I agree, NOE missions are great, both flying a sneak mission and catching one coming in. And AKIron is right usually it only takes one plane to bust up an attack. Couple of weeks ago I suprised the AK's on a NOE mission. I think it was A7 on the island map. I happened to scan the map after a sortie and saw A7 flashing and a single dot near the base. I took up a La7 to go hunting, turned out the dot was a high buff going someplace else, so I dropped down to about 25ft agl and flew out from the base to see if anything else was around. Shortly thereafter I saw a dot out in the distance, as I got closer the the one dot turned into two dots, then three, until I think there were 5 or 6 dots. For me there is nothing that gets the blood pumping faster than finding an NOE mission. I got on the radio and broadcasted the incoming raid and picked my first target. First icon I picked up on was a 110, and as I moved in on the 110, the C47 icon popped up and I headed straight for it. He tried to evade but I think I got him on the second pass, and then they got me, either Nuttz or AKCurly was flying the goon I think. If I remember right they were all flying 110's on that mission. Eventually I got them all but only after they shot me down about 2 or 3 times they made me work for it. I remember when I first came up on them I thought to myself , hehe, 110's, this is going to fun and easy. Well I tell you what, it was definitely fun Ak's but by no measure was it easy. Help showed up after I got them all except for AKWarp, but I chased him down as he tried to leave the area.
Flying NOE mission are a blast also, I don't even mind dying, there's just a rush for me flying 400mph 50ft off the ground with 4 or 5 planes chasing you, as you evade and barrel roll, twist and turn, guys killshooting each other trying to get you, running into trees, I think I got something like 4 kills on one sortie from everybody dying trying to get me. Yea, eventually the wep runs out or I make a mistake and they get me, but damn its a blast.
AirScrew