The Aerial War Against Eastern Region Forest Insects, 1921–86

Abstract

On the afternoon of 3 August 1921, Lieutenant John A. Macready lifted his "Jenny" off the runway at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio, and began an experiment unprecedented in aviation history. From Macready's flying machine-a Curtiss IN-6 (Hisso-jenny) biplane field engineer M. Dormoy dusted a grove of fortyeight hundred catalpas near Troy, Ohio, with arsenate of lead in a successful test to suppress the larvae of the nightflying catalpa sphinx,' This experiment was the world's first use of aircraft against forest insects.? It was not until nearly a quarter of a century later that pesticides applied by aircraft were used to suppress insects