If you look into the distance toward the skies in westernOklahoma during the agricultural growing season, you might catch a glimpse of a bright yellow-and-blue plane skimming along the horizon then quickly jumping back into the air for a quick turn that is reminiscent of an aerial acrobatics team in order to line up and once again descend, floating gently near the ground.
A glimpse of an agricultural aerial applicator at work flying across the sky as they apply crop protection products to fields and pastures can make even grown adults excitedly peer through their vehicle’s windshield with childlike wonder.
For Major County Farm Bureau member Matthew Regier, that is just another day in the office – or rather, the cockpit.
Matthew is a pilot and theFairview branch manager forCentral Custom Ag Aviation, a company with several locations inOklahoma and Texas that provides timely application of products that help ensure crops and grasslands are protected and productive.
A second-generation spray pilot himself, Matthew works from theFairview airport from where he and a team of fellow pilots load, take off and return. While Matthew’s plane may be based in Fairview, on any given day he might be flying low over fields anywhere across the region, includingMajor, Garfield, Blaine, Alfalfa, Woods and Woodward counties.
Matthew is somewhat of anagricultural Superman: flying quicklythrough the skies of westernOklahoma, swooping down to come tothe aid of farmers and ranchersduring critical times in the growingseason to help defeat their crop- andpasture-threatening foes.
In the late summer and early fall of2025, Matthew was busy saving the day from the threat of army worms, which hit fields in full force after a rainy summer. With the pests able to decimate fields of soybeans, alfalfa and more, the ability for Matthew to act as an armyworm-eradicating quick-strike force helped save the hard work and money agricultural producers around the region had invested in their crops. Armyworms are not the only threat to crops and grasslands that Matthew helps control from the air. From controlling brush in pastures and grasslands, which use up water that beneficial grasses need, to keeping fungal diseases in wheat and rye at bay to controlling common weeds in crops and pastures to treating grasshopper and other insect infestations, Matthew’s careful, timely applications of crop protection products help ensure farmers and ranchers are able to produce food products for Oklahomans.
“We understand farmers’ and ranchers’ role in agriculture, and we are a tool in their toolbox to fix issues and fix problems,” Matthew said. “We both need each other to succeed. I feel like we’re part of the food chain and that we help feed the American people. We’re not the ones delivering the crop to the elevator, but we’re the ones protecting it, helping producers get to that point
Matthew’s love for airplanes and aviation started at a young age as he and his two brothers grew up around the Fairview airport where their dad, Junior, based his ag spraying business, and his mom, Theresa, helped run the operation.
“My dad just loved airplanes,” Matthew said. “When he got out of high school he started working for somebody who ran a mechanic’s shop working on airplanes. Then he got his pilot’s licenses and wanted to fly, and so he started the business.”
Matthew’s dad started Regier Flying Service in Fairview in 1982. Matthew’s uncle later joined the business as a pilot and eventually retired in 2007.
Matthew said his dad hired various pilots throughout the years to help with the spraying, but it was not long before Matthew and his brothers set their eyes toward the skies.
“My brothers and I grew up here at the airport,” Matthew said. “I always joke with people that I spent more time at the airport than I did at my house when I was growing up. The school bus even dropped us off here after school.”
Junior earned a reputation for quality work, and even earned a place in Oklahoma film history by appearing in a scene in the 1996 movie “Twister” where he flew a spray plane for the film as the movie’s iconic, red Dodge pickup drove along a wheat field.
With a love for airplanes and a passion for aviation developed throughout their childhood, all three of the Regier brothers earned their pilot’s licenses in their teens. Matthew said that in their family there was less stigma about the boys flying places than some families might have about their teenagers driving. He even recalled a time when his oldest brother flew the three of them to Blackwell and back to watch a high school basketball game.Today, all three Regier brothers are pilots themselves, and each has a career in aviation.
“Flying is just something we do,” Matthew said. “My older brother flies – he sprays, and his company also does aerial fire fighting in northeast Colorado. I do the ag flying and run the place here. My little brother flies jets for a big corporate leasing company. So my older brother and I fly low and fast, and he flies really high and really fast.”
