My impression was that military aircraft turned off their transponders all the time, especially during sensitive parts of their missions. You don't have to foll

My impression was that military aircraft turned off their transponders all the time, especially during sensitive parts of their missions. You don't have to follow any of the OSINT accounts that post flight info to see posts about how some Global Hawk re-emerged on the trackers, after having gone silent some number of hours ago. Sometimes they keep their transponders on, intentionally, to communicate intent and posture to potential adversaries.