I spent a lot of hours in Il 2: Pacific Fighters, then Il 2: 1946. The canned missions were "ok", but the series was best when flying in an online squadron. Much to the dismay of my wife, and one of the reasons I ceased participation with the series, I spent many Friday and Saturday nights flying. Starting around 9 PM my local time and flying for 3 or 4 hours. The advent of Scorched Earth Online War was a game changer. Now, each mission really counted and the squadron really needed every member to participate at a 100% attendance level. Near the end of my squadron flying days I ended up being the squadron's maintenance officer. Every week I would create and distribute new aircraft skins for the members, the new skins reflecting repaired damage and added mission and victory markings and sometimes a factory fresh skin to replace a crashed aircraft. It became all-consuming and I had to make a decision. Real life won the battle and I have not clicked the launch button since. Good memories and a whole bunch of mission tracks are still stored away.