It is interesting to see the film and the creative license the took in making it. My mom is the secretary for the crop dusting service owned by "papa Quaid"...not his real name and has been for many, many years....including when this really happened. I also know the pilot in the Steve Stutz.
In real life the crop dusting service is not at a little shed at an airport but at their own airstrip with many buildings. The broken down old biplane is also not true. They have used new round motors but at the time also used single wind turbine power thrush and their own design of biplane turbine power aircraft.
The flaggers in the pictures are also a bit of a stretch. In the real world the had a flagger at each end of the field it a huge flag on a long pole....many years ago they did away with the flaggers and use GPS. They crops they dusted in the film are also not around here in large numbers. Corn is not grown in Yuba City nor is summer wheat...Winter wheat, rice and tree crops such as walnuts, peaches, prunes and almonds are.
Also the area is portrayed as a cowboy type of town....this is also not the case. While it is farm country the town of Yuba City itself has about 60,000 people in it. The town of marysville which is over the bridge from Yuba City has about 35,000 to 40,000 residents.
Despite the "Hollywood touches" the film does portray an accurate depiction of the events that happened. I think the film would have been better without the Hollywood touches but that is a personal opinion. One thing they got very right was that anyone who has lived in Yuba City hates the fact they moved back to the area after leaving it!
