Fixed-wing camera ships are utilized in aerial cinematography whenever high altitude or high performance photography is involved. This primarily involves, but is not limited to, air-to-air filming of other fixed-wing aircraft such as commercial aviation jet airliners or military fighter aircraft. Such filming is quite often out of the realm of commonly used helicopter camera ships and requires a quick, performance capable camera platform, in most cases the Learjet.

High altitude filming involves working in a tightly-confined, pressurized environment while frequently encountering positive and negative G-forces during camera ship repositioning maneuvers. As such, the film crew must be of a certain resilient type in order to endure without succumbing to airsickness. This type of work is highly specialized and the aircraft together with its image gathering system, most notably Vectorvision™ or Astrovision™, can be thought of as a dedicated aerial cinematographic system.

As air-to-air cinematography involves close formation flying, communication among all aircraft involved is crucial. At such high airspeeds there is no margin for error and repositioning of story ship to camera ship must be carefully worked out. Oftentimes filming will involve the camera ship maneuvering around the story ship or ships during the shot. For this and many more reasons, only the lead camera ship pilot will have direct communication with the story ship pilot. To facilitate this, discussion among the film crew within the camera ship is kept to a minimum.

Not all fixed-wing aerial cinematography requires the performance capabilities of the Learjet. Indeed, some lower altitude work usually falls into a performance gap between the Lear and helicopter camera ships. Such work can be accommodated by certain prop driven airplanes, most commonly the North American B-25 Mitchell, Cessna 414, Cessna 310, Cessna 337 and Aviat Pitts S-2B. These aircraft provide adequate or unique performance capabilities and at a lesser cost. However, like the Lear, these fixed-wing camera ships have very specific uses, often with one type of camera system, and choice should be carefully determined with the aerial cinematographer and aerial coordinator.

Although obvious, it's worth mentioning that fixed-wing aircraft don't enjoy the same landing and take-off flexibility that their rotorcraft counterparts do. Work closely with the aerial coordinator when working out logistics regarding locating a local airport that will accommodate the type of fixed-wing aircraft used for the production.