September 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Everyone's favorite method of spreading pesticide on crops via an aircraft has been used in modern times to describe a drive by fart. How did we get here?
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-- Sources:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You'd hate to have to debug your cornfield and things not go the way you want on it.
Like, yeah, if you're going to debug your cornfield, you should probably do it by hand.
That's fair.
Welcome back to privy privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
(00:28):
I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for joining me here again in my home bathroom.
The keen eye will notice there's a pumpkin colored package just there more on that later.
Uh, it's still September.
(00:49):
And here in the Willamette Valley, specifically here in Albany, at the time of the writingof this episode, we just had and celebrated the art and air festival.
Now, for those of you that are not like an Albany local, the art and air festival is, Imean, I feel like it's pretty unique, but they, they launch a series of hot air balloons.
(01:17):
And they have like these things where they do these tethered flights where the hot airballoon is just like, but, for the most part, the art and air festival is for me, the
mornings in which I get up and I forget that the hot, that the air festival exists.
And then I hear what sounds like something in my home on fire or like a water pipebursting as I just hear.
(01:45):
outside my house and I'm like, what is that?
Every time.
And every time my dog bugs out.
And then I remember it's the hot air balloons and we, we rush outside, you know, and I'mto be honest, they've, they've figured out how to spin the art and air festival as so as
to make plenty of money off of those who like to look at balloons.
(02:08):
Now, because of where I live, I can roll out in pretty much my, my pajamas.
and just watch it from my driveway for free.
Pretty cool.
It's the little things.
But as you watch these hot air balloons.
(02:28):
drift by, I decided, you know, I need to, I need to take a peek at my notes app.
think I need to dive into the, the hallowed halls of the privy cast ideas notes app.
And so I did that.
And one thing stood out to me as I watched these hot air balloons drift overhead.
(02:49):
turns out hot air balloons have been around since like the late 1700s.
And for some reason.
It's hard for me to imagine George Washington and Ben Franklin sitting there much like Iwas watching a hot air balloon.
Now I'm going to wager Ben and George from America's past.
(03:13):
I'm going to wager that the hot air balloons of your day were more like balloon shaped andprobably didn't have
the vibrant color array.
had a friggin' farm house fly over my house one year.
This year, there was, I think there was a beaver.
I can't remember.
There was two that were in love and then they like, it bees.
(03:35):
They made the bees kiss at one point.
There's a whole thing.
But it's possible that George Franklin, sorry, George Washington and Ben Franklin, thatwas a slip up in an alternate universe maybe.
But they could have enjoyed watching hot air balloons.
It occurred at the work these balloons were possible because of the work of theMontgolfier brothers who are credited with the first manned balloon flight.
(04:08):
And in many ways, the hot air balloon was a stepping stone to where we need to venture intoday's episode, as is usually the case.
We're going to meander a bit in our look at history as we dive into a topic that has livedin my notes for some time.
(04:41):
120 years after humans first took flight in a balloon, another group of brothers beganworking on another form of air travel.
These two were rambunctious and curious.
Their father, a bishop, traveled a lot.
And as the story goes, one of his travels, he brought them home a toy helicopter made ofbamboo sticks and rubber bands for these two rapscallion boys to play with.
(05:10):
It's pretty cool device.
got to tell you.
I could easily kill an hour with one of these.
what's, this is the sad part.
This is the sad realization that smartphones, technology, I mean, really the internet ingeneral.
Old man rant here for a moment.
Pull up a chair.
Welcome.
Hi, welcome to Hunty Whovies old man rants.
The internet has ruined us.
(05:32):
Phones, smartphones, iPads.
These tablet kids are just absolutely wild.
Because what was once probably well over a week, if not a month's worth of entertainmentin a bamboo helicopter powered by rubber bands.
Now is like that entertained me for 45 seconds, but like it only does one thing.
(06:00):
Like if the app doesn't update every week, kids are getting bored.
I can't keep up.
I can't keep up with it.
The Pokemon.
PCG online, they've got a new set like every month and it's almost unbearable.
I like Pokemon cards as much as the next guy.
But at the time of this episode's record, I have the paid subscription to that game andI'm still nowhere near, I'm not even close to being able to like catch them all.
(06:29):
It's too much.
If Fortnite doesn't update the game shop once a day, God forbid.
But back then it was like, hey kid,
Here's some sticks in a rubber band.
Go have a blast.
It's a different time.
These boys played with the bamboo helicopter until it broke.
(06:51):
And so doing what any two rambunctious boys would do when their helicopter breaks is theydecided to build their own.
