Multiplayer, wheels locked, can't take off.

[Maxtor]

I've been away from IL2 for a few years, recently bought 1946 on Steam (to avoid having to go through the sequence of patches!)
Played a few UK multiplayer games ok (Via Xfire), tried joining a couple of different USA servers and I couldn't move iin any of them, full throttle, brakes off and the plane wouldn't budge an inch - could see control surfaces working etc. Is there a reason for this or is it just a bug, I don't recall this having ever happened in the past with overseas servers.