WILLOW ISLAND, Neb.—Larry Fiese enters “W.I.I.” in the flight log each time he lifts off from the grassy airstrip just north of his home on County Road 415, not far from where the road intersects with state U.S. 30.
Aligned parallel to the county road, Fiese uses the same runway his father created in 1968. It was dubbed “Willow Island International” in the caption of a June 12, 1969, photograph published in the North Platte Telegraph and Fiese uses that designation today.
Fiese’s father, C.H. “Kak” Fiese established the airport when he decided to move his crop dusting business, Gothenburg Flying Service, which he started in 1946.
Kak Fiese had operated out of the Gothenburg Airport, also created in 1946.
Flying a 1986 Piper Pawnee with spray booms built to his specifications, Fiese applies the chemicals a farmer orders.
He averages 105 miles per hour when flying through fields with the plane’s wheels only 18 inches above the crop. “Dad was very adamant you get on the deck to do the job,” he said.
He won’t cover as many acres in the same time as other pilots, but what he does fly over will be well-treated without waste.
Pattern analysis, which he has used since 1982, lets him judge how well he reaches the mark and challenges him to improve equipment for greater accuracy.
Fiese grew up with aerial applications. By age 13, he was running the load-out ramp for the five airplanes flying out of the airport.
Fiese’s first memory of flying was when he about 8 years old. The family flew to his grandmother’s house in West Point and landed in a nearby field. “We’d buzz Grandma’s house, and she’d come out and pick us up. We’d spend a day and come home,” he said.
Fiese was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967 and worked as a sheet metal mechanic on helicopters in Savannah, Ga. He also was stationed at Fort Sill, Okla., and in what was South Vietnam.
When his military career ended, Fiese started working alongside his dad and never left, he said.
Kak Fiese flew nearly 46 years. He last flew in 1990, the year before he died.
“(Dad) said he enjoyed the flying more when he didn’t have to put up with the hassles of the office. He’s probably the most fantastic pilot I’ve ever seen,” Fiese said.
Fiese said he can’t outfly his dad, but he has tried to improve on other things Kak Fiese did.
Kak Fiese used a split boom, where each spray boom operates independently, in 1956. “Dad was quite an innovator, and he did some cutting-edge things with aviation,” Fiese said. In 1992, Fiese designed a change to the boom for greater accuracy. He oversaw the manufacture of a new set of pneumatic spray booms with nozzle outlets spaced closer together. Fiese said they worked better and led to the most accurate spray pattern achieved worldwide.
Today, there are half as many pilots in the business as there were 20 years ago. Technology accounts for part of the decrease. Use of global positioning service beginning in 1995 increased productivity more than 50 percent, said Fiese. There also isn’t as much demand because of genetically modified crops. “That did away with a lot of our insect work,” he said.
He sprayed his first field in 1976 at age 29. A typical season starts as early as April, peaks in July and August when the corn is at the adult stage, and tapers off through October or November.
This winter’s work also will include rebuilding the 1966 Piper Super Cub previously owned by his father. For the first time in its life, it won’t be a spray plane, he said.
