Me 262

I was asked why I thought planes are broken in this game. The reason I feel this way is that beyond 0-1 none of the attacks are subject to defensive fire before. There is almost no chance in diverting them before their attacks like in WaS where they have an air-defense phase. You simply drop a plane in AAM anywhere that does not envoke defensive fire and shoot away without any chance of retaliation until the regular combat phase begins. Even if you do manage to shoot a plane down with defensive fire it still gets to attack with disrupted dice. Then they introduced facing for planes later which made them even more broken.

Maybe I am way off on this but its the way I see it. I would be interested in others opinions.

The Me 262 & the Dornier Do 335 have SA's that only involve Air to Air really. They do look prettty neat though.....
The Ace's mostly are Air to Air as well, the Defensive Fire out to 4 hexes vs Aircraft can be nice. Flightpaths & Facing come into play then vs planes & ground targets. Planes might not pass each other. A Flightpath follows a hexrow, approach & depart, from any hexside that can trace it's course across the map along a line radiating from the Target Hex. You might overfly "Other Unpleasantness"........other things that can shorten your flight!
Another rule I've tried is only vehicles, MG's, AA can shoot at planes.
Planes are abstract in the land gaming scheme of things, using them is a personal choice. Too Powerful.....too weak......weird.....odd......interesting.......worthless.......
I enjoy the option they provide to the game.
Anybody else got thoughts.

In a standard point game with the race to take the objective and hold it. I usually ignore planes if I see them on the board unless I don't have a shot at another unit or don't have a move to make. They can't hold on objective and cost quite a bit of money and for the 'Jets' they can't attach soldiers in towns, forests, and marshes.

I don't know, hard to see in the marshes, tall grass, and you are flying overhead at a high rate of speed. Each turn in AAM is roughly 1 minute in duration.

That would make you have to deploy them more conservatively.