As these brothers grew up, they both would drop out of high school.
becoming increasingly reserved after one suffered a face injury from a hockey stick andthe other, well, began to be reserved because he was a bit of a nerd.
(07:15):
He went into the printing business and he's like, I can't have a social life.
have to print these books.
But from this, they took up manufacturing bicycles.
They moved from like getting hit in the face with hockey sticks and printing books tobicycles.
It's the natural pipeline for all people who sell bikes.
You just got like one tooth because some dude clocked you with a hockey stick and thenyour brother's like, Poindexter, like, let me print you some books.
(07:43):
But they began manufacturing bicycles and they would construct and try to makeimprovements on bikes.
And as they did so, they tried to keep up with the times and the current fads and the newtrends in a lot of this engineering space that they were.
They read some of the news and they were still doing their printing press, by the way.
(08:06):
So they, they're printing the news from overseas.
And one of these news articles reported a glider.
Reports, photographs of gliders and men flying through the air.
It brought them back to the days of their childhood, playing with that bamboo and rubberband helicopter.
(08:30):
They decided that they too.
We'll take a crack at this whole flying thing.
Like we've made bikes, so surely we can make something that'll fly.
These brothers are known as Orville and Wilbur Wright.
And they began their endeavors into manned flight in the late 1890s.
(08:53):
It turned out one of the hardest parts of controlling this new vehicle and making flightpossible was the actual controlling of
As they prototype this and continued to expand on their design, they found out that theplane needed to be controlled in three dimensions and that the wing wrappings had to be
(09:19):
designed to allow for and reflect that need.
They came up with a design and a system that was similar to how Bird's wings are designed.
And this is a key theme.
that we're gonna find in this episode.
In many ways, when we model things as people off the way God designed nature to function,it turns out, works pretty well.
(09:45):
So the Wright brothers had made themselves a flying machine in time.
I imagine living during this age, where the Wright brothers would have been a lot likehaving one of those like crazy neighbors who's always working on some new car in their
front yard.
It's like, hey,
What are those boys up to this time?
I don't know, but they just strapped wings to a bicycle, so I hope their daddy can getthem to a doctor if they decide to put this into effort.
(10:13):
And then the next thing you know, one day they're flying over your house like some sort ofwinged Superman on a batwing bike.
Their first flyer called the right flyer.
Huh?
Thank you.
Big love you.
was a custom, the Wright Flyer was a custom built glider plane with a gasoline poweredengine and a frame made of spruce.
(10:37):
Spruce.
Bold choice.
Bold choice Wright brothers with the spruce.
They call it the spruce goose.
No, they didn't.
In December 1903, the Wright brothers made their first flight, 12 seconds long.
(10:57):
And 120 feet by the end of the day with some tinkering, they managed to fly 852 feet.
You know, in one day and just some basic tinkering on the same design, that's proof ofconcept.
Like that's proof that aerodynamics are at play.
(11:17):
Like if you can tweak something and it impacts the glider, the flying machine to thatdegree.
I mean, what is that?
That's like a seven times distance increase.
It's pretty good.
If you're like, well, that's a bit anticlimactic though.
That's not even a thousand feet, but it's really a lot like kids learning how to ride abike, if you will.
(11:42):
See, you get it because Orville and Wilbur Wright, they were making bikes as well.
And it's a lot like riding a bike because those 20 to 30 foot stretches are things tocelebrate.
This technology, this flying machine was fun.
But right around the corner, this new plane technology was going to be purposed forsomething less fun.
(12:05):
They have their flying machine here called the aeroplane.
And after the turn of the century, there were tensions throughout the world, which weresparked further by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and eventually fanned
into all out war.
World War I or the Great War as it was known mostly because there was no need todistinguish World War I as there had not yet been a World War II.
(12:33):
The Wright brothers early steps in manned air flight had reached the front lines.
Nowadays we strap missiles and bombs to the plane and drop them with degrees of precisionI might add where we want them to hit.
It's kind of crazy.
They can hit probably like a dinner plate size target from way up in the sky because oflike math and engineering.
(13:03):
It's buck wild.
But the planes used in World War II were, how do I say, not as accurate.
Rather, in trench warfare, which there is a bathroom discussion living in that trenchwarfare, I'm sure.
But the planes were more used to fly over the enemy trenches to get a good idea and infoon where exactly the enemy was on the other side.
(13:30):
At times, the soldiers would fire their personal firearms from the plane to try and hitthe enemy or pull pins on grenades and drop them on them.
