That's my opinion.

Most of the time Escort missions are generated too far away from the assets they are assigned to Escort.

Unless you go to the flight of Choppers that the Escort Mission is assigned to and stop them in HOVER mode and let the Escort flight catch up.

I also noticed Escort flights have a tendencies to go off track and attack other targets;

targets that did not even attack (or PAINT) the flight they are protecting.

Then the flight being escorted ends up getting shot out of the sky.

An Insertion flight has a better chance of successfully complete their mission without an escort;

with an escort, they more often than not get shot down before they even reach their destination.

It's like the escort flight tends to attract trouble.

I like to use the Campaign Commander and delete the Escort missions and use those assets that would have otherwise be committed to an Escort mission for higher priority missions like SEAD and CAS and BAI and CAP.

I forgot to mention especially if the Escort mission is to escort a flight of jets or supply plane, those are useless and a waste of Choppers.

Slower choppers escorting faster airplanes?

Even a slow moving supply plane will fly too fast for a Comanche or Apache to escort.

Surely the answer is "it depends"?

If an escort mission is listed and the escortee (probably not a real word) isn't too far away I'll step in and since AI doesn't go full speed I can catch up and then quit the mission.
Similar for transfers - if it expires in 30 mins or so, jump in, get it moving, jump out again.

But for escorting fighters - these don't seem to be too common - I spent 20 minutes trying to be in the right place while the fighters were circling above waiting for me and they wouldn't progress to the next waypoint until then. I had to figure out where their next circle was going to be and get there in time! Needless to say even after this they passed me on the way back while I still hadn't reached halfway.

Sometimes when I am on a regular escort mission I will also wander a fair way off-track and get shot down so I'm not sure I would rate it as odd. Or maybe I'm just weird too.

I have normally been able to catch up in time but yesterday I had a first, which would be a 'yay' were it not for what the debrief actually said :

"What a shambles! Where were you guys?"

Maybe I should learn to use 'pause' instead of 'autopilot' when making the coffee!

Recon missions are also questionable. Yep, let's scout for a barren airfield with two 40 million $ Comanche and after spotting a few choppers standing around, just return without firing a shot. Fortunately, the Human can make decisions.

I found out if you are on a recon mission and after transmitting, it generates into a strike mission, I will go back and fire at FARP or Airfield or Factory or whatever until the strike mission is no longer on the map.

Then I press Shift W to change the WP to X, it will tell you to transmit again;

once you re-transmitted, it will generate a BDA.

You just skipped a step without having to run an entire strike mission over.

This is useful especially if the flight you are currently on for the recon mission is one of a few air assets in the area which meant if you didn't do this, you would have to return to base, wait for the strike mission to be assigned to the same flight you are on and do the strike mission.

Also, using the Campaign Manager, I had FARP and Airbases you put your mouse over it and click on it, it will cycle through several different kind of mission for the same place: OCA Sweep, BDA, Strike and Insertion.

I had some that were OCA Sweep or Strike and once I put my mouse over it, it canceled those missions and turn into an Insertion.

This is a good way to skip a step.

Make the game go faster and you also free up air assets that can be used for more important missions.

Or you could just destroy most of the vehicles, then transmit, and it'll send as FARP/Airbase out of action and generate and insertion mission.

I had 2 Vipers escorting 2 Blackhawks on an Insertion mission in the Europe 1 campaign.

At first, the 2 Vipers were alway within half a mile or less of the Blackhawks.

Then on the way to the enemy FARP, they left the Blackhawks' side to attack SAMS.

By the time the Blackhawks were near the enemy FARP they were assigned to capture, the 2 Vipers were at least 20 miles away from the Blackhawks.

They even went after a Red Carrier Group.

The Blackhawks were attacked by enemy jet fighters less than 2 miles from the enemy FARP and they never completed the mission.

They kept asking for help and no help came.

There should be criteria in the programming on when Escorts should leave the assets they are protecting to engage other target.

The Blackhawks were painted several times by enemy SAMS on the way to the enemy FARP and they themselves didn't engage nor did they get shot down by the same SAMS that painted them.

The Vipers should be set to engage any SAMS in the immediate vicinity of the Blackhawks ONLY if the SAMS are shooting at the Blackhawks, let's say less than 2-2 miles and then afterward, immediately return to flying alongside the Blackhawks.

Ideally what should happen, is that the escorts fly ahead of the insertion team. If they detect any threats, the insertion team hold position at low altitude. The escort team then clean up the threats, and the mission continues. That's what I'd like anyway.

problem is that escort and assault groups are separated. it's easy to control each member of one group, but much harder to synchronize actions of two different groups.

Even harder when the assault group's flown by a human player; the AI autopilot visibly prioritises hugging the terrain over moving quickly. Whenever I'm being escorted, as a result, I quickly leave the escorts trailing behind.