Once on the battlefield, an Airplane is ordered like any other unit in the game, at the cost of 1 Order from a matching Section card or from Direct from HQ. The Airplane may also be ordered at the cost of 1 Order if a Star is rolled while playing Their Finest Hour… or via the play of another Air Sortie card (or equivalent). The reason this matters, and requires some planning on the part of novice commanders, is that, once airborne, an Airplane must be ordered every turn or it will fly off the board…
Keep ‘em flying! Rule: Once airborne, an Airplane must be ordered every turn, during the Orders phase; otherwise it must be removed from the battlefield, at no Medal cost to its owner, when its player fails to order it again.
In reality, flying is actually even a bit trickier than this… 
In Memoir ’44, airborne Airplanes are never attacked directly. But flying is a dangerous business nonetheless: An Airplane can run out of fuel; fly into the face of a mountain; get pummeled by bad weather or become lost at sea; get spotted by search lights and shot down by anti-Aircraft batteries, etc… These various flying hazards are all simulated by the roll of a single set of dice during an Air Check roll.
The Air Check occurs immediately after the Airplane is ordered, but before the start of any movement.
During the Air Check, you:
- roll a number of dice equal to the Airplane’s underlying Air Check value, as marked on the corresponding Terrain summary card (plain countryside hexes have a default Air Check value of zero, thankfully);
- roll 1 additional die for each enemy ground troop adjacent to the Airplane, and 2 dice for each adjacent enemy plane, if any.
If a Grenade is rolled, the Airplane is lost, and the order it was given, wasted!
Worse, if there were adjacent troops, the lost Airplane counts as a medal for your opponent (otherwise, the Airplane is just considered to have flown off the battlefield, desesperately trying to make it to base…).
Next: First Missions – Strafing, Ground Support & Ground Interdiction…
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Sound like the flight path you take is very important to the success of your plane. I would like to see how it attacks to see if the risk of flying into enemy occupied villages would be worth it.
I think if I were playing this, I would want the controlling side to roll for the terrain dice (to simulate pilot skill), and the enemy to roll for any adjacent enemy units firing. Might complicate things, but then again it might not complicate too much- have to wait for more details. Very cool, regardless!
This definitely has the potential to help you make a play when all your land units are in the wrong section for your cards- ‘bad hand’ syndrome might not be as common anymore. Nifty.
What you suggest is actually how it works (almost). You roll the dice if you’re flying on your own, and your opponent rolls them if he’s got a plane next to yours. We just can’t detail every mechanism in these entries
By “troop” do you mean “unit”? or “figure”?
So my Airplane cannot attack my opponent’s plane directly?
So much for dogfights.
We mean units, not individual figures.
ooooo! I’m so exited. Looking forward to this one.
What does the Storch do? It was a German spotting aircraft, not a fighter.
Then it must be doing…