SCREWTOPS 601’s new beat: a twenty-mile oval over the bullseye 715f0f9

The Hawkeye’s orbit used to be a lazy 28-kilometre wheel parked over the east bay — fine for scenery, wrong for coverage. SCREWTOPS 601 now flies a proper station: a twenty-mile by twenty-mile oval centred on the middle of the map, still at angels two-three (23,000 ft), one lap about every fourteen minutes at 140 kt. From up there the radar picture genuinely covers the whole chart — carrier waters to the inland edge — which is what an AWACS is for. Ride along with J until you find her; the rotodome still turns, and she still calls the picture, the bogies and the civil traffic exactly as before.