Il-Sturmovik has ruled the virtual skies of WWII these past eight years, and quite justifiably so, since it´s simply the best at what it does.
You will never run out of things to do: with the mission editor you can fly for any side in the war, easily choosing plane and mission-type and customizing payload with a few mouse-clicks. There are also dynamic campaigns for all the major theaters of war, from the frozen gulf of Finland to the sun-bathed beaches of the pacific. And perhaps best of all: the difficulty can be intricately tailored to suit you play-style.
Installing the game and all of its expansions, patches and addons used to be a pain in the ass, but 1946 contains all IL-2 games and expansions to date and integrates them all effortlessly into one humongous package pre-patched to the latest version. That´s only what you see at a glance, though. Scratch deeper and you will find a wealth of modifications, solid multiplayer and much more.
To sum it up: Never in history have so many gotten so much gameplay, for so little money.