MOULTRIE – Every year, new advances in farming and agricultural science is showcased at the Sunbelt Ag Expo, and this year had attendees looking towards the sky.
Bestway Ag showed off its Agras T10 sprayer drone in the field with morning and afternoon exhibitions of its ability to maneuver and spray a crop.
Jeff Clack, the drone representative and pilot for Bestway Ag, has been in the agricultural industry for 33 years and he said, “I’ve never seen an innovation take off like this. Anything you see an aircraft do, this is capable of doing.”
The sprayer drone is piloted from a handheld console and Clack said that it has a complete interface, which allows it to be piloted either manually or it can fly autonomously, once a field is mapped into the interface.
“We can tell it what to do, how much to spray and how fast to go. … We can check the fields as we go,” he said, adding that there was an integrated camera on board.
Piloting and spraying the field is a two-man operation because, by law, someone has to maintain a visual line of sight with the drone at all times, Clack said.
The Agras T40 has a coaxial twin-rotor design and it can carry up to 10 1/2 gallons of liquids like pesticides or 110 pounds of dry material like seed, he said. The battery, at full charge, will give approximately nine minutes of flight time, which allows it to spray about five acres. The drone’s battery recharges in approximately nine minutes and Clack had extra batteries to switch in and out.
He said that one of the key benefits of the drone was that it could get into hard-to-reach fields because it didn’t need the landing area that a traditional crop dusting plane needs. Also, he said, a farmer didn’t have to wait a week to spray his fields after it rained. The drone could go in and spray immediately.
“Lots of plusses,” Clack said.
Weighing-in at just under 55 lbs., even when loaded with fluid or dry materials, the T40 model drone that was being showcased does not require a FAA heavy-drone exemption. However, there are federal and state requirements that need to be met to operate a drone in the United States.
“It’s so simple that anyone can do this but licensing is mandatory,” said Clack.
A Part 107 Drone Pilot license, which confirms a working knowledge of the regulations, operating requirements and safety protocols for drone operation, and a Part 137 Aerial Applicator license, which allows dispensing chemicals from a drone, is needed from the FAA. The drone must also be registered with the FAA and, basically, receive a tail number like an airplane.
A third class medical certificate, administered by a FAA-designated Aviation Medical Examiner, is also required.