What changes in AG avation have been made in the last twenty years?

Question

GPS? Fed Regs?

Answer 1

GPS and turbine power plants.

Answer 2

Probably the two biggest inovations in my opinion, are the advent of GPS, especially small affordable units with lots of features like weather, terrain awareness, etc.
Secondly, I think the glass cockpit (incorporating GPS) is the next stage in situational awareness and primarily what you will see in almost all new aircraft in the future.
Another interesting development is the heavy use of composite airframes.

Late Edit:
Sorry, my dyslexia must have been acting up...thought you meant GA as in Gen'l Aviation. But as far as Ag Flying goes, its still the same. I spoke to a couple of Ag pilots recently at the airport and got to give their planes the once over. Their spraying now is all controlled by GPS/computers with cowl mounted indicator lights giving them timing and direction with their spraying. I would have to agree with C. Flyer; the EPA regs are making it incredibly tough for anybody in the pest control/fertilizer biz. Hence the reason for the computerized controls on the spraying. A co-worker's car was "oversprayed" a few years ago by an Agsprayer working a cornfield. The county sent out two techs who took samples off of his car. Apparently the samples showed some insecticide in concentrations about 1/100th of what you would use in your home to kill bugs. I asked them what would happen to the aerial sprayer and they said he would receive a $2,000 fine. Seems a little steep to me.

Answer 3

By AG AVIATION,
I take it you mean Agriculture (crop dusting)

Agricultural aircraft control system using the global positioning system

The regs have not changed much from the FAA's point of view. The EPA however,has instituted many rules/regs that has made it all but impossible to make much of a profit considering the high overhead.

Answer 4

enclosed cockpits......hahahahaha.. i needed the 2 points.. sorry