Mission 2 Update

Strike aircraft are valuable, you never have enough of them, you don't want to lose them, they take a long time to prepare, and munitions are such that you may want to plan as opposed to leave it to your Fighter Jockeys to drop the world on whatever they see. So that is why commanders take some valuable and scarce strike assets and use them for reconnaissance. There are several reasons you might use a reconnaissance aircraft instead of hunting with your strikers:

- The reconnaissance pods give them an advantage.
- They are usually quicker to ready, in this case 3 hours vice 6 hours for the strike aircraft.
- They don't expend the reconnaissance pods which can be re-used.
- Since there is no droppable ordinance, many recon loadouts have a "Quick Turnaround" setting.
- Your strikers can wait on the ground ready to roll on any target and you can then launch and strike with munitions at your discretion.

QTR or Quick Turnaround is a setting that certain aircraft have with certain loadouts based on proven capability and doctrine. In this case Bomber #5 with the GAF Recce Pod has QTR turned ON, each aircraft is specific but, in this case if the predicted sortie time is less than 8 hours (first sortie is under 4 hours), the aircraft will land, refuel, probably change pilots, do quick repairs, and take off again in 30 min. If the parameters for QTR are not met the aircraft will take a 3 hour stand-down time, which is the same as its loadout ready time. Very handy and Bomber #5 is becoming ready in a minute or two, a nice surprise.