PapaG, I'd go with the career beta-all of my flying's done in it.
You do need an internet connection but heck, you're here so we know that's good.
It's really simple, click on Career Beta, pick a side, pick a plane and pick an airfield. After that go to options and do the fine-tuning as to how you want to set up your plane. The neat thing is you can have a bunch of pilots "created" at the same time so you can fly different aircraft at different times during the war and you can fly for both sides-all at the same time.
After you've created the pilots, you click on career, pick the pilot you want to fly as and go flying. The missions are created for you and your duty is to try and complete the mission-and survive!

The cool thing is that after you've set up things with your pilot, the only options are how much fuel you'll carry, bombs (if you're aircraft can carry them!) and what you want your aircraft to look like (skin) so you can start flying RIGHT NOW! Another neat feature of the career is that you'll be flying against enemies that are flying aircraft from the same time period so you won't be flying an SE-5 against a Fokker Eindecker!!! You'll be assigned many different types of missions like covering a couple of recon birds, patrol the front, attack balloons, attack anything that moves ( :D), well you get the picture!
Until you get promoted to a leadership position, you'll be flying as a member of the flight-when you're promoted you'll eventually lead the flight.
As you progress through the career, you'll get promoted and you'll receive commendations for your success and "bravery". It really is easy to set up and once you've done it a couple of times you can create a new pilot in nothing flat. Once they're created, you start the game, pick the pilot and go fly-the sim takes care of the rest.
Give it a try, I think you'll really like it. If you have any questions, drop us a line here!
