I would have thought that releasing aircraft from a sufficiently high altitude would be quite advantageous in a number of ways.

It must be cheaper to use a helium based platform to elevate any number of aircraft (25 at a time. say), which could have much smaller fuel tanks, as a result of not needing to reach altitude.

An airstrip below would make an excellent site for emergency recover in case of engine failure, as well as a good place to “reload” the helium platforms.

Of course, defence of these platforms could be problematic. But who knows, we may see more of this kind of idea being used with pilotless warplanes with AI which could themselves be made cheaply enough to be expendable.

(Did I just describe missiles?)