Question regarding missions and "extra" aircraft

[quil]

This title is bad, I know. Really not sure what to use so forgive me.

 

I have TacView. I was reviewing a recently flown mission for the Gazelle and during review I noticed something interesting. There were additional air assets flying around that you never ever see at all in the mission. For example, a C-17A lands at an airport 15KM away and an AH-64 takes off from a small FARP really far away. You never ever see them in the mission ever.

 

I started looking at other missions I've flown, (all are official missions provided with the aircraft) and almost all of them also include air assets you never ever see. And it's not like they are doing something interesting like shooting stuff down or taking care of ground units. They tend to just loiter around and area for no apparent reason. I can understand doing this if the mission is going to take you near them and you'll actually see them but why would they appear in missions that you'll never ever see them in?

 

The only missions that don't seem to have this is the A-10 missions. Is there a technical reason for doing so? Is it solely for adding things to TacView? Or is there another reason for this? I'm not complaining about it. I'm just very curious about it.

[draconus]

Mission creators often does this for the sake of reality - to liven up the area with some air traffic. You may not see it during normal mission flow but sometimes you can divert to another airfield/FARP or just get lost as a rookie pilot or with nav battle damage. It makes more sense for the fighters as you can see the traffic with your radar or get RWR nails.