So you just have like some dude flying around in an airplane trying to like pop pop poppop pop like shoot from the cock.
pit of his own jet.
(13:51):
doesn't seem very conducive.
Like imagine you pull the pin and drop the grenade down in your lap.
Like you're cooked.
Not a good design.
At times, again, soldiers would be doing this.
And as you might note, and as I did note, this was unsafe.
And so Dutch engineer, Anthony Fokker, listen, I don't know how you pronounce it, but Iknow how it's spelled.
(14:15):
Now when I see F-O-K-K-E-R
What else do I do, but, but call the man Fokker.
I've got nipples Fokker.
you no, but Anthony Fokker, I'm sorry.
It's not a bat.
It's the man's name.
F-O-K-K-E-R.
Fokker.
But it's not.
We all know it's not.
(14:35):
Watch.
It's probably like Fokker and I just look stupid right now.
If you're Dutch, shout at me.
But he designed the forward facing mounted machine gun.
That is.
The machine gun that mounts, thank goodness, to the outside of the plane that can befired.
You know, the one that you think of the forward facing mounted machine gun, which wasfired through that moving propeller.
(15:02):
have to imagine that it hits the propeller at times.
Like you're telling me it never hits the propeller.
Don't seem likely.
They also solved the whole like grenade pin pulling problem.
They attached bomb racks with levers to the bottom of the plane for a flyover release.
It's a classic like, ka-chow.
(15:23):
Now this technology and this design, this pull release is going to be important.
You might hear all this and be thinking to yourself, didn't Hunter already do an episodeabout airplane bathrooms?
Like, what's he getting at?
I did.
Go check it out.
But, and don't just look at the title to give away the lead.
(15:45):
I'm really trying to paint a picture for the history and development of the thing here.
It's, it's, if AI has taken all that we have, what do we have, but the ability to tellgood stories.
Think about it.
But in World War I, they had designed this levered release.
And then, 1918, the war found itself to be over.
(16:08):
Planes were coming home, still outfitted with this pole lever bomb release mechanism.
But soon these planes would be employed to deal with an altogether different problem.
Bugs.
Up until the 90s, when farmers got bugs in their cornfield, they had to spread thedebugger by hand.
(16:32):
That's what she said.
You'd hate to have to debug your cornfield and things not go the way you want on it.
Like, yeah, if you're going to debug your cornfield, you should probably do it by hand.
That's fair.
That's fair, but it took time.
And in many contexts, this is still how they do it today.
(16:52):
Like in many cases and in many instances, if you want to debug your cornfield, you got todo it by hand.
But as the face of agriculture shifted, there began to be large fields of crop, amberwaves of grain, if you will.
And spreading this debugger via a hand sprayer, or even one attached to an earth vehicle,
(17:17):
It's going to take too long.
takes a considerable amount of time to debug large acreages of field by hand or by truck.
If only there was a way to squash my bugs from the sky by flying over it in some type ofmachine.
And then when I want pulling a lever to release the bombs, mean, bug squatching juice downbelow, you can see where we're going.
(17:44):
It turns out after world war one.
There were plenty of these machines lying around.
The first use of an airplane to spread material on crop from above was 1921, when theyrepurposed a Curtis JN-4 geniplane to spread lead arsenate to kill caterpillars on orchard
(18:05):
trees in Ohio.
That sounds like the beginning of a difficult SAT reading comprehension question.
But it turns out this bug killer
killed the caterpillars.
It was effective.
And things took off from there.
We saw a spike in this use of aerial debugging mechanisms and technology spike again afterWorld War II, where there were even better planes and even improved technologies for
(18:36):
dropping stuff on other stuff.
The idea stemmed from Charles Nellie, who worked for Ohio's Department of Agriculture atthe time.
After World War II, it was found that these planes could cover or dust, if you will, 60 to70 acres of crop in an hour.
(18:58):
Compared to the hundred acres a day that was accomplished via earth vehicles before it,it's a no-brainer.
But most of these planes that were dropping these debugger bombs in this case, it's not,it's aerosols.
were retrofitted jobs.
They weren't the safest with farmers taking on the role of airplane mechanic to fit theseold and decommissioned World War I and World War II jets with their spray aerosol dropping
(19:32):
technology.
This was the case until the Civil Aeronautics Administration commissioned Texas A &M todesign an ag-specific plane for dusting crops.
With 50 grand in hand, they set out to work to make it a reality.
As a result, they produced the AG-1.
(19:55):
It was the first of its kind.
There have been any, many other AG specific aircraft since then either, but they all doone thing.
