I was playing Chuck Yeagers Air Combat offline on my brand new Mac. My wife's BIL was over and said that he flew in AW and what fun it was. So, I got myself up and flying in AW Mac version. I spent about a week looking for him before I realized he had a PC. I spent about 6 months flying the Mac version before I got a PC. That's when things really started ! I played AW from then on until EA killed it. I spent time with several squads (ASB, AIF, Motley Aces, Sky something, and ended in +KIC+ (Knights of the Iron Cross). It was a rollicking good time.
After AW died, I tried AH but it wasn't what I hoped it would be. Nothing wrong with it mind you, but I was hoping for an identical AW. That wasn't happening. I flew FA for a short while then I went to Warbirds for about a year and then stopped flying altogether. In the meantime I started playing Delta force with some of my work friends (Army helicopter unit), then I moved on to FPS (Day of Defeat, Battlefield1942, COD...blah, blah, blah).
Back in September/October 2013 I found War Thunder, and dusted off the joystick...which wouldn't work since I no longer had a gameport (it also was analog, so no adapter either), I picked up a nice cheap joystick on ebay, and began flying again in earnest. Once I was flying again the memories came flooding back and being a touch nostalgic, I came back to AH to look for my old flying buddies. War Thunder is pretty, but the gameplay is awful. I like the teamwork I learned in AW, and that is what I see here. Now to just pony up the monthly tab and things will be good again.