Actually, it turns out the best strategy is to strip the plane's armor - light planes need less fuel, which makes them even lighter, and that makes them faster. Fast planes spend less time in enemy airspace, on top of being harder to hit.

Or make the whole thing out of whatever the black box recorder is made of. Problem solved!

that's exactly why birds evolved to have scales!

spinlaunch and Longshot Space seem to have some ideas in that regard