Fliying from i was 8 Years old , when the first Il2 come out, i remember studing like a beast , becose my pc was too old, i remebmber going to a clasmate class to play il2 whit him and his brother, i remembet well how it was, when i do it all the exams well and my father buyed me the pc and the game for surprise, wow, i still amazed how all the "options and the il2 world opened" to me that day, i thinked, one day this game will have all the optons and hunders of players playing it in one online game (it was rare to me more than 4 or 5 players in a mathc lol)

I remember the long wait for the IL2 Demo hanging in the forums reading Olegs updates from the development and my feverish hands when I took off in that 109 in the first demo... Just the first take off from that grass strip made me realize this was something that completely wiped the floor with the competition...

I've been flying most sims since Fighter Pilot on the Spectrum, and I've been searching for the Grail ever since. The only time I've had a real scent of the Grail was when Red Baron (the original VGA version) was released, Falcon 3.0 - and IL2 version 1.0... Then after a while you realize even the sun has it's spots too and start dreaming of the Grail again. Maybe CloD version 3.0 in 2014 will reach immortality, if MG survives to do it?

From the demo days, all incarnations and add-ons. :rolleyes:

From the demo, which I got sometime late 2001 I think. First I didn't even have a joystick, but just playing as the rear gunner for the Il-2 mission was a blast. After I bought a stick, well, the rest is history...:grin:

Been playing IL2 since the beta demo release in 2001. Still remember my 1st attempts at taking off in that storm... Been following the game since 2000 on the old BlueByte forum.

11 years....others since 1985
Clod from 4-16-2011 until 12-22-2012:-x

where is the 'poll' at? lol

since 2001

I am a Pole and proud of it! Was that the question?

cnat remember the year... soemthing like 2006 when i got FB as a christmas gift from my uncle. i hated and considered it arcadish. eventually picked it up a weeks alter and did about 50 missions on the i16 campaign, full real/icons, fell in love, and kept flying it. by 2008 i found a store selling a full edition il2 with pacific fighters, bought it, got home , made love to it, and tried it online, i got vuclhed by a b29, gave up again. evnetually in 2009 i learned the existance of 1946, bought it, ( still tryign to fight a boxed edition for sale), joyned online with the =XIII= squad, learned pretty much all i know, switched to E69 last year, and enjoyed it till the day CLod came out. since then il2 has been poor, 1946 no longer entertains me, and CLOD has no activity within my squad because, well, the game sucks and noone wants to really play it ( myself more or less included )... and where i am, patiently waiting the next installement of this tank simulator

Since the first demo. Sometimes in the fall 2001. I found a demo CD inside Maximum PC. I installed it and tried to take off in the P-39 in that bad weather intercept mission.
I made it half way down the runway and obviously crashed. I was just sitting there laughing looking at all those parts spread all over the field. The broken plane with a wing missing and the other one pointing straight up, and that bent prop.:o
I was hooked.