Officials Say Mission Of The Aircraft Not Clear

Six years ago, Hillsboro County, Florida, which includes much of the Tampa area, bought a Beech King Air for about $700,000 primarily as a mosquito sprayer. What they didn't appear to know at the time was that a spray system for the aircraft didn't exist.

Which, due to a couple of years of multiple hurricanes and other public works priorities, they didn't find out until they'd owned the plane for two years.

So, according to the Tampa Tribune, they contracted Embry-Riddle University in Daytona to design one. Meanwhile, the plane was being flown mainly just to keep the pilots current, racking up expenses along the way. While county officials say the aircraft was also supposed to be used for passenger transportation, the paper found that, according to county records, it has been used in that capacity just five times in six years.

The FAA finally certified the ERAU-designed King Air spray system in October, and Carlos Fernandes, director of the county's Mosquito and Aquatic Weed Control, says it will be worth the wait. "This is a way to protect the county's investment," Fernandes said. "When the county wants to sell it, all we have to do is extract the spray system and it's like another airplane." But one of the county's mosquito control pilots said he'd lined up two other aircraft back in 2003, which the then-director of mosquito control, Joel Jacobson, nixed. "He wanted one he could use to haul passengers as well as spray, and they've been six years without an airplane to spray with," said pilot Dennis Boone.

The spray system designed specifically for the King Air cost about $370,000. The county says they can re-coup that cost through more efficient spraying. They also have proprietary ownership of the spray system. So should you need to convert a King Air to a sprayer, they have the technology. But you'd have to pay.

FMI: www.hillsboroughcounty.org/publicworks/transmaintenance/mosquitocontrol