Was a WarBirder back in WB2 days, was a member of the "Volunteers" (non-historical squad in the Historical Arena) and ran Grupul 7 Vanatoare for a short while in the MA and scenarios (about 6 months, up til I left). I left when WarBirds III came out, I hated it in beta and didn't see it getting any better. Left even though I had been offered a CM slot. I thought it was getting THAT bad.
Personally, I absolutely loved the Rolling Planeset, its one of the things I miss the most. Everytime the set moved up, you would haver a new "uberplane" (or at least uber compared to what was out previously), and for those of us who refused to fly uber rides, it was a good challenge. For example, the first day or two with the SpitV, 109F, and 190A, those planes would rule the sky- until a day or two later, when the plane that was put into service to counter them IRL became available, then the balance would shift back. As the "war" progressed, increasingly the balance would swing toward the Allies as planes like the Pony came out (last few days, that was all you saw). Personally I flew 109s almost exclusively, and once the G6 came out, that was all you would see me in.
The other thing I really miss about them is that in the WWII arena, it was Axis vs Allies. You didn't have these silly SpitV vs PonyD vs La7 fights, and you also didn't have the somewhat bizarre (at least in my opinion) situation of of being and buff-busting, B-24 and Lanc killing machine... in a P-38. Early on, the Axis would have a pretty good set, with the Ju88 and Stuka (which is actually a pretty effective plane in an all 1940 arena), Val, Betty and Kate. Then once the American Heavies started to come on, the balance swung to them and never came back- much like IRL. I miss the historical matchups something fierce, but I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that we'll never have them.
And I have to say, if one of your major gripes about a
WWII flight sim is that your plane doesn't have in flight radar, then you've been flying AH way too long.
But I have to say, for the major things I miss about WB- and the things I don't like about AH- I wouldn't go back. It used to ba, way back when, that I tried AH and went right back to WB without a second thought. Then it was a tossup between the two. Now AH wins hands down. for all its (IMO) shortcomings, its still the best package out there.
