Can crop dusters be used to disperse biological warfare agents?
The sprayers of crop dusters are geared to spread their materials over fields in an efficient manner, laying down fertilizer, for example, so that it settles on the crop. The key to effective biological weapons agent dispersal is exactly the opposite, to achieve a superfine aerosol spray that lingers in the air instead of settling on the ground. To infect the human lung, the required particle size of a biological warfare agent is 1 to 10 ten microns, ideally to 1 to 5. Yet, the sprayers on the average crop dusters aim to disperse in 100 micron particle sizes or greater, a heavier weight that improves the chances of the materials settling on the target area. These sprayers cannot be “dialed down,” so to speak, to consistently disperse the payload in the necessary micron size. Anyone hijacking a crop duster with the intent of spreading biowarfare agents would have to reconfigure the spraying apparatus to achieve the smaller particle size. Put another way, the nozzles would have to be cha
