The Fugitive - understand your concern on the risk of offering 'free' could result in even fewer subscriptions. That said, if 'flying limited planes for free' is risky, you have to admit that it hooked hundreds of thousands of subscribers to War Thunder.
Free for limited for select early war airplanes, and expanded is $15 a month for 'all in', it's way cheaper than War Thunder - which is a great selling feature for us here at HTC.
I would give the freebies the P-40B, Spit I, Bf-109E-4, Hurricane I, C202, I-16, and the A6M2 Zero. That basically covers all countries relevant in WWII - American, British, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian aircraft.
And i would actually let them into the MA.
- Let them SEE the Fw-190D9 fly past them.
- Let them see a B-17 bomber formation take off or B-29's fly overhead
- Let them see tank wars on the ground as they fly around
- Let them take off from a carrier and see the cruiser pound an airfield with their 8" guns and the AAA open up on enemy aircraft.
- Let them see what the game can do while they're stuck in their early war ride
...and then we get to speak to them over air and in range. And that is where we hook them into signing up for the full package. If they don't bite, they would never be a customer anyway.