lead planes working with tankers

I wrote the other day about Conair (from Canada) leasing five tankers and a "bird dog" plane, a 690 Turbo Air Commander to Victoria, Australia for their summer season. What is a bird dog plane? A bird dog plane in Canada is similar to a lead plane in the U.S. One of the functions of a bird dog or lead plane is to sniff out the route that the tankers will take to drop retardant on a fire. Simply, the lead or bird dog plane leads the tanker to the site of the retardant drop.

Previously I have written about a couple of fires that Larry Kraus's T-62 worked, with pictures that show T-62 working with a lead plane. In this article, Larry explains how he works with an Air Supervision Module, function as both a lead plane and air attack. Another series of photos showing T-62 working with a lead plane with commentary from Larry may be found here.

I hope, but may not be able, to write a little more about lead planes in a few weeks, but for now I found three two videos that I am embedding here, they are all short, showing footage of a bird dog or lead plane working with a tanker. You know what they say, one picture is worth one thousand words. These videos show lead planes in the United States working with tankers. In both videos you will first see the lead plane followed by the tanker.

edited on November 10, 2017 to delete unavailable video


Direct link to video


Direct link to video