Why do aircraft on an area mission sometimes patrol outside the region defined by the reference points?
Aircraft on patrol are fairly curious about unknown contacts. They will wander over and attempt to ID contacts that match their patrol types (e.g. Surface patrols look at ships, AAW patrols look at aircraft, etc). This ‘closer look’ might take them beyond their defined area by a few miles. Known hostile contacts will be attacked by Patrol missions if possible, and avoided (but reported on) by Recon missions.
