The Killer Crop Duster

gregorymaness
Jul 26
2 min read

Updated: Jul 28

One thing that I have enjoyed about living in a rural, agricultural part of the Midwest is getting to watch the crop dusters (airplanes and helicopters) that zoom about during the growing season. The pilots of these aircraft are clearly very skilled and it is kind of awe-inspiring to see them dart about and speedily descend relatively close to the fields to spray the crops and then zoom away in a climb.

My interest in military aviation and military history often leads me to imagining that a crop dusting plane is a military aircraft carrying out a strafing or bombing run on a target. Driving a truck or my car as I witness a crop duster’s work sometimes gets me to thinking about how concerning it would be to be driving or riding in a military vehicle that might find itself targeted by an armed version of the crop duster’s plane, even if anti-aircraft weapons like a heavy machine gun were available to the vehicle’s crew.

Close air support aircraft typically have to fly relatively low and close to the fighting on the ground if they are to be useful when the fighting gets particularly desperate and the enemy is in very close proximity to friendly troops. Even in the jet age, prop-driven attack aircraft have served in that role and performed well. Knowing that today’s jet-powered A-10 Warthog is a respected and is much beloved aircraft by both its pilots and the troops that have depended upon it for support, I had often wondered if we would ever see another prop-driven close air support aircraft in the United States military’s inventory. I also wondered if such a prop-driven attack aircraft would resemble the crop dusting planes that I have watched fly over fields here in the Midwest. It looks like the answer to both questions is “Yes.”

For those of you that have an interest in such things, I have included links to videos pertaining to one such attack aircraft that serves in the close air support role and a link to a video on an American serviceman that took on German panzers in World War II with an aircraft that doesn’t exactly look formidable at first glance. Admittedly, I haven’t watched all of the videos in their entirety myself, but I am looking forward to doing so. Enjoy.