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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
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Satellites are too predictable, plus too infrequent. If there are two spy satellites that cover Iran, for example, Iran can easily know when and what direction, then presumably take some effort to cover whatever they want to hide.
A reconnaissance plane can show up without warning, any time, loiter for at least minutes, take pictures from different angles, in addition to sharper imaging. We can speculate they may also have sharper non-optical imaging, such as thermal or radar
Ok, but what if there are several satellites that cover iran at all times? What if they would need to hide from most directions all of the time? Because I think that's basically the situation right now. The whole world is being monitored from multiple angles all of the time by several different governments. At that point, reconnaissance aircraft in general seem a little redundant.
I think the only real utility they offer is the ability to swap out sensors between flights and upgrade old cameras to the new cutting edge options whenever they're available.