Oswaldo Guerra, our co-founder and CTO, wrote the first version of Farms for his own work as an agricultural pilot in Alegrete, Brazil. The night before a spraying job, he would study the field map to decide which way to fly the first pass. In this Portuguese-language interview with Comando Travicar, he explains how the wind, the obstacles ahead and the load he would be carrying shaped that choice.
Oswaldo gives the example of a stand of tall eucalyptus. The heading suggested by the GPS can point the aircraft straight at the trees on the first passes, while it is still heavy. Take a different heading to clear the trees and the wind meets the aircraft at a different angle.
Avoiding an extra turn with a loaded aircraft was one reason Oswaldo started writing Farms. He wanted to reach the field already knowing how he would enter it. “I started developing it for myself, and then naturally I started developing it for others,” he recalls.
When Oswaldo began coordinating the crew, the same map took on another purpose. A grower could mark the field to be treated and send the outline back. Oswaldo would pass the map on to the pilots, sometimes as a simple screenshot. After the job, the grower could see which way the aircraft had flown and where the pilot had finished the edges.
We carried that way of working into Farms V5. Today, the grower, service provider and pilot can prepare a job around the same field. Before takeoff, the pilot can use Atlas to compare simulated routes and their estimated times. After landing, the recorded flight path can go into the report the grower receives.
Three moments from the interview
- 46:18 · Choosing a heading — How trees and wind change the plan.
- 1:05:09 · Getting the map to the pilots — How the grower’s field boundary reaches the crew.
- 1:06:22 · The origins of Farms — Why Oswaldo started writing the app while he was still flying.