Low-n-Slow

[Jumoschwanz]

I don't have anything against flying at low altitude. It IS as historical to fly there as it is at any other altitude.

All through WWII there was always ground attack aircraft at low altitude, and they often had fighter aircraft right down there with them either trying to shoot them down or protect them.

Chuck Yeager said in his book that hi altitude fighter encounters in WWII naturally lost altitude as they progressed and ended up going from altitude down to the deck.
Low altitude air combat can be found in Johnnie Johnson's book, Erich Hartmann's and the commentary from any other WWII ace.

Otto Kittel flew FW190A aircraft on the eastern front at low altitude, was one of the great aces there, and died being shot down by IL-2 ground attack aircraft.

One of the few recorded dogfights for the FW Ta-152, which was known to be primarily used to escort the Me-262 during take-off and landing, was on the deck fighting with Tempests that were doing ground attack.

Chuck Yeager shot down his Me-262 jet while it was on a landing approach.

So there is nothing you can really do when flying the IL2 flight simulator that can legitimately be called "unrealistic", as there were so many dogfights at every altitude on every front of WWII that any imaginable aircraft combat took place many times over, and some you can not even imagine.

It is certainly nice to have altitude and energy over your opponent and that is an ideal that was strived for in WWII and also is in combats with the IL2 flight sim, but once an encounter begins historically and in the sim, that often goes right into the trash.

The most important thing to remember is to do what you enjoy and have fun, and no matter what you do while having fun it will be good practice that will help you in similar situations in the future.

I have a lot of IL2 videos on YouTube here that I think have flights from the deck on up to several thousand meters altitude:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Jumoschwanz#g/u