spotter
n.— «Cal Fire blamed the delay on a shortage of military helicopter managers, better known as spotters—trained wild-land firefighters who help military pilots position water drops and communicate with firefighters in the air and on the ground.» —“ Grounded military helicopters blamed on lack of ‘spotters’” by Tony Manolatos Union-Tribune (San Diego, California) Nov. 3, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...