Spray or dust, 28 % of America's crop.
every year.
(20:15):
This process of dropping a debugging or pesticide from the air for it to dust the cropsbelow is colloquially known as crop dusting.
(20:41):
If you think for a minute that I took us down all that discussion about the invention ofplanes and the aftermath of World War I and II and the creation and development of
agriculture aircraft, just to mention and speak on the idea of crop dusting, you'd beexactly right.
(21:04):
Because while on one context,
Crop dusting refers to the act of dropping dust or dusting crops with insecticides andpesticides for a better crop.
It is also the term used lovingly for a drive-by fart, usually with the purpose of lettingyour fart stink linger on the person you quote unquote dusted.
(21:32):
Now, where did this come from?
Really kind of a chicken in the egg or a turd in the stink situation, if you will.
Undoubtedly, people were farting ages before we dusted crops with planes overhead.
Like, there's no doubt.
As long as people have been snoshing anything, they've been farting.
(21:54):
They've been blowing air.
People been farting for as long as people been people.
That's facts.
But like
Where did we get the idea of calling the act where you walk by somebody, rip a fat beaver,and leave the scene before they know it's you and they have to sit in your stink?
Like, where did we get the idea to call that what we call it?
The term, obviously, didn't exist until these crops and agriculture aircraft were beingused and employed in this way.
(22:22):
Two questions arise and exist then.
Did the way we fart impact?
the way we dust crops and when was the farting act first referred to as crop dusting?
I want to tackle the first concern and in short, it's hard to tell.
(22:43):
It's hard to tell whether our bodies and our ability to produce a terrible stank thatmight feel like it would eradicate bugs from an area was motivation and behind the idea to
drop
bad, stinky bug killer from the sky.
It's very unlikely that they chose to begin dusting crops because of what our butts do.
(23:07):
But that said, again, the natural way of things is often the one which makes the mostsense.
so spreading that stank is obviously best on the move.
You don't want to sit in the stank that you spread.
That's just facts.
Everybody who's ever farted knows that that's real.
This.
(23:27):
Then raises the second question.
When was the first, the term first used to refer to a fart?
When you search the term crop dusting on urban dictionary, which is where all goodinternet learning happens.
The first entry is from August, 2003 by a one user named Charlie.
(23:51):
Thanks Charles.
2003 in case you didn't want to do math today, I'll help you out with it is about
80 years after they started to crop them big killers from the sky.
The term was probably used before then, but as far as I can tell, this is when it firstlanded on the internet.
(24:13):
It kind of entered the general vernacular from there.
It became a thing, if you will.
People noticed the look.
of the dust coming out of the back of the plane as it moves across the sky, dropping itspesticides and insecticides, insecticides, what did he say?
(24:33):
On the crops below.
And they said, man, I bet that's a lot like what it looks like when I fart when I'mwalking in front of my friend and then he has to sit in the stink as I move on.
Crop dusting is more known, I would say today, if you said, I'm going to go do some cropdusting.
I think it's more known for that process of passing a fart as you pass by a group ofpeople.
(24:58):
They're the bug, you're the plane, and you dust them with stank.
Do we take that long journey to talk about the etymology and concept of trap dusting?
Yes, of course.
But now you know, next time you blow a fart on the move, past somebody, remember thehistory that went into that fart.
(25:21):
There's a lot going on there.
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Privy.
We appreciate you being here.
Thank you for listening.
We could not do this show without you.
That said, if you would leave the show a rating or review, the five star options arepreferred and it helps folks find the show.
And when you do, we'll be donating a dollar to Wounded Warriors and Living WaterInternational as a reminder to keep pooping in the free world.
(25:47):
That free world was not always free.
and in pursuit of cleaner water for all.
Not everybody has it, but everybody should.
We'd also invite you to follow us on social media at privycast.
You can follow me.
I'm at al at seven.
Go check out the privy's Facebook page.
There's plenty of bathroom related memes, goofs and gags, as well as maybe prompts andthings that I need help from you for the show.
(26:11):
Facebook and search the privy's will get you added in there.
You can email the show.
privycast at gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Episode ideas, suggestions, feedback, concerns, if you want to come on the show and tell astory and we'll interview you and ask you our privy related questions, privycast at
(26:32):
gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Go check out the website privy-cast.
You can find links to all the things that I've just told you on the websiteprivy-cast.com.
This brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks to Kevin and Pottington for the use of their music.
Links down below.
(26:52):
As a reminder, keep pooping in the free world.
