing today was very similar to what it was when the industry had started, and this could be put down to use of more efficient, higher-speed aircraft and better equipment, but whereas it was once possible to launch a team for a cost of about £3OOO the capital involved in this had now increased many times.