Flying Stand Tactics

[RogerCooper]

When I have played around with flying stands, they seemed to be not that useful. The -1 defense against ranged combat makes them vulnerable to ordinary archery, especially if the stand is built on a cavalry base unit. They can be useful for blocking retreats but they hard to use as flankers because of the command penalty.

What am I missing here? What are the best ways of employing flyers?