Mosquito Research and Control Unit’s fogging trucks are flying all over the place to make up for their planes being grounded.
‘They have been doing a lot of extra work,’ said MRCU director Bill Petrie.
‘They have been going out more frequently and covering more areas than usual, and going out for longer runs too,’ he added.
Normally, explained Dr. Petrie, the trucks would be used as a back-up to the aircraft or for specific locations.
But with one of their planes destroyed by Hurricane Ivan and the other out of action after being damaged in August, the fogging units have been taking the strain and had ‘pulled out all the stops,’ said Dr. Petrie.
At the time of losing the second plane MRCU had already completed about 80 per cent of its planned application of larvicide pellets, he said.
And if they had not managed to get that work done, Cayman could have been facing a potentially serious problem by now, he added.
With the ground equipment now in full use they were able to cope with the situation but were looking forward to the imminent arrival of new aircraft.
Dr. Petrie said on Friday they had been informed by the aircraft manufacturers in the USA that the FAA certification and approval had finally come through.
MRCU is now expecting the remaining red tape to be dealt with quite quickly and for the first of the two new planes to be here within the next few weeks.
Dr. Petrie explained that the approval process had been lengthened partly because the custom built, state of the art aircraft were being fitted with sophisticated avionics to Cayman’s own specifications.
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