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Old 12-07-2019, 03:03 PM   #800
woofa.express
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Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Tocumwal, NSW, Australia
Posts: 1,745
Default Re: tell a Model A related story

Looking for grasshoppers.

It was 2015. December. I was asked to do a grasshopper survey. From Wagga Wagga to Broken Hill, south to Mildura and east to Yarrawonga. A perimeter length of 1100 miles and an area of, by my estimate of approx 4000 square miles.
Grass hoppers are easy to spot. They eat in a band and this stands out like the dogs proverbials. But the grass must be short and green. In December there is no green grass with the exception of farmers front yards. It’s all hayed off and of course straw in colour. Just stupid to think we were going to find any grasshoppers. I did tell the firemen they wouldn’t find any grasshoppers with these ground conditions. They reported that to the Ag Dept chief but he said to continue because he had to tell the minister he was doing everything possible.

This survey was undertaken by the state Dept of Ag. The Ag Dept had some pretty good ground people. They were titled ‘rangers’ and were either former farmers or farm workers and they knew their job. However one day one of them became airsick so “fire attack officers ” were sent. They knew grasshoppers because they had been to a 2 day course at Dubbo on identifying grasshoppers. One day I took a ranger as well as this fire attack officer. The ranger was relegated to a rear seat, not a front window seat simply because he “hadn’t been trained”. What bullshit.

It was a pretty boring job and one kept on nodding off. There was absolutely no chance of finding a grasshopper. This may have well have cost nearly 10K a day. Aeroplane hire, wages, first class accommodation, first class dining and another fireman at Wagga base to check every half hour that we hadn’t crashed. More bullshit. This in despite we were being constantly tracked back at the operators base and carried a survival beacon.

One morning base manager (fire department) asked me if I had enough time left in my log book to conduct this days flying. I don’t know, I don’t add it up. Just fly dawn to dusk, who cares? Did I have my welfare. Welfare? No. I can and need to work even though I am past retirement age. No no he said. I mean do you have lunch and water with you? Dumb man. And could you taxi past the terminal building so as the media can get a shot of you. This was to get max publicity that we were doing a good and responsible job. Each day a bulletin was made to tell the community what a good job we were doing. Even more bullshit. And bullshit is thick when it comes from the government.

That went on for either 3 or 4 days, can’t remember now. What I did see however was farmers going flat out on headers trying to harvest and beat thunderstorms coming through. They weren’t having a good year with drought both this year and last and now thunderstorms at harvest time. With the Ag Dept trashing this money each day I felt quite ill since these farmers were financing this wasteful exercise.

I am aware this is airing the laundry in public, but so be it. I feel ill at the continuing stupidity in the wastage of public money by government departments. This is not new we all know who said this: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!

For those of you who are amused at the town name of Wagga Wagga let me explain. Wagga is aboriginal for crow. Wagga Wagga is many crows.
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Last edited by woofa.express; 12-07-2019 at 03:11 PM.
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