Definition
In military aviation, a single combat mission flown by one aircraft, or a sudden attack launched by troops from a defensive position. Essentially, it's when you stop sitting around and actually do something aggressive. Modern air forces track sorties obsessively because counting how many times planes take off is apparently easier than measuring whether they accomplished anything useful.
Example Usage
The squadron flew 47 sorties yesterday, though command is suspiciously vague about what they actually hit.
Source: Military aviation terminology
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