Cabin pressure 500ft above Victorian floods

Aerial agriculture services are in demand to protect waterlogged crops from disease, but those in the cockpit are under immense pressure. See the incredible footage.

Jim Robins has not enjoyed his panoramic view of a slowly unfolding natural disaster, circling high and wide over northern Victoria as a wet winter and sodden spring sowed the seeds for record-breaking floods that continue to inundate paddocks.

Ongoing rain has placed a heavy demand on the cropdusting industry as grain producers, unable to push machinery through muddy ground, clamour to protect waterlogged winter crops from disease.

Robins Aviation owner and operator Jim Robins in one of his crop dusters.

Mr Robins, owner and operator of Kerang-based aerial agriculture company Robins Aviation, said in a year of losing flying time to rain and working like the clappers when it clears, increasingly desperate farmers have ratcheted up pressure on already overworked pilots with growing to-do lists.

“We have been overwhelmed with people trying to get fungicide on crops and the pressure from clients is extreme, and rightly so,” he said.

“They have multi million-dollar crops and have invested a lot of money in them and can see the disease.”

However, Mr Robins said pilots were being pushed to take inordinate risks to try to save crops.

“Farmers are under a lot of stress and invariably that gets pushed on to us and we are trying to help everyone in an efficient and safe manner,” he said.

“But it is challenging enough flying in these conditions and it has been a nightmare finding dry airstrips, we are landing on roads just to do what we can.

“I have been doing this a long time and don’t easily get pushed. But there’s other pilots around, especially younger pilots, being pushed into corners and probably doing things they wouldn’t normally do.

“It is tough on our industry right now but it is also tough to look at people’s livelihoods being destroyed, devastating really.”

In-between jobs, pilots must also meet obligations to summer clients they work with every year while “we only tend to hear from the winter guys when it rains”.

“Some clients have already lost summer crops that had just gone in and some rice growers won’t have the ground ready in time,” he said.