So do you have a 'twist' action on the handle? If so, you can assign that to the rudder controls or as the Alternate control for A and D (in BF2/OFP). Now if you 'twist' (rudder) the stick in the same direction you are turning (aileron + elevator or left/right + up/down) you will turn harder, faster and smoother bring enormous accuracy to your flying in both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Now you can influence the craft on 3 axes simultaneously, something that, although doable, is extremely irritating to try via the keyboard (in my opinion!).
I think F4: Allied Force will be near enough full retail price on release so will probably only appeal to simnuts. It depends on what you want. If you want to learn a lot about and really experience military aircraft and operations then F4 has no equal. It's multiplayer dynamic campaign is simply awesome and second to nothing in the world! (outside of CIA/NORAD at least
). A good place to visit, particularly for the forums, is
http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/index.php? which has a varied and very active global sim community.
Just called a friend who works for GAME and he says Sep. 16th for F4: Allied Force in the UK.
http://www.simhq.com/_air5/air_160a.html
Some 'warm fuzzy feeling' reading about the upcoming F4:AF release!
http://hyperfighter.sk/modules.php?n...showpage&pid=5
"HyperLobby (or just HL) is an online gaming lobby primarily designed to support online flight simulation and other online games." - have used to play IL-2/PF online.
I've played most space sims games a bit X, Starlancer, Freelancer, Xwing/Tie, Edge of Independence (I think, green cover), hmm, I played the original Elite on C64 (no agist remarks please
) but I dont get the sense of speed in space that you do 200ft over terra firma at Mach 1.2+
One last thing ( I promise) forget B-17 Flying Fortress. If you want to experience that WW2 gaming, load up IL-2 fully patched and select one of many bombers. You can then allocate human crew members in either LAN or online who man the turret guns, pilot/copilot seats and bombardier sight. This is truly awesome with good players. I've not done it online myself but have done several LAN session in multi-crewed bombers - it r0x - but it's hard on realistic
!
hope this helps!