A POLE: How long have you been flying IL-2
 

Hi everybody:

I thought this would be a fun pole. First just say how many years months or days you have been flying this IL-2 series then tell your story. In my experiences the huge fans of this sim tend to have very entertaining ones. To use the term fan boy about these people me myself included is insulting in my opinion.

I guess this isn't a pole just your stories. I edited this part after a couple of members asked where the pole was. :)

I've played IL-2 since the demo was released, summer 2001 I think it was. It took me all night to download the demo on my 56k modem but boy was it worth it. Best thing I remember was the sense of speed and flight when I swooped down near the ground in the P-39, absolutely amazing at the time. I ended up buying an Elsa Gladiac 920 Geforce 3 64 MB, that set me back about 300-350€ or something but it was soooo worth it.:grin: Good times.

Since 2001. I gave up when Pacific fighters came out as I was uninterested in that theatre and the jungle and desert maps were ridiculous. The best time I ever had was just before Forgotten Battles came out and we did 109 versus P39 fighter sweeps. The P39 could out climb the 109 at speed and it was a good fight. When FB came out suddenly aircraft all became weightless and I do remember trying to land a 109 and flaring for what seemed ages landing in a field past the runway.

After FB came out I remember always waiting for the patch that would fix the sily FM issues we had. Lack of energy bleed and red aircraft that hung on the prop still shooting with accuracy. I got tired of waiting for the nex t'fix it all patch' and moved on to combat missions and aother games.

Got IL-2 2005 and a bit later on Pacific Fighters. Played the latter for atleast 500+ hours.
But after playing CloD i´ve never touched it again.

Since demo... By the way the very first flight sim I was using was ACE on my commodore C64 :)

2001 I think, long time anyway. Thousands of hours over the years, in its heyday, with the online wars, I spent around 40 hours a week flying missions.
It was a complete and utter obsession, and I have not touched it since CoD was released.
I hope the new series will keep me going for the next decade.

I've flown IL-2 since the first beta test days. To long ago to remember exact date. I haven't flown IL-2 too much for the last few years, at it has gotten old. Still waiting for COD to be completed to get back into flying alot. I really like the new game engines features and it should eventually develop into the next benchmark in WW2 aircombat simming.

Since the Demo,Dawn of Aces before that.:rolleyes:

2001. I remember it well. Loved the thought of flying but knew the inner ear is shot so bought a flight sim instead :) . After downloading I was in my element for years. Joined a squad and became obsessed. It was a funny night when I downloaded teamspeak. I didn't want to activate it because I thought that I would have children in my ear whilst flying. Couldn't believe that everyone in my squad were grown men, around my age.
Absolutely loved having squad nights against other squads throughout the world. Went out and paid $6000 for a new comp specifically to fly IL2. That lasted years and years. Also purchased rudder pedals.
Loved jumping in the COOP area in Hyperlobby with others. As with squad nights, it caused me to fly differently because I didn't want to get shot down quickly.
Since CoD, I haven't been back to IL2. Just wanting CoD to get up to par and then get back into a squad and fly against other squads. Can't wait. :)

I was quite a late-comer. I was aware of the game when it came out and desperately wanted to play it - I couldn't because my computer was below spec - it only had a 4MB videocard (recommended 16MB I think) !!:)

I spent a really frustrating couple of years as I wasn't able to upgrade the PC. Finally got into it when 1946 came out and then seemed to do without sleep for 2 years as I investigated every facet of the game and made up for lost time!

Since the demo, I remember buying the game in my local John Menzies on the day of release, those were the days when even small town branches of newsagent/office supply/media stores still carried pc games. Remember struggling to get the IL2 off the ground and keep it airbourne as it had a very limited ground speed I seem to recall.

I'm into the series since the Il2 Demo 2001 as many others obviously.
I was around 13 and installed it from a pc games magazine CD together with a school mate from mine.
Funny enough I had a pretty crappy joystick without rudder control and we were at first wondering why the Il2 keeps steering right during the takeoff.
We thought it was a wrong calibration issue from my joystick and after this didn't help, we thought that the game has still some bugs :)
Anyway soon after that I bought the full version and we spent hundreds of hundreds of hours flying il2 with my class mates (I convinced three other guys to fly with us) online after school.

My mate Eddie gave me a copy of IL2 in 2001, which I tried to play on the wife's laptop at very low settings. I flew the MiG 3 v FW189 mission about 350times before it twigged how to use airspeed to gain height. Shot the bugger down eventually though.

