You can't use regular photons to detect one because that requires getting in a plane and going out to find them. You're an even bigger sitting duck in a plane i

You can't use regular photons to detect one because that requires getting in a plane and going out to find them. You're an even bigger sitting duck in a plane in the air than the carrier is sitting on the water. Radar will find you and interceptors will destroy you before you get close enough to see their exact position. You using a plane and radar runs into the same issue. If you sit on the shore and use active radar tracking then you're leaving yourself open to decoy ops and EM countermeasures. Satellites don't loiter over the area long enough to get a tracking lock. Ships can take evasive maneuvers and US Navy ships move very fast.