On the searchlights, I experimented with them and it seems they're activated on altitude above ground level, I believe 250 meters. At first I thought they were activated on sound, which would be quite realistic, because when I instructed the automatic pilot to land while a few enemy searchlights placed in the vicinity of the airfield stopped searching and switched off, when my engines where idling while on decent. Imagine trying to evade searchlights by switching off your engines. I know there were german AA guns that used sound to aim, right now they all seem to use some kind of inaccurate "radar", while I can't imagine all stations having them in those days. But switching off engines in flight is probably not realistic, I haven't read or heard of any occasion, except of course gliders. And I can imagine some aircraft having great difficulties restarting them in flight, not to mention shock cooling being a problem.
This is nice if it could be incorporated in SOW and IL2.
Sandra:
Three search lights positioned around an airfield and directed skyward to form a cone, the glow of which could be seen by planes trying to find the airfield
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