Years of casual but very interested observation of dust devils have persuaded me that they are produced by two quite distinct physical mechanisms.
The first is the traditional explanation whereby a thermal bubble forms over superheated ground, breaks off and rises, entraining surface air and concentrating its vorticity. These devils form when there is low wind velocity for a significant height AGL and thus absent turbulent downward momentum transfer. These visually resemble landspouts.
The second occurs when there is intense surface heating combined with enough turbulent downward momentum transfer to raise significant dirt in gusts but not so much as to generally displace dirt. The devils in this case owe their vorticity to the vertical translation of the wind speed shear with altitude. These visually resemble gustnados.
In each case I believe the sensient heat released by raising and dispersing the surface dirt is important to their persistence and intensity. I'll leave it to recent physics students to confirm or dispute the claim that a moderate mass of surface dust contributing, say, 30C of heat to the ambient air would be sufficient to maintain a vigorous vortex against the drag of entrainment and surface friction. This is the same mechanism as occurs in fire devils, but much less intense.
The airplane induced dust devils would be of the second kind where the horizontal shear vorticies are produced by the wings rather than by the ambient wind. FWIW, IMHO.
