OK, fyi... All fighters have transponders. FYI only the LEAD aircraft squawks for the formation. If you encounter numbers 2-4 leaving the range and flying at a speed to catch up to lead aircraft who is climbing out or transiting airspace at the normal 300kt IAS, the wingman will be faster. Quite often, in tactical formation, the spread between aircraft can be two nm. So you can encounter a fighter not squawking because he is a wingman, and you may not see the lead/squawking aircraft because of the distance away. And the lead aircraft WILL have his transponder on. We never turned it off during stateside operations because there was never a reason to. In theater, sure, all the time it goes off.

The military is dealing with how to comply with ADSB. However, the military budget has been crap since 2013, and frankly we do not have the money to upgrade the aircraft and also keep them combat capable. We desire to do both, but we do not have the money, but it is the plan.

Oh, and to make things worse.... We used to fly "non standard formation" all the time ... meaning as a tactical group, you really do not want all aircraft at the same altitude, so we would have aircraft in a tactical box formation, roughly 6000-9000 feet apart in each element, with the second element 2nm in trail of the first element, and all four aircraft at different altitudes up to 4000' apart.