I wanted to revisit something from my full review of Korea IL-2 Series because when I review something I frequently keep on playing it. Especially with something that is so core to my flight sim interests. Career mode for IL-2 Series is a little different than before in which you’re a squadron commander of a unit. You’re in charge of the day to day options and it means that you do a little logistics, as much flying as you want, and you can really dig into that experience. I’ve really been enjoying it and I wanted to write more about that.

Meet my pilot

My second dedicated Korea squadron career experience comes on the heels of my first F-80C squadron experience.

This time around I elected to fly the MiG-15bis which I’ve been getting quite a bit of stick time in with both online and offline battles. I wasn’t expecting to take a liking to the Soviet designed jet fighter initially, however, I’ve found it fun to fly and simple to operate. It is probably the best performing aircraft in the series at present, though its closely matched in most respects by the F-86 (a future Career series will absolutely see me in the Sabre, you can count on that).

My career mode pilot for this career is Sung-Jin Yoo, Commander 59th IAP KPAF, and so far I’ve wracked up 19 victories with the commander while flying the MiG-15bis on a series of missions.

Time availability

One of the biggest problems I have these days is finding the time for lengthy flight sim ops. I still want to have fun and crank out a mission or two and feel like I did something. So one of the first things that I really appreciate in IL-2 Series is the new time skip feature. Its not specific to Career mode but it plays out most often here and it means that I can skip tens of minutes of flying on autopilot while looking at my phone while I wait for us to traverse the distance to the action area.

So instead of flying no missions, now I have the possibility of sneaking in a quick 20-30 minute sortie between other things going on. That’s a complete sortie with a takeoff, combat area, and return to base. A few missions have gone on longer but this has been the average and its been just right in a lot of cases.

Managing the squadron

Some of you don’t like this feature, and that’s fine, but I love managing the squadron. Some things like managing promotions I find a bit tedious (and the UI could be a little better here I think) but I really enjoy keeping the squadron topped up with pilots and aircraft. When one of them is injured and away from the unit or their aircraft is under repair, it means redoing the squadron roster a bit until I have a combat effective unit again.

While the resources constraints are often of limited impact they still do matter. Not having enough fuel or having the fuel destroyed in a surprise enemy raid, does have some level of impact preventing missions and reducing your combat effectiveness.

Selecting the missions to fly I also find interesting enough. Jumping between standing patrols and bomber interception is what most MiG-15 missions were like and so there is a historical accuracy here even if the mission types are a bit repetitive (more on that in a bit). There have been a few outliers including a few escort missions including one long distance bomber strike that I helped protect.

The other piece that I’m finding fun with this is that you do get a chance to engage in some customization and, better yet, those customizations have some consistency to them.

My MiG-15bis, number 100, was painted with a dull green colour for the first few missions. That was fine, though, uninspiring. So, I used my powers as squadron leader to choose a more engaging camo pattern and add an emblem to the airplane while I was at it.

As the victories piled up, so did the stars on the side of the airplane which is another new IL-2 Series feature.

All of this helps make me feel like MiG-15bis 100 is actually “my airplane” in a way that I’ve not had with the IL-2 Sturmovik series previously and I really like that.

You can also customize your wingmen airplanes. I haven’t bothered to do that for most of them, however, I have done it for my wingman: Sohn. His MiG-15bis was number 101 and I marked it up similarly to mine. Unfortunately, that aircraft was damaged and struck off the register and he now has an unpainted 110 that belongs to him. I could change it but there’s a narrative here that I also kind of like to see.

The missions

I’m having a lot of fun with all of this but there is a problem. While bomber interception and standing patrols are part and parcel to the kinds of operations that MiGs flew the missions themselves are lacking in variety. I’m finding most of my interceptions versus B-29s, which haven’t gotten old yet for me I must say, are largely the same style of mission intercepting bombers over the sea and dealing with a small formation of just four aircraft and an additional four escorts. Larger formations would be great but so too would the interception points.

Similarly the standing patrols are almost entirely the same mission each time. It’s randomly generating them so its not exactly the same but the number of times that I’ve intercepted F-84s striking a frontline target while F-86s provide cover is approaching 100%. The mission type, a frontline target hunt, is fun but it doesn’t vary enough and that does hurt the experience.

I’ve chosen instead to focus on the duration of the campaign (I’m now over 10% complete) with the goal of trying to live as long as I can rather than worry about the variety of missions. That’s not going to work for some of you, however, for the moment its keeping me engaged.

Its a marathon rather than a sprint and there is at least some variation mission to mission at a personal pilot level.

In one mission I ended up burning through too much fuel in the combat zone so my MiG-15bis ran out of fuel and landed short of the airfield (by just a couple of kilometers). I was worried my prized 100 would be written off but it was back in the squadron after about a week.

In another, my jet was hit by a B-29 gunner, and everything was fine until I tried to land. The gear deployed but the flaps refused to deploy, the air brake eventually did but only reluctantly and then the nose gear collapsed on the ground after taxiing the aircraft. See the damage overview to get a sense of what the errant .50cal did.

These have all been memorable moments in the career adding to the tension and the narrative.

Final thoughts

While IL-2 Series Korea still has some serious work ahead of it on some core items, that hasn’t stopped me from finding ways to be entertained by the new sim and I really have gotten sucked into the squadron commander experience that is part of the sim.

It needs more varied missions and it needs the AI to become more competent friends and foes to stand the test of time, however, I’m still making my way through the experience flying missions when I can. With the combination of simple yet interesting mechanics and the potential to fly short 20-30 minute missions when I have time, this career experience works great with my sometimes hectic schedule.

I’m having a great time with it right now. We’ll see how long this career experience goes on for before I either make a mistake and lose my pilot or perhaps I’ll finish the war out with a lengthy list of victories. See how it goes!