Sortie

A sortie (from the French word meaning exit) is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The sortie, whether by one or more aircraft or vessels, usually has a specific mission. The sortie rate is the number of sorties that a given unit can support in a given time. The term is an evolution of the concept of "sortie" in siege warfare.

In military aviation, a sortie is a combat mission of an individual aircraft, starting when the aircraft takes off. For example, one mission involving six aircraft would tally six sorties.

References

Look up sortie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.