SWFL.io - Local NewsBrinkley Hill
•8/13/2026
LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)—Flying low over Florida's coastline while fighting mosquitoes is all in a day's work for the pilots at Lee County Mosquito Control.
Mike Vigus, chief pilot at Lee County Mosquito Control, sat down to talk about what it takes to do the job and how the aerial program works.
Vigus said his path to the cockpit started young, working as a helicopter mechanic in the Army at 19 before eventually earning his wings as a civilian pilot.
"I started off as a helicopter mechanic in the Army when I was 19 and got to fly the helicopters quite a bit and decided I wanted to be a pilot," Vigus said.
From there, he flew skydivers and then moved into agricultural flying, which eventually led him to mosquito control.
The job is not your average pilot gig. Vigus said mosquito control pilots fly extremely low, make hundreds of turns a day and need at least 1,000 flight hours just to be considered for the role. The FAA requires 250 hours of flying for a pilot to be hires in a commercial role.
"It takes a high degree of concentration for hours because you're looking at the light bar, which is giving you course guidance and then you're making hundreds of turns a day," Vigus said.
On top of flying skills, pilots also need a public health license that covers chemical safety, how pesticides work on pests and the math behind aerial spraying, including how to avoid drifting chemicals toward people.
"That's our whole goal," Vigus said of avoiding spraying people. He added that if hikers are spotted in a spray area, pilots shut the system off immediately.
Vigus offered a tip for anyone spending time outdoors in Lee County: "If you're out there hiking, wear colorful clothes, please."
The pesticide spray coming out of the plane is so fine, it's similar to what comes out of a can of bug spray.
Vigus said pilots have to be focused, watching for birds, trees and other objects in their way while staying in a designated spot to spray and watching for people on the ground.
The district's biologists do extensive research to figure out what areas need to be sprayed, and they carefully calculate and calibrate the planes to make sure they're only spraying at or below regulations.
Lee County's aerial program is significantly larger than others Vigus has worked with. He said his previous post in Jacksonville ran six aircraft with just three pilots, while Lee County now operates around 12 aircraft with six pilots, though that number may drop to about 10 within the next year or two as older planes are replaced.
The team is regularly monitored by the FAA, which visits anywhere from every six to eight months.
"Our safety record kind of speaks for itself," said Vigus. "The last accident they had in mosquito control didn't happen while spraying. It was actually a landing accident that happened, and I wanna say that's close to 30 years ago."
During mosquito season, the week typically starts on Monday with inspectors, whom Vigus calls aerial inspectors, flying out to check their assigned areas of the county for mosquito breeding. Treatments usually begin on Tuesday if breeding is confirmed.
Vigus said the aerial program reaches areas that trucks and boats simply cannot.
"Lehigh's a good example of where the trucks are very, very efficient because it's a grid. Cape Coral's kind of the same," said Vigus. "Buckingham and North Fort Myers are some of the other areas, Pine Island, where the trucks, they just can't cover the area as well as we can with an airplane.”
Vigus said the ariel division is a critical part of the county's overall mosquito control effort.
"If we didn't have the aviation asset, we wouldn't have the near effectiveness of what we have now," Vigus said.
After nearly 30 years in the field, Vigus said the flying itself is still the best part of the job, especially when routes take him over Lee County's coastline.
"When you're out over the islands in the summer, it's so beautiful out there, sometimes I think, 'I really get paid to do this?'" Vigus said.