diff --git a/changelog.d/870-hidden-contact-dr.md b/changelog.d/870-hidden-contact-dr.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..aab55229e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/870-hidden-contact-dr.md
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+- Reduce dead-reckoning work for flights already hidden behind the horizon.
+  Hidden contacts update on a staggered one-in-13-ticks rotation (about once a
+  second) while visible contacts and contacts with fleet models retain the full
+  update path (Wilmer Alzate, #870).
diff --git a/docs/CURRENT-STATE.md b/docs/CURRENT-STATE.md
index 0c5d7e278..8d082c783 100644
--- a/docs/CURRENT-STATE.md
+++ b/docs/CURRENT-STATE.md
@@ -5350,7 +5350,7 @@ silently demoting every later lookup for the session.
 
 ### Motion & Symbology Correctness (June 10, 2026)
 
-- **Flights (commercial + military)** render one poll interval behind real time (30s/15s) and interpolate between two known feed-stamped fixes (OpenSky `time_position`; adsb.lol `receipt − seen_pos`). The display latency is an intentional product decision — do not "fix" it away. The whole fleet dead-reckons at ~12Hz (1m² write gating); aircraft get a 3-poll grace period (faded icon) before removal. When a position epoch pauses, both layers coast for at least 60 seconds of contact grace with an absolute five-minute ceiling. Source backoff marks each contact and the cockpit `STALE`; the cockpit then holds the exact layer position instead of continuing inertial flight. Repeated-position kinematic changes create a forward-only synthetic fix rather than mutating history, and grounded history is lifted only when no owned 3D model already controls its datum. A nominally successful worldwide OpenSky response whose own snapshot epoch is more than two minutes old prefers the existing 250-nm viewport-scoped adsb.lol fallback and labels the source/coverage accordingly when that upstream is available. If the fallback is also unavailable, the layer's freshness/error fields use the source epoch—never the cache receipt time—so the UI reports an old snapshot rather than “just now.”
+- **Flights (commercial + military)** render one poll interval behind real time (30s/15s) and interpolate between two known feed-stamped fixes (OpenSky `time_position`; adsb.lol `receipt − seen_pos`). The display latency is an intentional product decision — do not "fix" it away. The fleet dead-reckons at ~12Hz (1m² write gating); a contact already hidden behind the horizon whose last position still is re-reckons on a staggered one-in-13-ticks rotation (about once a second) instead, so the worldwide feed's ~13k contacts no longer cost a full pass when well under 1% are on screen. Anything that position puts in view, and any contact with a fleet model, takes the full pass immediately, and hidden-inclusive proximity queries read positions at most about a second old; aircraft get a 3-poll grace period (faded icon) before removal. When a position epoch pauses, both layers coast for at least 60 seconds of contact grace with an absolute five-minute ceiling. Source backoff marks each contact and the cockpit `STALE`; the cockpit then holds the exact layer position instead of continuing inertial flight. Repeated-position kinematic changes create a forward-only synthetic fix rather than mutating history, and grounded history is lifted only when no owned 3D model already controls its datum. A nominally successful worldwide OpenSky response whose own snapshot epoch is more than two minutes old prefers the existing 250-nm viewport-scoped adsb.lol fallback and labels the source/coverage accordingly when that upstream is available. If the fallback is also unavailable, the layer's freshness/error fields use the source epoch—never the cache receipt time—so the UI reports an old snapshot rather than “just now.”
