Wouldn't they normally use the encrypted mode once headed into a mission area? https://www.rt.com/news/438564-american-spy-drone-crimea/ === A US military high-altitude Global Hawk drone has reportedly been spotted flying an hours-long spy mission over eastern Ukraine and off the shore of Crimea along with another American surveillance plane. The RQ-4 Global Hawk cruised over war-torn eastern Ukraine before coming within 40km of the Crimean coast. PlaneRadar website, which tracks military flights worldwide, reported the mission in a series of tweets on Saturday. It is understood that the unmanned aircraft took off at around 9:00am GMT from a US Navy installation at NATO Base Sigonella in Sicily, Italy. ==
It happens (or used to) happen often enough that I figured they wanted to broadcast as a matter of international record that their aircraft was in the proper airspace in case of a shootdown. Same with manned ISR aircraft such as P-8s and RC-135s, which have also recently begun going quiet in mission areas. The 55th recon squadron apparently had an almost comedic trend for spoofing their credentials as an E-6B Mercury C2 aircraft. Having an asset that controls nuclear forces scooting a track off Syria did nothing to get eyes off them, I'll say that lol. My concern right now is why they are not squawking commercial recently. Those they are watching still know they are there HF still has occasional SKYBIRD calls. But if anything happens-now there is no open source transponder data to back up- or conflict with- their report of the incident.