I used a really cheap joystick by saitek which folded up for convenience into a tube, and which had the throttle control on top of the stick.
Then I got Forgotten Battles and subsequently 1946, and finally got an internet connection at home (didn't feel the need before!), tried the online play at Ubi.com, which ran at about 3 fps.

I'd managed to scrounge a really bad IBM Pentium 4 workstation PC from work and upgraded it with some more RAM and a ATI 3850 512mb card (AGP). Didn't even know I'd need a new power supply, so just ran it as it was.
(I've still got the card, in it's original box, in pristine condition, if anyone wants it?!)

The play at Ubi.com led me to Hyperlobby in a very steep learning curve about conf.ini files and the alteration thereof.

Then I actually bought a pc of my very own from Dell, and then realised it wasn't good enough, and replaced the Nvidia GT220 with a ATI 5770. Then I realised that wasn't good enough either and bought a power supply and a GTX570.

This game has cost me a bloody fortune. I sometimes wish Eddie had never given me the damned game in the first place (not really!). :grin:

Sorry for boring you all!

2002 when i was working in a friends computer shop, one evening i was bored and said i want to play a WWII planes game, took il2 cause i remembered the amazing DM, in those times the only i knew it was visually amazaing, started that evening and stoped mostly after become a modder, and spent most time on java files than flying, and after CloD i never even install it again

For me, it was early 2003 or so...Oleg was like some type of guru to me. Tried to read all that he wrote, to get a sense of the future developement plans that he had in his mind...I don't mind saying that I miss him being with us, but I hope his child become's what he dreamed it would be.

I started with the Demo in August 2001. I flew online play right from the start as I had been doing for four years already with other sims. Pope Herr_Spay SR_Aces UHOH7 Joshua Willie Stigler Joshua Fritag those were the main guys I flew with to start with. Pope now Graf is the only one still around that I know of. Those were the days when everyone flew until your head hit the joystick. Sometimes I would hook up the VCR to the PC and record us. I still have those tapes. They're a panic to watch and listen to now. I have Graf on tape saying to me "I'm gettin the bleep away from you" in his Texas drawl...I had a habit of smashing into him on the runway. Other things like Herr_Spray screaming "AHH YA GOT ME HACKL" as he smashes into the ground. I was Hackl back then. Of course I ordered IL-2 way before it came out. When it did come out it came out a week earlier in the States than it did here in Canada. I actually thought about driving my beat up rusted out K car down to the States to get a copy. That thing was so rusted out your feet would get soaking wet if it rained. I thought better of it and suffered for a week. I can't remember the exact day Nov 27 2001 I'm pretty sure. Anyway I still have the big huge box it came in and the disk of course. Everyone downloaded the no disk crack so I'm guessing everyone's disk is in great shape. As the years went by I always kept up to date. I remember in the best years 2003 - 2004 you would see 1000 people in the Hyperlobby on a Saturday. On another note I remember watching the CFS3 movie online and thinking this Sim looks great. I brought it home installed it at took it back in a couple of hours. What a piece of crap and it probably out sells IL-2 100 to 1. I've converted two people from CFS2 over to IL-2 and one actually payed me threw paypal $30 for a case of beer the other one was thank you thank you thank you for a few days. As far as this one goes it's fine on my system and I know it will continue to improve. Eleven years and I'm still having a great time with IL-2.

December 2001.

I remember a guy who used to fly with his nickname was wanderfalke, he teached me how to fly the dora, also was the best dora pilot i ever see, remember the guy out turning spits with his dora amazing skills, that time was when i felt in love with the 190's series

il2 Poll
 

A bit different from some of the il2 grognards here! In May 11 stumbled across 46 in the bargain bin. Heard about these flight sims being difficult and the manic obsessive players it attracted. Wanted a change from Silent Hunter 3 - Grey Wolves so thought I would pick it up.

Wanted to fast track the learning curve and found Joint Ops while browsing. Signed up for their BFS. Great course and enjoyed the online experience. As I'm from Oz I decided to look for a local on-line outfit.

The July 11 CLoD patch came out and I just had to have it! Obviously by this time the bug had truly bitten me! Since then I've put on 400+ CLoD hrs and have all the miscellany - pedals, upgraded joystick, IR5, upgraded graphics card ...

Gunnery still sucks and the flying isn't that much better! But having a lot of fun with it.

