The Air Attack plane is the battalion of the air. They will orbit high in the air above the tanker and helicopter orbits. The Air Attack orbit is opposite the oribit of the tankers and copters. They way they can have more visual contact with other air units below. From there they can see and hear everything, monitoring the fire, tanker drops and helicopter locations. Over the radio, the air attack will be directing where the tankers drop and where the helicopters fly. On a CDF fire you will usually hear about 4 tankers and 1 or 2 helicopters along with the air attack. That is a pretty easy show to run; usually keeping the tankers in orbit out of the way until the air attack finds a good spot to drop the mud (retardant). Once they find flames or another strategic drop spot, they will radio the helicopters to back away for a second fopr safety reasons and then direct a tanker in to do the drop. Once the tanker drops its load it will return to the base to reload and possibly return ("load and return"or "load and stay")

The Lead Plane is a small cessna or other related size. It is almost a jack of all trades and can perform air attack operations, fire spotting, and the primary purpose, leading tankers and smokejumpers to their drop zone. Over the radio they can be heard both on the tanker operations and the helicopter operations if needbe. Their designator is "Lead ##." It is a federal program and can only be found on air attack bases that have federal planes on them. (federal = USFS). The Forest Service is thinking about taking this program away and only having an airattack plane in the air. This has caused controversy among the pilots and federal workers of the aerial firefighting force concerned for safety.

Smoke Jumper planes can range from anything with an open door in the side ;) The carry a full contingent of smoke jumpers as well as cargo and supplies for them. Their callsigns are "Jumper ##" and can be found on a number of USFS air fire freqs and Forest Nets.

Helicopters