Western Front map improvements and the release of the Sopwith Snipe Collector Plane for IL-2 Great Battles are the headlining features of update 5.004. A nice early Christmas present for those waiting on both of those items along with dozens of other updates including new built in missions for the StuG III and Churchill Mark IV. Good news for all!

Snipe and more!

The Sopwith Snipe’s inclusion into the Flying Circus aircraft set as a Collector Plane is an interesting moment. Its the first aircraft to be added to the set that was not previously a part of Rise of Flight. Everything up to now has been an upgraded example of something that was already in the previous sim while this model is new to the series.

The Snipe is something of a late war rarity but I suspect its going to be quite a bit of fun to fly and master. It’s the spiritual successor to the Sopwith Camel and it features a 234 horsepower rotary engine – up just over 100 hp from the Camel’s engine. Very curious to see how this handles!

There’s a video of it in action that you can also watch.

The other big headliner is the Western Front. Released in the last update, it’s already seen dozens of improvements including added airfields, moved airports, added bridges and points of interest, corrected railroads, renamed airfields and locations, and more. Great to see improvements being made to this map!

Among the other notes for this update, new scenarios have been added for the Churchill Mark IV and StuG III. Both of these Collector Vehicles were crying out for something to do with them in single player and so I’m very excited to eventually check those things out.

The full list of updates is here.