 - **World-space headings at every angle** (`src/data/iconOrientation.js`): aircraft/vessel icon rotation uses the camera right/up basis per tick (alignedAxis always ZERO), which is exact at screen center and for orthographic/nadir views and remains stable through >180° tracked orbits. Perspective rays vary across the viewport, so off-center contacts at oblique pitch can diverge from an exact finite-difference window projection; a regression test pins that known regime, and field evidence decides whether to adopt exact projection with the basis method as fallback. Fleet rotations refresh on camera-pose change; tracked entities per frame. Billboards are horizon-culled via a shared EllipsoidalOccluder.
 - **Military/OpenSky reconciliation** (`src/data/militaryRegistry.js`): known-military ICAOs render amber in the flights layer (60s self-poll of the cached mil endpoint when the military layer is off) and are suppressed there while the military layer renders them.
 - **Satellites**: 838-sat core catalog (stations/visual/GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/GEO), tracking lands ~726km out via `viewFrom` (tracked entity owns a point graphic so the tracking camera engages), rings realign via primitive modelMatrix (no per-second rebuild flicker), optional `setParams({catalog:'dense'})` Starlink mode.
diff --git a/scripts/format-scope.json b/scripts/format-scope.json
index e5b46f7b3..f0d2a744e 100644
--- a/scripts/format-scope.json
+++ b/scripts/format-scope.json
@@ -347,6 +347,7 @@
   "src/layers/flights/tracking.js",
   "src/layers/flights/rendering.js",
   "src/layers/flights/testing.js",
+  "src/layers/flights/hiddenContactRotation.test.mjs",
   "src/layers/flights/evidence.js",
   "src/layers/flights/ingestion.js",
   "src/layers/flights/queries.js",
diff --git a/src/layers/flights/hiddenContactRotation.test.mjs b/src/layers/flights/hiddenContactRotation.test.mjs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..d410eb5d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/layers/flights/hiddenContactRotation.test.mjs
@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+import test from 'node:test';
+import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
+import * as Cesium from 'cesium';
+import { createFlightState } from './state.js';
+import { createRendering } from './rendering.js';
+import {
+  FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS,
+  HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_INTERVAL_MS,
+  HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS,
+  hiddenContactDrPhase,
+} from './policy.js';
+
+// Contacts hidden behind the horizon re-reckon on one fleet tick per rotation
+// instead of every tick. Their positions still feed hidden-inclusive proximity
+// queries, so the rotation must reach every contact about once a second, and
+// it must spread them across ticks so no single tick carries the whole fleet.
+
+const icao = (n) => n.toString(16).padStart(6, '0');
+
+test('the rotation revisits each hidden contact about once a second', () => {
+  const periodMs = HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS * FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS;
+  assert.ok(HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS > 1);
+  assert.ok(
+    Math.abs(periodMs - HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_INTERVAL_MS) <= FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS,
+  );
+});
+
+test('a contact keeps the same slot, inside the rotation', () => {
+  for (let n = 0; n < 500; n++) {
+    const phase = hiddenContactDrPhase(icao(n * 7919));
+    assert.ok(Number.isInteger(phase));
+    assert.ok(phase >= 0 && phase < HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS);
+    assert.equal(hiddenContactDrPhase(icao(n * 7919)), phase);
+  }
+});
+
+test('a worldwide fleet is spread evenly enough that no tick carries a burst', () => {
+  const fleet = 13000;
+  const perSlot = new Array(HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS).fill(0);
+  // Real ICAO24 addresses cluster by national block; sample several blocks.
+  for (let n = 0; n < fleet; n++)
+    perSlot[hiddenContactDrPhase(icao(0x0a0000 + n * 53))]++;
+  const fair = fleet / HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS;