Matthew started his own agricultural aviation career in his hometown of Fairview in 2015 working alongside his dad and older brother. When Matthew’s older brother moved to Colorado to work for an aerial spraying and fire fighting company in 2017, Matthew and his dad continued to operate Regier Flying Service out of the Fairview airport.
Everything changed for the family in 2021 when Junior’s spray plane fatally crashed in a field near Seiling. After Junior’s death, the family decided to sell the business in 2022, and Matthew became the branch manager for the Fairview location of Central Custom Ag.
Today, Matthew is in his tenth year of his ag spray pilot career, and he oversees the day-to-day operations required to ensure product is available to spray, fuel is ready to pump and planes are ready to fly. Before an airplane propeller ever turns, every spray job begins with relationships and research.
“We ask the farmer and grower a lot of questions about what’s around what we’re spraying when we’re doing herbicide work,” Matthew said. “We ask if there are people with gardens or other crops that are in the area so we can make plans according to what we’re spraying. We want to know what’s going to be around us before we get out there so we don’t have to turn around or run the risk of hurting somebody else’s crop or garden.”
Matthew said oftentimes his crew is working spray jobs for long-time customers: farmers or ranchers who are also friends and neighbors, whose fields and pastures the Regier family has sprayed for decades. Other times, the spray planes are called in by new or infrequent customers as a back-up in wet years or when weed or pest Situations are critical.
A custom map is made for each spray job detailing the location of the field and any obstacles a pilot needs to be aware of. Matthew said he gets up early to make sure maps are made, which requires time spent looking at satellite views of fields and other reference materials to list potential aerial obstacles.
“We do as much research on where we are going to be applying before we get there just so there are as few surprises as possible,” Matthew said. “That includes asking growers what’s around, whether it’s a wind turbine or a power line.”
Weather is also a key consideration. Matthew said he is constantly checking his phone for weather conditions including wind speed and direction, any approaching storms, dew points and any possible temperature inversions. Each chemical label includes wind restrictions specific to that product, and the pilots make sure they are within those limits.
Of course, every chemical Matthew and his team apply has a governmentregulated label, which details allowed uses and any considerations that need to be taken into account when preparing or applying it.
Matthew said not only do the pilots study labels and make sure they are judiciously applying products, but they also communicate with their customers to make sure agricultural producers understand important post application instructions such as intervals between application and harvest to keep agricultural products safe for consumers.
“Knowing what’s on the label and doing it correctly is a big part of what we do,” Matthew said.
Add to that the day-to-day tasks of equipment maintenance, ordering and maintaining a stock of spray products depending on the season and needs, making sure enough airplane fuel is on-hand at any given time and even washing windshields, and Matthew has plenty of chores to keep him busy on the ground.
Once the engine starts and the propeller spins on Matthew’s Air Tractor 502XP and the plane – clad in the classic, yellow crop duster livery – taxis for takeoff, it is time for the part of aerial spraying that brings awe and wonder to anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Matthew and his fellow pilots hard at work. Traveling from field to field at speeds up to 167 miles per hour, Matthew applies crop protection products at speeds of 145-155 miles per hour, helping agricultural producers beat the clock against pests and weeds.
Matthew said that while he can apply products to a flat, easy-to-access quarter-section of 160 acres in about 25 minutes once he arrives at the field, what makes the spray plane so helpful to farmers and ranchers is its ability to spray places where ground sprayers, or “ground rigs” as he calls them, cannot trek.
“The big thing on our range and pasture spraying is that most of it is native grass and native country with rolling hills, canyons, trees and all sorts of obstacles,” Matthew said. “It’s ground that can hardly be traversed with a side-by side or four-wheeler. So there’s no other opportunity out there for spraying that pasture other than with an airplane because it’s not traversable with a ground rig.”
Even when the terrain is not challenging, Matthew said some producers prefer to use an aerial applicator to avoid spray-rig tracks in a field or, in the case of 2025, the ground is too wet for a sprayer to drive across a field or pasture.
Sometimes it is just easier to spray by plane due to the quick out-and-back time interval between fill-ups of product and fuel. Matthew said he and his fellow pilots can easily cover far flung fields that would require hours of driving for a ground-based sprayer.
