At the beginning of "Planes", the main character performs what job?

At the beginning of “Planes,” the main character, Dusty Crophopper, works as a crop-dusting agricultural aircraft.

Dusty lives in Propwash Junction and spends his working days spraying crops over farmland. Crop dusting—also called aerial application—involves using an aircraft to distribute pesticides, fertilizer, or other agricultural treatments across fields. The job explains Dusty’s low-flying skill and familiarity with farm country, even though he dreams of competing in air races.

The film’s central conflict comes from the gap between Dusty’s ordinary job and his ambition to become a racer. He is not designed as a high-performance racing plane, and he is also afraid of heights, which is an amusing contradiction for an aircraft. With help from Skipper, a former naval aviator, Dusty trains for the Wings Around the Globe race.

A common mix-up is calling Dusty a pilot or a fighter plane. He is an anthropomorphic crop duster, modeled in part on real agricultural aircraft such as the Air Tractor 400 series. The 2013 DisneyToon Studios film later inspired the sequel “Planes: Fire & Rescue.”