No, it was a carrier.
One, the game very simply deals with aircraft, they have a radius, and inside that radius it "rolls a die" to see if you encounter any. Once spotted, the die roll is weighted, so you'll see a lot (nevermind that CVs never flew all their planes around at extreme range in a search pattern, lol).
Two, the Val extreme range is set to 750 in stock I think.
The stock missions might be poorly designed, but it's not more complicated than that.
So it's not a "bug" per se, but it is a problem with the game---one that can be modded pretty easily.
tater
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