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The objective of any aerial pesticide application is to achieve a biological objective while minimizing costs and environmental and social impacts. A requirement for achieving this objective is to spread the material at a preset rate and at an acceptable uniformity, whilst minimizing the total aircraft travel distance and operation time (which equates to cost). The aircraft calibration procedure is an important step in developing operational parameters to meet these criteria. Many factors influence variability of pesticide deposition during a calibration procedure. However, the calibration process is actually designed to minimize much of this variation. Therefore, pesticide deposit variation during an operation is likely to be significantly higher than expected from the calibration process. The consequence of variable deposition is overdosing and underdosing. Underdosing is a particular concern for a pest eradication operation where survivors could re-establish the population. A new modelling approach proposed for aircraft calibration more accurately quantifies the level of deposit variability likely to result from different operational specifications. This new analysis allows evaluation of the effect of different application factors on deposit variation.