Low and Fast: Crop Duster Turns Heads with Aerial Acrobatics Outside Shelby
SHELBY, OH — Drivers on State Route 96 yesterday afternoon might’ve thought they’d stumbled onto the set of a Hollywood action flick. Just beyond the Shelby city limits, the roar of a turbo-prop engine sliced through the quiet rural air, drawing eyes skyward as a grey aircraft came swooping low over soybean fields — dipping between tree lines, skimming the crops, and climbing again with ease and grace.
But this wasn’t a movie stunt or a military drill — it was agriculture in action. The spectacle? A modern-day crop duster at work, performing high-stakes maneuvers that few pilots would dare attempt, let alone execute with such precision.
The aircraft dazzling onlookers was anything but average. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registry, the plane — tail number N522BF — is a 2022 Air Tractor AT-602, a purpose-built agricultural aircraft designed to deliver pesticides and fertilizers across large tracts of farmland. With a single-engine, turbo-prop design and rugged construction, the AT-602 is known in aviation circles as a workhorse of the skies.
This particular Crop Duster is no slouch. It’s equipped with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65AG engine, giving it the thrust and reliability needed to handle aggressive low-altitude flights — the kind that had locals pulling over to watch.
Registered to BS Flying Service LLC of Middletown, Delaware, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest, these high-flying specialists crisscross the country, keeping fields.
The AT-602 falls under the FAA’s “Restricted Category” for aircraft use, meaning it’s certified for specific operations like pest control, forestry, and agricultural work. And while its job may be rooted in farming, the show it put on yesterday was nothing short of cinematic.
“This guy could handle the controls,” said one eyewitness “He was dancing with the trees — dipping, diving, pulling up just in time. It was mesmerizing.”
Though a common sight in more rural mid-west regions, crop dusting remains one of the most skilled and dangerous professions in aviation. Flying at low altitudes, often in unpredictable weather and over varied terrain, aerial applicators must maintain split-second timing and near-perfect awareness.
Yesterday’s spur-of-the-moment airshow shows agriculture may be grounded in soil, but sometimes, the real action happens just a few feet above it — in the hands of a daring pilot and a roaring Crop Duster slicing through the Ohio sky.
