During this war and during the Gulf war, the reporters always talk about how many sorties were flown. I am presuming a sortie is a flight/mission, but what is the exact definition of a sortie?
Jim
a mission
Yes, it is one flight of a combat plane - takeoff to landing. It comes from a French word - sortir I think. I don’t know if the French started using the word first though.
One of the original definitions (1778):
“a. A dash or sally by a besieged garrison upon an investing force.”
and a more modern one (1918):
“d. An operational flight by a military aircraft.”
The above from http://www.oed.com.
A sortie is not just any mission, though. It usually implies a brief attack from a base and a return to base, which is why it is applied to certain flight operations.
As an aside, sortie is used for “exit” in French. I found it interesting the first time I drove to Montreal and saw exits on the highway labeled sortie.
“Une sorti” is an exit, the verb “sortir” can also imply “to go out”, which I think is the more appropriate definition for this circumstance. Effectively, it means the same thing, but but as in English, one is more of and “exit” to get out of an unpleasant situation, and an “exit” just to go somewhere else.
Sorry I can’t really explain it better than that.
In military aircraft terminology, a sortie is one flight by one aircraft. A mission can be one or more aircraft of the same type flying together, from and to the same place, with a common objective.
Adding to the French translation above, realize that foreign languages aren’t translated one word per one word, that is, the word sortie, if it means exit, also makes sense if you think that it means “to go out.” Spanish is kind of like this: Salida = Exit. Salir = to exit, to go out (exit or with someone), come out or turn out (how’re the tamales coming out? = como salen los tamales)
For what it’s worth, sortie also means “output” in the sense of a signal output, e.g., the outputs from a stereo receiver or a PLC output card. Same in Spanish: Salida. Similar in German: Ausgang (which also means exit).