Looking to play with friend against NPC/AIs (ie: PvE)

[majorfailure]

You might try DCG, third party campaign generator for il2.

It is very useful for playing longer campaigns vs. AI, you can influence the outcome of the battle quite a bit by playing well(or the other way round). It tracks losses in ground units an planes, and applies them to the next missions.
And has lots of options, e.g. worst weather to occur. And customizing campaigns is not that difficult, though creating your own full-blown campaign is a bit of work, but it is possible to do so(Want to play Japanese invasion of Hawaii -set up the campaign and have fun). Using it for years now, and still like it.