It's good that you mentioned the steepness of the approach - it has to be just right. After a long and successful mission on War Clouds server, I made an approach which was otherwise good, but too shallow. The result was that I clipped a water tower that was out of sight under my nose. I carved a nice crater at the threshold, and decorated the runway neatly with my debris.
So much for skirting around the outside of the map boundaries to sink a ship unnoticed, and later taking out an A-20, eh?