I really want to get myself a new joystick now. Watching those videos reminded me of the Red Arrows, and with there being Red Arrow mods kicking about, I want to get me some Red Arrow loving going on.

Aces High was just what I was looking for, the only snag with it is the price tag £8 a month is just too much. Has anyone else subscribed to it? Is it possible to keep your account intact and simply top up a month when you feel like playing it periodically or do you have to subscribe to it to keep your account?

Ajp, Aces High is made by devs who care for their costumer service at least as much as Scawen & co. If you mail, or even call them (they talk to just about anyone about anything completely openly, in my experience and everyone else's I've heard of) explaining your situation, they'll tell you what they can do to help you out.

I've subbed since 2000. What's your ingame (not login) ID?
I think, at worst, you'll have to give them a call, or email them each time you want your account reactivated. I started playing again after 2 years, and got my old account the day after I emailed about it.
The only thing you might gripe about is that each time you do this, your perk points reset, although I'm not sure if that'll be your case too.

If you need help with the learning curve, want to practice ACM or gunnery on a target, or just need answers to any questions, you can look me up and I'll help you out.
There's events organized a few times a week (with anything from 50 to 300+ participants), and you can usually find someone to practice with in the dueling or training arena.. there are also trainers you can schedule appointments with.

Another thing you should look up are the custom sounds. Some of them are very corny (as if bootlegged right off 1950s movies), but if you sort through all of them, you'll most likely find a combination that doesn't make you laugh too hard..

And don't take the egomaniacs too seriously. They can be quite vocal, but they're a tiny fractional percentage of the total player population.
And keep your volume knob within reach.. some of the players come through extremely squeaky on the radio

I did download some full sound pack from forum, it is very good improvement, although it was bigger than whole game

I'm driving plane offline only, enough challenge to keep that damn thing somehow in flying condition when doing loops and flying trough hangars etc silly things

When you feel ready, the first two weeks (starting the first time you go online) are free, including all subscriber features; except automatic skin downloading (15 user made skins per plane model). If you want to see the skins without triggering the two week trial, they are up for individual download on the official website, under "downloads".
Look me up if you ever do get online.. you can never have too many wingmen

I'd post a film of one of the best pilots the game ever got, with situational awareness, aerobatics, and gunnery all into one, but the file isn't hosted anymore, and it weighs about 250MB.. I'll try and find another good example of great furballing..

And there is also the free 8 player rooms, although I think those will also trigger your 2 week trial, that usually host player made maps.. the quality is pretty varied, but some of them really are very good. The most common games are free for all dogfighting.

I've gone out and got IL2 1946, all I can say is wow it's huge. Plenty of single player action to get me started and an enormous choice of aircraft coupled with realistic physics the detail's staggering. I'm still a total noob at doing anything other than flying a simple circuit atm but I reckon it'll keep me occupied. Anybody else got opinions on it (or any of the IL2 series).

Quote from MonkOnHotTinRoof :

It's set at full realistic mode, which might be little difficult for noobs, but it's THE way to play it.

Yeah the only aid I'm using are the height/speed/heading writing in the bottom left corner which saves me the need to find so many instruments in the cockpit and the simplified engine management, is there much advantage in doing it manually?