“The big advantage for us is that we can cover so many miles so quickly,” Matthew said of traversing the countryside by air. “We’re more time efficient in the pace we can get across the acres.”
Matthew’s 2022 model-year Air Tractor 502XP can carry up to 500 gallons of product per load, and each pass applies a 70-foot-wide swath of product. 70 feet at 150 miles per hour makes quick work of tough spray jobs.
Matthew said that during the spray season, the two or three pilots operating out of the Fairview airport average between 70 and 80 flights per month. An average spray job lasts approximately 1.5 hours from takeoff to landing. During a full spray season, a single pilot can log around 350 hours of air time, according to Matthew. With the planes flying low to ensure the spray efficiently reaches the crop,
Matthew and his fellow pilots aim to apply products approximately seven to 10 feet above the top of the crop. The low flight height during application combined with nearby hazards means safety is a primary consideration for every job.
“It’s just about trying to do the best job and not getting too close to things,” Matthew said. “No little corner is worth not coming home for or tearing up a piece of equipment or having an accident. And there are some jobs we just say, ‘no’ to because there are too many obstacles and it could be too dangerous of a job. Or we might tell a farmer, ‘There’s going to be an area over here in this corner that we’re not going to be able to get.’”
Safety efforts include sending planes flying at the same time to jobs that are located in opposite directions from each other to ensure pilots are not operating in the same air space.Matthew said he also attends industry conferences to brush up on safety practices and protocols.
“Last year in Ft. Worth I sat in a full-day meeting just learning about power lines and how they’re marked, how their insulators look when a wire is pulled a certain direction, how the guy-wires would look on a certain power line when it turns a certain angle,” Matthew said. “Just so that from the air we can visibly see – and comprehend what we’re seeing – to know where the dangers are so we can avoid them.”
Matthew said that farmers and ranchers have always been understanding, and the pilots use both their flying skills and air drafts to ensure even, proper coverage, even though sometimes finishing a job means not reaching every last part of a field due to safety considerations.
“Honestly, ever since my dad passed away from doing this job, I have probably left more corners off than I did before or not have gotten half a pass closer because there’s no reason to,” Matthew said.
Being part of the agricultural community is a generations-long tradition for the Regier family. From past and present generations of Matthew’s family being involved in farming and ranching in Oklahoma to the 43-year family tradition of helping farmers protect their crops and pastures in the pilot’s seat, Matthew is proud to be part of agriculture as he provides a critically important service to friends, neighbors and customers.
“This is what I know, and it’s what I’m good at,” Matthew said. “It’s very fulfilling for me to go out and spray a field and do it well and enjoy doing it and want to do it again the next day. It’s a dangerous-enough job that if I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t love doing it, I’d do something else.”
From the thrill of flying to the satisfaction of helping customers, Matthew said he enjoys being part of the agriculture community.
“There’s some families of people that we’ve been working for going on 40-some years,” Matthew said. “We’ve sprayed for two to three generations and have been over those farms many times for them. And that’s a testament to the type of work that my dad did for his career and that I try to continue on. We love those repeat customers – we work with them, they work with us, and it’s a relationship that’s been going on for a long time now.”
Matthew’s passion for agricultural aviation has led him to serve fellow agricultural pilots through his involvement with the National Agricultural Aviation Association. He currently serves as the NAAA committee chair, and he is also the current president of the Oklahoma Agricultural Aviation Association.
Whether it is from the air in the pilot’s seat, on the ground working with customers or in a board room helping lead his industry, Matthew said he looks at his career in agricultural aviation as a way to serve and help the farmers and ranchers who put food on tables as they partner together to care for the land and natural resources.
“We work with farmers and ranchers in the food chain where we’re at,” Matthew said. “We’re trying to help them solve issues – that’s what we do – we are a problem fixer. If a farmer has weeds in his pasture, we go out and spray it. If they’re being overrun with insects and it needs to be sprayed quickly, we go out and we eradicate the bugs. If there’s rust moving into the wheat or the corn, we go put a fungicide on.
“We’re a tool in the toolbox of things they can do and use on the farm. We do our best to provide them with great service and do the best job possible.
“I love being able to help people. I love being able to help farmers and take care of issues for them and be able to do it well.”
