“I’ve never done this before!” he said as he stepped before a dozen or so men in the church’s Fellowship Hall. Then he went on to describe what he has done. The “he” was Crop-Duster Steve Vasko of Silverhill. This is the former little boy that grew up here in Baldwin that used to look overhead at those little planes that would fly in and out of Silverhill’s airstrip. Little did young Steve realize that after the Air Force and some crop-dusting experience, he would be a “regular” in the skies and have his own landing strip. “After five years in those crop-dusting planes, you realize how much you didn’t know when you started,” Steve said at his talk with Zion’s “Men’s 710” on October 10, 2006, and then he told us a lot about what he did know.
Like most of us, Steve began his work experience laboring for someone else. That is how he got into the routine of dusting crops in Florida in the winters and doing Alabama in the summers. He loved his Turbine Thrush PT6 and had a bunch of real-life stories, like working in the “black hole of Florida”--now there’s a story for you! No lights, canals looking like runways, and everything black after sunset! But Florida was more than a job, because that is where he met his wife Becky. The duo ultimately moved to Alabama and Steve was able to take over a crop-dusting service here and become an independent. Becky had worked with the USDA and was involved with crop-dusting oversight, so she has her own set of insight when it comes to agricultural service.
Steve Vasko was a real crop-duster with a plane-full of stories. One woman, for example, was convinced that Steve had sprayed her home. She brought in the feds and they investigated. They go out to her place and she says, “See!” and she lifts up her shirt for those inspectors. Who do you think is covered with red spots from agricultural chemicals--only it is really with flea bites? No telling how many dogs were on the place. Point? Those crop dusters are in the sights of insurance cheats--the feds were satisfied that those flea polka dots were not the result of agricultural chemicals.
But speaking of “sights,” would you believe there are folks out there taking potshots at these little crop-dusting planes. “The FAA would not deal with a complaint of a pilot being shot at. The sheriff would not deal with a complaint, either. What do you do?” Steve asked us. “FBI!” he said. When he discovered a guy shooting at him, he called the FBI on a whim. The FBI got real serious. “Just pointing a firearm at an aircraft is an automatic five years in the slammer,” Vasko noted. One guy had threatened to shoot at Vasko’s plane as it sprayed a local field. One FBI visit to the guy, who of course denied all threats or even taking note of Vasko, and he told that agent to, “Tell that man he can spray over my house any time.”
Then there is the story of the lady who had a house, yard, and horse pasture next to a field Vasko was spraying. She was out to sue Steve for dousing her with agricultural chemicals. Only problem? She had sprayed her own yard, home, and horse pasture with a commercial spray that wasn’t anything like the professional stuff required for agricultural use. Needless to say, there was not much of a case there when the feds investigated that one. But it points out the potential vulnerability a crop-duster faces in this age of suits.
These kinds of problems have driven insurance for crop-dusters up from perhaps $7000 a year when Steve got into the business to about $21,000 or more a year at this point. Moreover, a pilot has to have 1500 hours of crop dusting experience just to get insurance, even though a school might certify a crop duster with 150 hours of instruction! The escalating insurance costs were the culprit for leading Steve Vasko out of the crop dusting profession. After his talk to the men at "Men's 710," he was off to harvesting peanuts--and certainly not with a PT6!
