N8550L

N8550L is a Piper PA-25 Pawnee, a single-engine piston aircraft operated by HIGH DESERT SOARING CLUBINC. SkyMeter has tracked 426 flights totalling 143 hours of airtime via ADS-B. The most frequent segment is KBDN to KBDN. Service window in our records spans 449 days. Of those flights, 10 (2.3%) carry at least one detected incident: a go-around, unstable approach, stall warning, or runway excursion. The Piper PA-25 Pawnee has a 36 ft wingspan, a maximum takeoff weight of 2,900 lb.

About the Piper PA-25 Pawnee

The Piper PA-25 Pawnee is a purpose-built agricultural aircraft that became the workhorse of American crop dusting from its introduction in 1959. Designed from the outset for low-altitude aerial application rather than adapted from a trainer or utility design, the Pawnee featured a steel-tube fuselage optimized for chemical hopper placement, a high-mounted cockpit for excellent forward visibility during spray runs, and strong landing gear to handle rough farm strips. Piper produced the type in several engine variants from 150 to 260 horsepower through 1982, with the PA-25-235 and PA-25-260 models becoming the most numerous.

The Pawnee's low-wing configuration and docile handling made it forgiving for the demanding work of repeated low passes over fields, and its simple construction kept maintenance costs manageable for small operators. While largely supplanted by turbine-powered ag aircraft like the Air Tractor series in commercial operations, hundreds of Pawnees remain active in the United States and abroad, valued for their reliability and low acquisition cost. The type's rugged design has proven so enduring that many airframes from the 1960s and 1970s continue flying daily during spray season.

SkyMeter has tracked flights across airframes and operators, with the largest observed operator.