In my twelve years of experience in Il-2, the longest stock career was that for a Russian fighter pilot on the central/southern fronts. The longest sorties by far were in two careers, the stock career as a Romanian fighter pilot, and in the stock career for a Finnish fighter pilot. In some of the flights for the Romanian career, it could take more than half an hour to fly an IAR 80 or 81 from the west end of Crimea to the Kerch area; after each air battle around Kerch, it took another half-hour to fly back to Simferopol or wherever the home field was.
There were Finnish fighter pilot sorties which also required lengthy times. For some of these missions, the out and back legs could be very long and, in a Gladiator, Fiat or Buffalo, very slow. Transfer missions could take you from one end of Finland to the other. Then, too, I can recall having to fly triangular patrol circuits for what seemed like hours before enemy flights coming from the Leningrad area or from bases across the Gulf would finally appear.
I suspect that a US Army or Navy fighter pilot career in the Pacific could feature similarly lengthy distances and sortie times. Once, years ago, I started a stock US Army fighter pilot career in the PTO, but the interception missions flown from Port Moresby became so numerous and repetitious - essentially the same mission flown over and over and over again - that I ended up abandoning the career. I'll have to restart that career one day, to see if it's been changed sometime over the past decade.
|