15th winter flying IL2 Sturmovik.

[Jumoschwanz]

Forgotten Battles was still very much an eastern-front flight sim. I remember one well-know online pilot quit after FB came out, he said they ruined IL2 and made it too easy! I was sad to see him go.

Other guys dropped out because they just did not have the talent to fly it online and not get shot down over and over. In the early days of IL2 flying hard settings was very popular, much-much more so than it has been in the last seven or eight years.

It was still a very popular flight sim as the Pacific Fighters and IL2 46' add-ons were released.

In the early days it was funny how certain aircraft were popular and flocked to as they were found to have an edge. In the original IL2 the La-5fn was the go-to aircraft as it was very fast and did everything well.

Maybe some will remember how incredibly popular the Hurricane IIC was for a long time, it turned very well and had it's four very effective cannons, and in early patches it was a bit too fast. Since we were not mature and doing much energy fighting it was hard to beat.

I remember when the P-40 first appeared it would suddenly explode when it was dived above a specific speed. I actually used this in combat making inexperienced or greedy P40 pilots dive after my 109 if they got on my tail.

Aviar and CrazyIvan always had servers up in the IL2 and FB days. There was the great GreaterGreen hard-settings server that was always very-well populated. Then for a long time War-Clouds and Spits vs. 109s appeared. I think GreaterGreen was probably the best-run server of all the old Hyperlobby servers, it was the most fair and professional.

I know there were other popular servers but my memory is fading. I guess I should start writing names of servers and old pilots down before they are lost forever.

I think it was JV44 Rall that was always the best and most renowned FW190A pilot, and I remember there was another well-known pilot that was one of the first to start doing "zoom and boom" flying. GR142 Astro and Pipper were two guys who used to get into Yaks and cover each others six so well they would stack kills up at will as long as someone was dumb enough to get low and slow with them, and there were lots of takers. Astro and Pipper did cry a lot when someone Z&Bed them though...

ROSS was the name of one of the early VVS squads who specialized in flying Yak fighters, and they were generally damn good at it.

I will have to look at some of the old Tracks I have saved from ten and twelve years ago to see if it sparks my memory.

Thanks to those who have chimed in! Please share some old names and memories of battles you had.