Looking forward, like everyone, to the next CLoD patch. The vision of 1C looks far grander than any other title out there - inevitable that issues would arise. Frustrating for us punters but without some risk in development you will only achieve mediocrity!

I've flown it since the first leaked demo. Knew one of the beta testers who shared little bits of info with some of us who flew with her at the time. It seems that everyone knew about the demo leak as soon as it hit the net. At least as I remember it. I don't think I ever flew EAW again after flying the IL2 demo.

Since 09/2001 demo. Some pictures from these days.

First online kill, another 109, flown by "mr.bul".

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3...firmedkill.jpg

COOP with some friends, trying to take of in IL-2 with bombs and 100% of fuel. :P

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1763/grab0000u.jpg
The guy in IL-2 with german mark shot its cannons and the plane slid backwards (notice by a -shut- in dialogue), a big surprise!

A Riva TNT 16MB barely handly the game in 800x600.


Sokol1

I first played on a date with my girlfriend at the time back in college in 2003-4 at the EAA Museum, they were having a "Flight Sim Day" there. (She thought this was cool, lucky me :)

I knew from reading many reviews that IL2 and Forgotten Battles was THE ww2 flight sim to get, but I was in college and at the time had a mid 90s pc I bought at a garage sale for $50 as my web browsing/homework computer.

I got a low end Dell computer around 2004, which allowed me to at least play some pc games at lower specs. I went to Gamestop and saw IL2 Forgotten battles "Gold" that came with the Aces Expansion Pack, I bought it used for $15 bucks. What a deal.

I've been hooked ever since, even thought now I've moved on to CloD.

Geez been playing since 2006, a bit of a late comer by IL-2 standards, I got it after I purchased blazing Angels. and while I did find it fun it was a little shallow, it also triggered in me a need to find something with a little more depth.

I saw IL-2 w/ The Aces Expansion pack at EB bought it and it promptly blew me away, I'm still trying to "master" it. Frikin Awesome :)

Since about 6 months after the original release, my son introduced me to it and I still haven't forgiven him.

Rick

April, 2007.

sice 2001 :) atm not actively though

Got into the sim in February 2002, mostly flying arcade settings offline. May 2002 I first went online. June 2002 first squad training. July 2002 oficially entered online squad. From 2002 to 2007 flying mostly coops and online war sorties. Quit in september 2007 I think, when the game code got cracked.

Never really got to try those 1945 LW planes out in campaigns.

Around 500 online war sorties flown, supposedly ~700 overall, counting in generic coops and not more than 50 hours in dogfight servers.

I started to play the beta when it was officially distributed to testers

Ive been playing IL2 from the demo release. BTW, I was the one "responsible" for the negative G fix on early Zero (in official version of the game)....Oleg listened then...now you know it....

gday

Since it was published one year, or nearly so.:-P
I am talking of COD IL2 from the beginig the release date of the demo with the P39 flyable plane my first flight I sill remember...thanks the game team.:-)
My firstairgame simulation was 1942 Battlehawk from Lucasfilms a all new experience on my 286 Amstrad PC.;-)

For me since release. I've been a hardcore WWII combat sim junkie for years!
Was playing EAW, CFS2 and Rowans BOB prior to IL2 in 2001 and BOB II & CFS3 through the early/mid 2000s but I spent most of my time in IL2. Before that it was the wing commander, privateer and X-wing/star wars era. (Now just getting back into X universe and a new one called SOL Exodus which is a great indie space title thats even enjoyable with :shock: "mouse" :oops: .... anyway i digress...

BOB II wings of victory got me in for quite a while on the strategy side of things and the flying was "different" than IL2, having large formations and the like was completely different to IL2 and the BOB II WOV graphics was in some part better and others not... but I enjoyed all of them for the different nuances they brought to flying in a WWII sim.

Not that dissimilar to my enjoyment of COD for what it is now while still enjoying the odd 46 outing and time in WOP. They all offer differing nuances but it's COD that I still keep coming back to and have the greatest overall satisfaction in. Over time I believe COD will bring a lot of the best elements of all those early IL2 competitors, especially when the SDK is released and 3rd party development matures.

My current favourite SIM though is STO (star trek online), which I just couldnt get into on release but a couple years on its got a whole different feel and Im hoping just like STO, that COD will mature into something we all adore! :grin:

PS. An interesting tidbit of amusing information, SOL Exodus has a bunch of zealous religious extremists called The COD.... I kid you not! ;)

S!

