The fastest aircraft is not automatically the best fleet scout. Speed helps when an observer already knows where to go, but a search aircraft must cover an area carefully enough to notice ships through cloud or at low altitude without exhausting its fuel. The SR-71's high-speed photography of suspected locations differs from fleet reconnaissance, which must find, identify, and continue tracking a moving force. The latter mission is closer to combining an airborne early-warning aircraft with persistent area surveillance than to making one fast pass over a known point.
Notable Point · 1:52:48-1:59:20
Fleet reconnaissance rewards coverage, not maximum speed
A reconnaissance tangent distinguishes rapid point photography from the slower, persistent search needed to find and track fleets across a wide ocean.