FIRE PLANES Drop Planner
Line up a water pass that kills the cell threatening the town.
Scooping fills the tank. This planner spends it. FIRE PLANES rewards dumps that stop fire on houses and people, not dumps that look good on a ridge. Use this page as a pre-pass checklist. Pair it with How to Scoop Water and Protect Towns.
Maps are generated every round, so there is no saved GPS. The planner is a method.
Before you hold Space
- Tank full. Climbing with half a tank is how you paint a stripe that does not kill the cell.
- Target chosen. House cluster > fire head walking into town > everything else.
- Exit chosen. After the dump you should be pointed at a lake, not at a hill.
- Altitude. High enough that a miss is a go-around. Superlex’s session is the cautionary tale: low and inverted is a wreck. Controls.
- Finger plan. Hold Space for a continuous curtain. Do not tap.
The pass
- Slightly nose-down so the water column hits the ground instead of drifting behind you.
- Roll only enough to follow the street or the fire head. A 90-degree knife-edge dump is a missed town.
- Release Space when the tank is empty or when you have covered the street — whichever comes first. Saving a splash for a distant ridge is how the next house lights.
- Climb. Then look at the lake you already picked.
Starter airframes want a shorter pass because the tank dies faster. The amphibian can hold a longer street. The helicopter can stop and dump on one roof — that is a hover, not this pass. Rankings: plane tier list.
Mode modifiers
- Realistic: one good town pass per cycle is enough. Do not farm the whole forest.
- Town Defense: the village is the target. Waves 7–10: no experimental low passes. Game Modes.
- Mega Fire: triage. Pick one settlement and accept that a hillside will burn. Volume still matters for Most Fires Extinguished, but volume on ash does not save people.
Go-around rules
Go around if:
- You lost the horizon.
- A teammate is already on the same street (call it in chat — players hub).
- You are about to fly through the dump you just made and into trees.
- The tank emptied on the climb-out because Space was still held. Reset the finger, scoop again.
A go-around is not a failed round. A crater on the main street is.
Measuring whether the planner worked
Your money planner payout P should rise after a session of town-first dumps. If P stays flat, you are still dumping on pretty fire. Record one screenshot of the town before and after a pass. If the roofs are still orange, the column missed. Flatten the next pass.
What this is not
It is not an auto-aim script. Those are not verified for this game and belong in script safety if you were tempted. It is not a wind model. Public play does not show a wind dummy you have to lead. Put the plane over the cell and hold Space.
Official thumbnails on this wiki are the picture: yellow airframe, blue column, orange town-side fire. Copy that geometry. Then scoop again.
When a patch adds retardant, a second dump button, or a real wind, this planner gets a new heading on the same day as the changelog. Until then, one button, one tank, one town.
Helicopter exception
The orange utility helicopter in official art does not fly this pass. Hover over the roof that is about to light, dump, then translate to the lake. Do not try a 200-stud fixed-wing curtain in a rotorcraft — you will empty the bucket on empty air. Rankings and when to pick it: plane tier list. How to fly it without rolling into the street: helicopter guide.
Callouts that stop double-dumps
In a six-player server, two tanks on the same street is a wasted tank. Before you hold Space, type a short call: “west street, full tank.” If someone answers “already on it,” go around and take the next cell. The players hub has the rest of the role list. Town Defense waves 7–10 are where this matters most; read Protect Towns if you keep arriving to a street that is already wet and still burning because the first dump missed the head.
A planner is only as good as the lake you picked on the way in. If you cannot name the water you will scoop after the pass, you do not have an exit, and the next house is already waiting. Pair every dump with How to Scoop Water so the second tank exists.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers for FIRE PLANES pilots.
Should I tap or hold Space to drop water?
Hold. A continuous curtain kills a cell. Taps waste the tank on a dotted line.
How high should I fly for a drop?
High enough that a miss is a go-around, low enough that the column hits the street. If you are clipping trees, you are too low.
Where should I dump first?
The fire that is about to touch houses. Distant forest is last. See Protect Towns.