Since beta..logged heaps of hours during the years until burned out on flight simming altogether. Took a break and now waking the interest again, but with less intensity as in the "crazy years" :eek:

Since the demo in 2001...downloaded to my laptop overnight and used to play a few sneaky single player games (with keyboard and mini mouse) during lectures.

Can't even remember how I first heard of IL2, never had any passion for flight sims before, but was hooked by the fact it was difficult to play at first, took me many attempts to take off successfully (again using keyboard and mouse only) and felt so rewarded just making a basic flight around a populated airfield (take-off, circuit and landing).

Bought my joystick (Cyborg Pro Evo) a year later and it's still serving me well.

S!

Tested in 2001/2002, but did not have proper machine to play it on any settings. Had no Internet connection so didn't know anything about the huge community it had created :-/

Tested PF when it got out, then I had a better machine of course so played some single player, but still no Internet connection :(

In 2008 when I got my first job, I talked about sims with my work buddy, he had similar interests so we decided to try and see what this online playing had to offer. Bam! We were in a squad and have been flying actively since then :)

-LLv34_Untamo

The same for me!!

ACE on Commodore C64:)

IL2 since demo

Hello!

My first experience of flight simulator was The Finest Hour The Battle of Britain in year 1990. Computer what I used then was AMIGA and if I remeber right I haven't joystic that I flew using keyboard and mouse. After that when I had PC I flew CFS1 and CFS2. Before IL2 I also flew Rowans Mig Alley and I started IL2 in the Winter 2002.
Since Winter 2002 I have flown all versions and mods of the IL2.

Half a dozen of us in the same squad quit from flying Warbirds and Dawn of Aces on-line and migrated over to fly IL2 Sturmovik when it came out. And never looked back!

Funniest thing I ever saw was in a Cross-country team race. It had no externals On and we had to land and search for clues to the next waypoint. We were in Corsairs I think, and had to all land in a Japanese town: the clue was located in a Japanese temple. One of us taxied up to the temple, folded the wings, and rolled inside, where the grid reference was to be found. He got it and we all wrote it down. Three of us (out of four) had taxied into side roads to keep the main road clear for him to take off first. He taxied out and rolled....and rolled.... and, just as he was saying "Jeez, I can't get any lift?" his plane hurtled past us with its wings still folded.

I'm ashamed to say that we three just hooted with laughter - my sides hurt just thinking about it - and our mate ended nose up in a rice paddy on the edge of the town. We lost our first place and came second overall - but we didn't care. It was just another Saturday afternoon spent having great fun with a bunch of friends from all over the world, in the best flightsim going

:eek:
Fantastic story, brando. And what creativity on the user`s side.

Easy to say I had the same laughs with me squadmates when one of us crashed into the whole flight in front of him - that`s what TrackIR does to people;)

A POLE: How long have you been flying IL-2

nop, il2 nop, only all version 109, yak, 162, D-9, early p51 and hellcat

jej
i change the old flanker 2.0-2.5 (mig-29, sukhoi27) in 2003-2004 for il-2

I cant remember the year but probably 2001, i remember playing the original IL-2 on my friends pc whenever i went to his house. Then in 2007 i bought IL-2 Forgotten Battles and Pacific Fighters and then shortly after i bought 1946. Modded the heck out of it and loved playing it. Safe to say most of us here are veteran IL-2 Pilots ;D

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.

Since um, about June 2011, lol.

Yeah, I'm a latecomer to the series.
My first sim was FSX I got for Christmas 2010.

Since demo days. I was into Rowans BoB at that time, but was getting annoyed of it, as official support seized and you had to fiddle with many thing to get the thing working.

Was blasted away because Il-2 worked out of the box and immediatly joined a online squad of former Warbirds veterans. First time I discovered online-gaming. A blast.

I`m still member of said squad, however I quit flying Il-2 a few years ago, as I didn´t have enough time to be more than a target.

I still hope, CLOD will bring back that old times again. Some day.

IL-2 Demo in the Summer of 2001 is the first time I flew online with a combat flight sim. The addiction was instant! And the money started falling out of my product. Hardware upgrades, multiple Flight setups before finally spending the money on CH Products and TIR. From 2001-2008 every thing I did to my PC had to do with IL-2.

LOL you're right. I fixed it in the first message to make things clear.

eaah.. i think since 2002 (first sturmovik :-) )

2002.