Own your stank, crop dust your buddy, and now, as always, don't forget to flush.
You'd hate to have to debug your cornfield and things not go the way you want on it.
Like, yeah, if you're going to debug your cornfield, you should probably do it by hand.
That's fair.
Welcome back to privy privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
(00:28):
I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for joining me here again in my home bathroom.
The keen eye will notice there's a pumpkin colored package just there more on that later.
Uh, it's still September.
(00:49):
And here in the Willamette Valley, specifically here in Albany, at the time of the writingof this episode, we just had and celebrated the art and air festival.
Now, for those of you that are not like an Albany local, the art and air festival is, Imean, I feel like it's pretty unique, but they, they launch a series of hot air balloons.
(01:17):
And they have like these things where they do these tethered flights where the hot airballoon is just like, but, for the most part, the art and air festival is for me, the
mornings in which I get up and I forget that the hot, that the air festival exists.
And then I hear what sounds like something in my home on fire or like a water pipebursting as I just hear.
(01:45):
outside my house and I'm like, what is that?
Every time.
And every time my dog bugs out.
And then I remember it's the hot air balloons and we, we rush outside, you know, and I'mto be honest, they've, they've figured out how to spin the art and air festival as so as
to make plenty of money off of those who like to look at balloons.
(02:08):
Now, because of where I live, I can roll out in pretty much my, my pajamas.
and just watch it from my driveway for free.
Pretty cool.
It's the little things.
But as you watch these hot air balloons.
(02:28):
drift by, I decided, you know, I need to, I need to take a peek at my notes app.
think I need to dive into the, the hallowed halls of the privy cast ideas notes app.
And so I did that.
And one thing stood out to me as I watched these hot air balloons drift overhead.
(02:49):
turns out hot air balloons have been around since like the late 1700s.
And for some reason.
It's hard for me to imagine George Washington and Ben Franklin sitting there much like Iwas watching a hot air balloon.
Now I'm going to wager Ben and George from America's past.
(03:13):
I'm going to wager that the hot air balloons of your day were more like balloon shaped andprobably didn't have
the vibrant color array.
had a friggin' farm house fly over my house one year.
This year, there was, I think there was a beaver.
I can't remember.
There was two that were in love and then they like, it bees.
(03:35):
They made the bees kiss at one point.
There's a whole thing.
But it's possible that George Franklin, sorry, George Washington and Ben Franklin, thatwas a slip up in an alternate universe maybe.
But they could have enjoyed watching hot air balloons.
It occurred at the work these balloons were possible because of the work of theMontgolfier brothers who are credited with the first manned balloon flight.
(04:08):
And in many ways, the hot air balloon was a stepping stone to where we need to venture intoday's episode, as is usually the case.
We're going to meander a bit in our look at history as we dive into a topic that has livedin my notes for some time.
(04:41):
120 years after humans first took flight in a balloon, another group of brothers beganworking on another form of air travel.
These two were rambunctious and curious.
Their father, a bishop, traveled a lot.
And as the story goes, one of his travels, he brought them home a toy helicopter made ofbamboo sticks and rubber bands for these two rapscallion boys to play with.
(05:10):
It's pretty cool device.
got to tell you.
I could easily kill an hour with one of these.
what's, this is the sad part.
This is the sad realization that smartphones, technology, I mean, really the internet ingeneral.
Old man rant here for a moment.
Pull up a chair.
Welcome.
Hi, welcome to Hunty Whovies old man rants.
The internet has ruined us.
(05:32):
Phones, smartphones, iPads.
These tablet kids are just absolutely wild.
Because what was once probably well over a week, if not a month's worth of entertainmentin a bamboo helicopter powered by rubber bands.
Now is like that entertained me for 45 seconds, but like it only does one thing.
(06:00):
Like if the app doesn't update every week, kids are getting bored.
I can't keep up.
I can't keep up with it.
The Pokemon.
PCG online, they've got a new set like every month and it's almost unbearable.
I like Pokemon cards as much as the next guy.
But at the time of this episode's record, I have the paid subscription to that game andI'm still nowhere near, I'm not even close to being able to like catch them all.
(06:29):
It's too much.
If Fortnite doesn't update the game shop once a day, God forbid.
But back then it was like, hey kid,
Here's some sticks in a rubber band.
Go have a blast.
It's a different time.
These boys played with the bamboo helicopter until it broke.
(06:51):
And so doing what any two rambunctious boys would do when their helicopter breaks is theydecided to build their own.
