This painting describes the flight path for this mission 'Out the Gate' as the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge spans the bay below. An EC-121 'Warning Star' aircraft took off at 0900 hrs, and headed west past San Francisco to establish a 'pickets' or race track holding pattern. The Mission lasted approximately five hours, and included the reconnaissance and charting of aircraft within their assigned sector. The USAF Warning Stars served in the 1950s and later during the Vietnam War as electronic sensor monitors and were forerunners to the Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS.