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Industry recognises people making a difference
The AAAA again recognised people making a real difference at its recent successful convention held in the Hunter Valley.
AAAA’s top award – the Ray Mackay Award – was presented to Nicholas Woods for decades of service to aerial application through his research into droplet behaviour, aircraft set-up and education of pilots.
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Nick was formerly the Director of the Centre for Pesticide Application Safety (UQ) and was the author of the AAAA Spraysafe manual for pilots and operators that is now recognised – in its latest 420-page iteration – as the foundation stone of application competence for all ag pilots.
Nick was brought to Australia in the 1980s, by AAAA members Ted and Mary Blanch at Tully, to help develop better techniques for banana spraying.
Thanks to Nick, Australia has a world class high-speed wind tunnel at CPAS for the testing of spray nozzles at typical aircraft spray speeds – enabling innovation through laser measurement of spray quality and formulation performance.
The AAAA Professional Pilot Award went to Shane Hederics who flies with Paul and Robyn Knight’s SprayTech operation at Wee Waa, NSW. Not only is Shane well-known in the industry for his consummate professionalism, he is viewed as a major asset to the company because of his positive attitude to safety and clients.
After 19 years and 10,000 hours he remains accident-free across both fire and ag operations. He is an inspiration for all application pilots and a model to pilots just starting out.
The Leland Snow Innovation Award was presented to Ergon Energy for work by Glen Cook in developing an app that allows all application pilots to ‘see’ the Queensland powerline network and integrate it into their mission planning.
Along with the hi-vis spinning markers from Balmoral Engineering, and Essential Energy’s (NSW) earlier work, this is a truly transformative safety initiative greatly appreciated by the industry. The challenge now is to get all other States to adopt the same approach.
Finally, our Midcontinent Award for support to AAAA went to James O’Brien of Field Air, Ballarat (Vic) while the Col Pay Scholarship for 2019 was awarded to Ben Lewty, who is currently working as a loader/mixer for Precision Aerial at Mungindi (NSW).
Congratulations and thanks to all of our award recipients for the contribution they are making to keep the aerial application industry such an innovative part of aviation.
‘The challenge now is to get all other States to adopt the same approach’
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