As these brothers grew up, they both would drop out of high school.
becoming increasingly reserved after one suffered a face injury from a hockey stick andthe other, well, began to be reserved because he was a bit of a nerd.
(07:15):
He went into the printing business and he's like, I can't have a social life.
have to print these books.
But from this, they took up manufacturing bicycles.
They moved from like getting hit in the face with hockey sticks and printing books tobicycles.
It's the natural pipeline for all people who sell bikes.
You just got like one tooth because some dude clocked you with a hockey stick and thenyour brother's like, Poindexter, like, let me print you some books.
(07:43):
But they began manufacturing bicycles and they would construct and try to makeimprovements on bikes.
And as they did so, they tried to keep up with the times and the current fads and the newtrends in a lot of this engineering space that they were.
They read some of the news and they were still doing their printing press, by the way.
(08:06):
So they, they're printing the news from overseas.
And one of these news articles reported a glider.
Reports, photographs of gliders and men flying through the air.
It brought them back to the days of their childhood, playing with that bamboo and rubberband helicopter.
(08:30):
They decided that they too.
We'll take a crack at this whole flying thing.
Like we've made bikes, so surely we can make something that'll fly.
These brothers are known as Orville and Wilbur Wright.
And they began their endeavors into manned flight in the late 1890s.
(08:53):
It turned out one of the hardest parts of controlling this new vehicle and making flightpossible was the actual controlling of
As they prototype this and continued to expand on their design, they found out that theplane needed to be controlled in three dimensions and that the wing wrappings had to be
(09:19):
designed to allow for and reflect that need.
They came up with a design and a system that was similar to how Bird's wings are designed.
And this is a key theme.
that we're gonna find in this episode.
In many ways, when we model things as people off the way God designed nature to function,it turns out, works pretty well.
(09:45):
So the Wright brothers had made themselves a flying machine in time.
I imagine living during this age, where the Wright brothers would have been a lot likehaving one of those like crazy neighbors who's always working on some new car in their
front yard.
It's like, hey,
What are those boys up to this time?
I don't know, but they just strapped wings to a bicycle, so I hope their daddy can getthem to a doctor if they decide to put this into effort.
(10:13):
And then the next thing you know, one day they're flying over your house like some sort ofwinged Superman on a batwing bike.
Their first flyer called the right flyer.
Huh?
Thank you.
Big love you.
was a custom, the Wright Flyer was a custom built glider plane with a gasoline poweredengine and a frame made of spruce.
(10:37):
Spruce.
Bold choice.
Bold choice Wright brothers with the spruce.
They call it the spruce goose.
No, they didn't.
In December 1903, the Wright brothers made their first flight, 12 seconds long.
(10:57):
And 120 feet by the end of the day with some tinkering, they managed to fly 852 feet.
You know, in one day and just some basic tinkering on the same design, that's proof ofconcept.
Like that's proof that aerodynamics are at play.
(11:17):
Like if you can tweak something and it impacts the glider, the flying machine to thatdegree.
I mean, what is that?
That's like a seven times distance increase.
It's pretty good.
If you're like, well, that's a bit anticlimactic though.
That's not even a thousand feet, but it's really a lot like kids learning how to ride abike, if you will.
(11:42):
See, you get it because Orville and Wilbur Wright, they were making bikes as well.
And it's a lot like riding a bike because those 20 to 30 foot stretches are things tocelebrate.
This technology, this flying machine was fun.
But right around the corner, this new plane technology was going to be purposed forsomething less fun.
(12:05):
They have their flying machine here called the aeroplane.
And after the turn of the century, there were tensions throughout the world, which weresparked further by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and eventually fanned
into all out war.
World War I or the Great War as it was known mostly because there was no need todistinguish World War I as there had not yet been a World War II.
(12:33):
The Wright brothers early steps in manned air flight had reached the front lines.
Nowadays we strap missiles and bombs to the plane and drop them with degrees of precisionI might add where we want them to hit.
It's kind of crazy.
They can hit probably like a dinner plate size target from way up in the sky because oflike math and engineering.
(13:03):
It's buck wild.
But the planes used in World War II were, how do I say, not as accurate.
Rather, in trench warfare, which there is a bathroom discussion living in that trenchwarfare, I'm sure.
But the planes were more used to fly over the enemy trenches to get a good idea and infoon where exactly the enemy was on the other side.
(13:30):
At times, the soldiers would fire their personal firearms from the plane to try and hitthe enemy or pull pins on grenades and drop them on them.
So you just have like some dude flying around in an airplane trying to like pop pop poppop pop like shoot from the cock.
pit of his own jet.