I started in late 2010 with IL-2 1946.

Had been playing CFS 1 about 8 years ago. And of course FS 2004 a bit.

So I'm a big newbe to flight simming.

Since original B17 game (and the board game version before that)Il2 since the begining and EAW,Flanker .

I join the "Since demo" club :). The first information I've read, was in the PC Format magazine. iirc was around 2000. At the end of 2002 I joined to the VO101, i never forget the bloody VEF 2 battles over the East-Front :cool: Since then, it is the only game that all the time is installed on my PC (even if my squadron is quite scattered, and only a few times started since i bought the clod...)

Another demo club member here. :grin:

I ran the demo when it was first released way back when, but my PC at the time could only run it on the lowest setting so I went back to WWII Fighters. I next picked up Pacific fighter on the day it hit the shops in my home town and haven't looked back.

I have only played a handful mission in the original series since COD was released. Onwards and Upwards, there is no going back! (Though I must say I'm missing the Mosquito)


Cheers!

Since 2003, a gift from my mother
My first online flight was in the ubi.com, i just flew bf-109 f2 (in honor of the German pilot Max Helmut Ostermann), and was shot down many times before downing a "rata."
I leave here a tribute to all those who shared victories and defeats, and those who unfortunately are no longer with us.
Salut!

I only had dial-up in 2001, so I couldn't download the demo. I bought IL2 when it was first released, and what a revelation after WWII fighters and Screaming Demons Over Europe. I especially loved the damage modelling, and just the feeling of flight.

Every upgrade I've done to subsequent PCs has been to squeeze as much performance out of the IL-2 series, including COD.

First flight sim - Aviator for the BBC Micro, back in 1984.

Started playing Il-2 with the release of the demo. Joined a squad in 2004 and we kept playing until 2008.
Interest started to drop for most of us then, also due to mod packs incompatibility between us and other squads we were playing with.

Started playing ROF at the end of 2009 and CLOD when it came out.

On hiatus with flight sims since the beginning of the year, waiting for the next patch.

Enjoying other games ATM, I even re-installed SHIII and I'm having a blast sinking ships all over the Atlantic :P

"Waves Demo Club Card"

Have been following IL2 development back then for over a year after seeing the very first screenshots in a games mag.

http://images.idgentertainment.de/im...27131/300x.jpg
This is one of those =)

I think back then Il2 was supposed to be published not by UBI, but Blue Byte.
Oleg regularily posted on the UBI forums and was open to Q&A's, good times.
Wondered if IL2 had birds coming from the trees like in Red Baron 3D and smoke on the runway upon landing and take off. Talk about priorities, lol. Back then it was still and only about the IL2 as a flyable.

Then the demo came out, and with it this darn mission where you had to hunt that 88 in the storm. Taking of the P39 required a whole new level of expertise. Never looked back from that day on.

I found some pictures. Dev update pictures from 1999 :cool:

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...1999//il-3.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...1999//il-4.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...999//il2-2.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...999//il2-5.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...999//il2-6.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...999//il2-7.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...9//il2-mig.jpg

Demo (or 1.0?)
http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...//il2-2001.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...bf109-2001.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...-ju87-2001.jpg

http://www.pcpilot.hu/images/stories...-ju88-2001.jpg

I bought the DVD IL 2 demoversion in a Gamers magazin in 2001?
I jumped from the Red Baron II Cockpit into the new Sim. Amazing terrific. But I had to by a new PC first, as I did when COD came out.

Yeah, I can remember these pics! I couldn't believe it at that time. Good, I was still so young ;)

Flown it since the demo.My Squad at the time(No74(v)Squadron)moved from EAW,great game and great community to fly IL2.
Squad im in now http://www.tangmerepilots.co.uk/ are waiting for it to get ironed out before we move over to it.
Cheese

Flying IL-2 since Release in 2001.

I've played ( & still play on a Dark Blue World setup)the original Il-2 since 2001 when the first rave review came in in the magazine Flight Journal...so from the beginning & it has meant several$$$$ in upgrades & new PCs too, esp when the Mods really started to fly 2or 3 years ago...
More to the point for this forum ( & since the CloD sim will tell you at startup..) I have more tham 1100 ofline hours on CloD,fun, frustrating hours on a low FPS (20-25 max,3-4 min) PC.Boy am I looking forward to the next patch!
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...226_120836.jpg