Yes I know. And many pilots were probably happy that way when real air battles had the risk of dying. But when you fly a sim for fun (at least I do), these nothing-happens sorties are not my favorites.

If you compare these game missions to books written by combat pilots, what kind of days do they describe in their book: those when something happened or those routine days when no enemy was encountered or the weather was so bad that they couldn't fly at all etc?

Missions with squadmates against ai with a cup of coffee and de briefing analyses, what we can work on. But that was il2 1946 the last time :(. Online on a server like atag? Also teamwork, but noone of my guys really like flying online like that. We like planned events with other squads and not flying tasks on a server with unknown. Briefing, mission, landing, result, debriefing and next mission, not tasks on which you throw a certain amount of planes until a side won it.

Otherwise in clod, it is for sure also a pleasure to fly around and have time for the scenery. ;) Hopefully we soon will be able to play dynamic campaigns or could easily manage to fly single player missions with your wingman for training alone. Just make every ai plane in a single player mission available for flying with some guys. It is just ai, but I enjoy such flights. Desastersoft campaigns for more than one player would be great to have.

You should sign up for Storm of War campaigns starting this weekend:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=35351

Historic BoB missions with/against other squads. Going to be a blast.

Well, it is the teamwork. Getting something done together, learning the tactics together and beating the enemy together. That said, it does feels good to fly any successful sortie and I've also found pleasure in just managing to land a badly hit wreck.

I don't know what your cup of tea, or coffee is regarding flying red or blue side, but if you jump on ATAG TS most nights there are a usually quite a few people formation flying or willing to.
Admittedly the only chatter on blue side is usually essential contact reports, where as red is chaotic most nights with talking, shouting, heavy breathing sounds, etc. But it adds to the immersion.
For the last few nights I've flown formation with the guys from the 71st squadron, ATAG, and various other regulars and its been a blast.
Definitely worth the experience and everyone is really friendly, even if you get too close and clip their wing off. :grin:

I hear ya mate. Could you imagine ATAG with no combat?