(13:51):
doesn't seem very conducive.
Like imagine you pull the pin and drop the grenade down in your lap.
Like you're cooked.
Not a good design.
At times, again, soldiers would be doing this.
And as you might note, and as I did note, this was unsafe.
And so Dutch engineer, Anthony Fokker, listen, I don't know how you pronounce it, but Iknow how it's spelled.
(14:15):
Now when I see F-O-K-K-E-R
What else do I do, but, but call the man Fokker.
I've got nipples Fokker.
you no, but Anthony Fokker, I'm sorry.
It's not a bat.
It's the man's name.
F-O-K-K-E-R.
Fokker.
But it's not.
We all know it's not.
(14:35):
Watch.
It's probably like Fokker and I just look stupid right now.
If you're Dutch, shout at me.
But he designed the forward facing mounted machine gun.
That is.
The machine gun that mounts, thank goodness, to the outside of the plane that can befired.
You know, the one that you think of the forward facing mounted machine gun, which wasfired through that moving propeller.
(15:02):
have to imagine that it hits the propeller at times.
Like you're telling me it never hits the propeller.
Don't seem likely.
They also solved the whole like grenade pin pulling problem.
They attached bomb racks with levers to the bottom of the plane for a flyover release.
It's a classic like, ka-chow.
(15:23):
Now this technology and this design, this pull release is going to be important.
You might hear all this and be thinking to yourself, didn't Hunter already do an episodeabout airplane bathrooms?
Like, what's he getting at?
I did.
Go check it out.
But, and don't just look at the title to give away the lead.
(15:45):
I'm really trying to paint a picture for the history and development of the thing here.
It's, it's, if AI has taken all that we have, what do we have, but the ability to tellgood stories.
Think about it.
But in World War I, they had designed this levered release.
And then, 1918, the war found itself to be over.
(16:08):
Planes were coming home, still outfitted with this pole lever bomb release mechanism.
But soon these planes would be employed to deal with an altogether different problem.
Bugs.
Up until the 90s, when farmers got bugs in their cornfield, they had to spread thedebugger by hand.
(16:32):
That's what she said.
You'd hate to have to debug your cornfield and things not go the way you want on it.
Like, yeah, if you're going to debug your cornfield, you should probably do it by hand.
That's fair.
That's fair, but it took time.
And in many contexts, this is still how they do it today.
(16:52):
Like in many cases and in many instances, if you want to debug your cornfield, you got todo it by hand.
But as the face of agriculture shifted, there began to be large fields of crop, amberwaves of grain, if you will.
And spreading this debugger via a hand sprayer, or even one attached to an earth vehicle,
(17:17):
It's going to take too long.
takes a considerable amount of time to debug large acreages of field by hand or by truck.
If only there was a way to squash my bugs from the sky by flying over it in some type ofmachine.
And then when I want pulling a lever to release the bombs, mean, bug squatching juice downbelow, you can see where we're going.
(17:44):
It turns out after world war one.
There were plenty of these machines lying around.
The first use of an airplane to spread material on crop from above was 1921, when theyrepurposed a Curtis JN-4 geniplane to spread lead arsenate to kill caterpillars on orchard
(18:05):
trees in Ohio.
That sounds like the beginning of a difficult SAT reading comprehension question.
But it turns out this bug killer
killed the caterpillars.
It was effective.
And things took off from there.
We saw a spike in this use of aerial debugging mechanisms and technology spike again afterWorld War II, where there were even better planes and even improved technologies for
(18:36):
dropping stuff on other stuff.
The idea stemmed from Charles Nellie, who worked for Ohio's Department of Agriculture atthe time.
After World War II, it was found that these planes could cover or dust, if you will, 60 to70 acres of crop in an hour.
(18:58):
Compared to the hundred acres a day that was accomplished via earth vehicles before it,it's a no-brainer.
But most of these planes that were dropping these debugger bombs in this case, it's not,it's aerosols.
were retrofitted jobs.
They weren't the safest with farmers taking on the role of airplane mechanic to fit theseold and decommissioned World War I and World War II jets with their spray aerosol dropping
(19:32):
technology.
This was the case until the Civil Aeronautics Administration commissioned Texas A &M todesign an ag-specific plane for dusting crops.
With 50 grand in hand, they set out to work to make it a reality.
As a result, they produced the AG-1.
(19:55):
It was the first of its kind.
There have been any, many other AG specific aircraft since then either, but they all doone thing.
Spray or dust, 28 % of America's crop.
every year.