+  for (const count of perSlot) assert.ok(count < fair * 1.5, `${count} > 1.5×`);
+});
+
+/** Real fleet tick and horizon culling, with motion and presentation injected. */
+function fleetFixture() {
+  let now = 1000;
+  let reckonings = 0;
+  const services = {
+    groundSnap: { createGroundSnap: () => ({ clear() {} }) },
+    militaryRegistry: { isMilitaryIcao: () => false },
+    aircraftPresentation: { isTr3b: () => false },
+    camera: {},
+    focus: {
+      focusNowMs: () => now,
+      getFocusTarget: () => null,
+      nearFarScalarValueAtDistance: () => 1,
+      advanceProjectedSpriteFocus: () => ({ factor: 1 }),
+    },
+    recession: {
+      applyAircraftBillboardTreatment: () => ({
+        factors: { scale: 1 },
+        alpha: 1,
+      }),
+    },
+  };
+  const flightState = createFlightState({ services });
+  const camera = {
+    positionWC: Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(0, 0, 100),
+    positionCartographic: { height: 100 },
+    heading: 0,
+    pitch: 0,
+    roll: 0,
+    frustum: {
+      computeCullingVolume: () => ({
+        computeVisibility: () => Cesium.Intersect.INSIDE,
+      }),
+    },
+  };
+  const id = 'abc123';
+  // 111 km away at ground level is beyond a 100 m camera's horizon, but
+  // inside the model keep radius. No WebGL scene is needed for the culler.
+  const billboard = {
+    show: false,
+    position: Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(1, 0, 0),
+  };
+  flightState._viewer = { camera, scene: {} };
+  flightState._billboardCollection = { show: true };
+  flightState._billboards.set(id, billboard);
+  flightState.records.data.set(id, {});
+  flightState._models3dEnabled = false;
+  // Far cockpit contacts avoid glyph rasterization, keeping the fixture DOM-free.
+  flightState._cockpitContactMode = true;
+  const parts = {
+    tracking: { _refreshCockpitNearContacts() {} },
+    motion: {
+      _deadReckon() {
+        reckonings++;
+        return billboard.position;
+      },
+      _floorGroundedDisplayPosition(id, info, position) {
+        return position;
+      },
+    },
+  };
+  const rendering = createRendering({ flightState, services, parts });
+  return {
+    flightState,
+    camera,
+    billboard,
+    id,
+    reckonings: () => reckonings,
+    tick() {
+      now += FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS;
+      rendering._fleetTick();
+    },
+    offTurn() {
+      flightState._fleetTickSeq =
+        (hiddenContactDrPhase(id) + 1) % HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS;
+    },
+  };
+}
+
+test('the fleet tick dead-reckons a hidden contact once per complete rotation', () => {
+  const f = fleetFixture();
+  for (let i = 0; i < HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS; i++) f.tick();
+  assert.equal(f.reckonings(), 1);
+  assert.equal(f.billboard.show, false);
+});
+
+test('a camera reveal bypasses the hidden rotation on the same fleet tick', () => {
+  const f = fleetFixture();
+  f.offTurn();
+  f.tick();
+  assert.equal(f.reckonings(), 0);
+  f.camera.positionWC = Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(1, 0, 100);
+  f.offTurn();
+  f.tick();
+  assert.equal(f.reckonings(), 1);
+  assert.equal(f.billboard.show, true);
+});
+
+test('a hidden contact with a retained fleet model is never rotation-skipped', () => {
+  const f = fleetFixture();
+  f.flightState._models3dEnabled = true;
+  const model = { ready: true, show: true };
+  f.flightState._models.set(f.id, model);
+  f.offTurn();
+  f.tick();
+  assert.equal(f.reckonings(), 1);
+  assert.equal(
+    f.flightState._models.get(f.id),
+    model,
+    'model remains in keep range',
+  );
+  assert.equal(
+    model.show,
+    false,
+    'the full pass hides its model beyond the horizon',
+  );
+});
diff --git a/src/layers/flights/policy.js b/src/layers/flights/policy.js
index 2ecb0a8a4..9f0e810bd 100644
--- a/src/layers/flights/policy.js
+++ b/src/layers/flights/policy.js
@@ -198,6 +198,37 @@ export const FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS = 80;
 
