So when I have played mixed aero vs ground, since its asymmetric right off the bat its easy to 'break' the game. Taking cheap planes like the very solid boeing jump bomber, and loading up HE bombs, means you have a very effective answer to small units, the classic example being the dasher. Because of how planes interact with initiative and range, it is impossible for a mech force to shoot down a bomber before it has dive bombed a target, so the jump bomber is guaranteed to deliver its 40 damage to a dasher's hex no matter what the ground game does, and even if the Plane player loses init, because mechs all move before planes there is no way for a dasher to prevent being hit by a bomber. Further, in base games of total warfare (ie no tac ops), bombs are the only source of AE damage, so they nuke infantry really well. Now, infantry is mathematically the most broken thing in BV, so anything that makes infantry cry is a good thing, but bombs ignoring TMM just removes the light mechs relying on evasion too easily. Its like introducing a new invasive species to eradicate a different problematic invasive species... all you accomplish is having 2 invasive species now.
Now, you can try and counter this with 10 thrust interceptors and the radar map, but that is disproportionate BV spent countering the bomber and you are not guaranteed to be able to intercept.
Anyway, to the main point, because air power is so asymmetric, just like the other asymmetric game options they are never balanced. They are either too good, or underwhelming. A ground forces versus a mixed ground and air force often ends up on the 'too good' side with bombs, as you can nuke any problematic ground units the ground only side has on the very first turn with no counter play, meaning you start the damage trading with a massive head start--and because of splash damage the enemy cant clump up to provide effective AA counter fire without being punished by AE scatter. Without bombs, air power has to roll to hit like normal, so a balanced ground lance with a mix of range and speed can force lawn dart checks and move in a clump so all ground units are in range to shoot back at attacking flyers at range 9. In that case, 2 heavy fighters both taking damage will see one crash about half the time they fail a PSR, as you are at elevation 4 after attacking and lose 4+ elevations 50% of the time on a d6 failed PSR roll. So often after 2-3 attack runs max a flyer has crashed, greatly limiting their overall impact.