(20:15):
This process of dropping a debugging or pesticide from the air for it to dust the cropsbelow is colloquially known as crop dusting.
(20:41):
If you think for a minute that I took us down all that discussion about the invention ofplanes and the aftermath of World War I and II and the creation and development of
agriculture aircraft, just to mention and speak on the idea of crop dusting, you'd beexactly right.
(21:04):
Because while on one context,
Crop dusting refers to the act of dropping dust or dusting crops with insecticides andpesticides for a better crop.
It is also the term used lovingly for a drive-by fart, usually with the purpose of lettingyour fart stink linger on the person you quote unquote dusted.
(21:32):
Now, where did this come from?
Really kind of a chicken in the egg or a turd in the stink situation, if you will.
Undoubtedly, people were farting ages before we dusted crops with planes overhead.
Like, there's no doubt.
As long as people have been snoshing anything, they've been farting.
(21:54):
They've been blowing air.
People been farting for as long as people been people.
That's facts.
But like
Where did we get the idea of calling the act where you walk by somebody, rip a fat beaver,and leave the scene before they know it's you and they have to sit in your stink?
Like, where did we get the idea to call that what we call it?
The term, obviously, didn't exist until these crops and agriculture aircraft were beingused and employed in this way.
(22:22):
Two questions arise and exist then.
Did the way we fart impact?
the way we dust crops and when was the farting act first referred to as crop dusting?
I want to tackle the first concern and in short, it's hard to tell.
(22:43):
It's hard to tell whether our bodies and our ability to produce a terrible stank thatmight feel like it would eradicate bugs from an area was motivation and behind the idea to
drop
bad, stinky bug killer from the sky.
It's very unlikely that they chose to begin dusting crops because of what our butts do.
(23:07):
But that said, again, the natural way of things is often the one which makes the mostsense.
so spreading that stank is obviously best on the move.
You don't want to sit in the stank that you spread.
That's just facts.
Everybody who's ever farted knows that that's real.
This.
(23:27):
Then raises the second question.
When was the first, the term first used to refer to a fart?
When you search the term crop dusting on urban dictionary, which is where all goodinternet learning happens.
The first entry is from August, 2003 by a one user named Charlie.
(23:51):
Thanks Charles.
2003 in case you didn't want to do math today, I'll help you out with it is about
80 years after they started to crop them big killers from the sky.
The term was probably used before then, but as far as I can tell, this is when it firstlanded on the internet.
(24:13):
It kind of entered the general vernacular from there.
It became a thing, if you will.
People noticed the look.
of the dust coming out of the back of the plane as it moves across the sky, dropping itspesticides and insecticides, insecticides, what did he say?
(24:33):
On the crops below.
And they said, man, I bet that's a lot like what it looks like when I fart when I'mwalking in front of my friend and then he has to sit in the stink as I move on.
Crop dusting is more known, I would say today, if you said, I'm going to go do some cropdusting.
I think it's more known for that process of passing a fart as you pass by a group ofpeople.
(24:58):
They're the bug, you're the plane, and you dust them with stank.
Do we take that long journey to talk about the etymology and concept of trap dusting?
Yes, of course.
But now you know, next time you blow a fart on the move, past somebody, remember thehistory that went into that fart.
(25:21):
There's a lot going on there.
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Privy.
We appreciate you being here.
Thank you for listening.
We could not do this show without you.
That said, if you would leave the show a rating or review, the five star options arepreferred and it helps folks find the show.
And when you do, we'll be donating a dollar to Wounded Warriors and Living WaterInternational as a reminder to keep pooping in the free world.
(25:47):
That free world was not always free.
and in pursuit of cleaner water for all.
Not everybody has it, but everybody should.
We'd also invite you to follow us on social media at privycast.
You can follow me.
I'm at al at seven.
Go check out the privy's Facebook page.
There's plenty of bathroom related memes, goofs and gags, as well as maybe prompts andthings that I need help from you for the show.
(26:11):
Facebook and search the privy's will get you added in there.
You can email the show.
privycast at gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Episode ideas, suggestions, feedback, concerns, if you want to come on the show and tell astory and we'll interview you and ask you our privy related questions, privycast at
(26:32):
gmail.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
Go check out the website privy-cast.
You can find links to all the things that I've just told you on the websiteprivy-cast.com.
This brings us to the end of another episode of privy.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks to Kevin and Pottington for the use of their music.
Links down below.
(26:52):
As a reminder, keep pooping in the free world.
Own your stank, crop dust your buddy, and now, as always, don't forget to flush.
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