Spotting Aircraft Data

Similar to the Catapult Fighter  consumable, the Spotting Aircraft consumable launches a plane from the ship's catapult. However, instead of attacking enemy aircraft, the unarmed Spotting Aircraft increases the range of the ship's main battery by 20% and gives an "aerial" perspective when scoping. Like the Catapult Fighter, it can spot ships if it happens to fly near them. While its duration is shorter and its cooldown longer than the fighter, it does have a larger orbital radius of about 4.25 km, increasing the chance to detect ships.

The aerial perspective may take some getting used to:

• More vertical lead on the screen is required due to the angle; to make matters worse, many crosshairs are purely horizontal.
• The auto-tracking feature (if used) tends to drift more than it does for the normal zoom.
• The view covers a smaller area due to the angle, so careless zooming may end up with no ship on the screen.

On the other hand, the aerial perspective can be quite handy when shooting at ships behind islands, or at tracers coming out of smoke.

The Spotting Aircraft consumable is available on all Tier IX and X cruisers, Russian cruisers Tier VI and above, British cruisers from Tiers V-VIII, Japanese battleships Tier IV and higher, and American battleships Tier VI and higher. Ships with access to catapult-launched aircraft often must choose between equipping either a Catapult Fighter or a Spotting Aircraft.

			SPOTTING AIRCRAFT I		SPOTTING AIRCRAFT II
			Cost: Free		Cost: 22,500
Class or Ship	Nation(s)	Duration	Cooldown	Charges	Cooldown	Charges
Perth		180 seconds	360 seconds	3	240 seconds	4
Musashi		120 seconds	180 seconds	5	120 seconds	6
Lazo    (data is tentative)		60 seconds	10 seconds	4	10 seconds	5
all other ships		100 seconds	360 seconds	3	240 seconds	4