 export const ROTATION_REFRESH_MS = 1000;
 
+/**
+ * @constant {number} Dead-reckoning cadence (ms) for contacts hidden behind the
+ * horizon. The worldwide feed carries ~13k contacts and a zoomed-in view shows
+ * well under 1% of them; the rest still need positions for hidden-inclusive
+ * proximity queries, but ~1 s old (≈250 m for an airliner) is well inside the
+ * 30 s poll's own uncertainty. Each hidden contact is re-reckoned on one tick in
+ * every HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS, staggered by id so no tick carries them all.
+ */
+
+export const HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_INTERVAL_MS = 1000;
+
+export const HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS = Math.max(
+  1,
+  Math.round(HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_INTERVAL_MS / FLEET_DR_INTERVAL_MS),
+);
+
+/**
+ * Stable slot in [0, HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS) for a contact id, so each hidden
+ * contact re-reckons on the same tick of every rotation.
+ * @param {string} id Contact id (ICAO24).
+ * @returns {number}
+ */
+
+export function hiddenContactDrPhase(id) {
+  const text = String(id);
+  let hash = 0;
+  for (let i = 0; i < text.length; i++)
+    hash = (hash * 31 + text.charCodeAt(i)) >>> 0;
+  return hash % HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS;
+}
+
 /** Max course slew (deg/s) — well above real turns (≤4°/s), hides fix-boundary
  *  steps. Scaled down toward COURSE_MIN_DPS at low speed (courseSlewCapDps). */
 
diff --git a/src/layers/flights/rendering.js b/src/layers/flights/rendering.js
index d4075a565..6709f9647 100644
--- a/src/layers/flights/rendering.js
+++ b/src/layers/flights/rendering.js
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ import {
   COURSE_SLEW_DT_MAX_SEC,
   ROTATION_REFRESH_MS,
   COURSE_MAX_DPS,
+  HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS,
+  hiddenContactDrPhase,
 } from './policy.js';
 import { AIRCRAFT_ENVIRONMENT_MAP_OPTIONS } from '../../data/aircraftModelLighting.js';
 
@@ -839,6 +841,12 @@ export function createRendering({
     }
   }
 
+  /** The contact's hidden-rotation slot, cached on its billboard. */
+  function _hiddenDrPhase(bb, icao24) {
+    bb._gevHiddenDrPhase ??= hiddenContactDrPhase(icao24);
+    return bb._gevHiddenDrPhase;
+  }
+
   function _fleetTick() {
     if (
       !flightState._viewer ||
@@ -965,9 +973,25 @@ export function createRendering({
       for (const icao of toRelease) _releaseModel(icao);
     }
 
+    const hiddenDrPhase = flightState._fleetTickSeq++ % HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS;
+
     for (const [icao24, bb] of flightState._billboards) {
       if (icao24 === flightState._trackedIcao) continue; // tracked entity owns its own motion
 
+      // A contact still behind the horizon at its last position would only be
+      // re-reckoned to be hidden again, so off its turn it keeps that position
+      // (see HIDDEN_CONTACT_DR_TICKS). Anything the stale position puts in view,
+      // and any contact with a fleet model, takes the full pass below at once.
+      if (
+        !bb.show &&
+        _hiddenDrPhase(bb, icao24) !== hiddenDrPhase &&
+        !flightState._models.has(icao24) &&
+        !occluder.isPointVisible(
+          flightState._cullPositions.get(icao24) || bb.position,
+        )
+      )
+        continue;
+
       const info = flightState.records.data.get(icao24);
 
       const dr = parts.motion._deadReckon(
diff --git a/src/layers/flights/state.js b/src/layers/flights/state.js
index b297d5a9d..25d1c1aa3 100644
--- a/src/layers/flights/state.js
+++ b/src/layers/flights/state.js
@@ -204,6 +204,10 @@ export function createFlightState({ source, services }) {
 
   flightState._lastFleetTickMs = 0;
 
+  /** @type {number} Fleet ticks run; selects which hidden contacts re-reckon */
+
+  flightState._fleetTickSeq = 0;
+
   /** @type {string} Camera pose signature at the last rotation pass */
 
   flightState._lastCamPoseSig = '';