Here's one thing I've not seen suggested before:

Could SoW have airfield controllers who signal to aircraft with coloured lights and flares?

Back in the old days before reliable radios and heavy traffic, it was common to signal to aircraft by shining directional coloured lights at them, or with coloured flares - flashing green meant 'clear for takeoff', red means 'don't land' or something. I'm hoping, given the importance of RAF Fighter Command's state-of-the-art command and control system, that SoW will have a revolutionary Controller AI anyway, but it would be great to have these historic communication methods included.

And flares are basically cheap fireworks and look cool.

great idea !

i was thinking along similar lines recently, to try and look at aspects of ww2 flight simulation that would make it more realistic and immersive.

flairs for takeoff would be kool, partic when a squadron has to scramble on an interception mission. or when a group of bombers can start its takeoff run.

another good use of flares would be to "wave off" somebody who comes in for a landing while the runway is busy with somebody taking off (as occured in real life). this could easily be implemented.

when we come in for landing in dogfight servers we should also be expected to notify the tower before landing (unless radio damaged etc), and the tower should give us wind direction and preferred approach for landing. small things like that would turn the total chaos we have now into some kind of organised chaos

and we need smoke marking of targets, either dropped by aircraft or to request nearby friendly troops to shoot smoke grenades to mark a target area.

Yeah, the airfield controller would use flares or coloured lights to give signals 'clear to take off', 'clear to land', 'not clear to land', 'get the heck off the runway', 'go away we are closed' etc.

Yes...flares where used when a pilot was trying to land without lowering his gear....it would have saved quite a few aircraft I've landed.

+1, would do my crate good from time to time too.

If you ask it IL2 already tells you if the runways obstructed so I'd think the flares for go around would be quite easy to implement. Flares for no gear would also be a nice feature.

"Suddenly, a ‘finger-four’ flight of RAF Mustangs, flown by ATA pilots, arrived overhead and broke for a stream landing. As each Mustang turned onto final approach, I checked the wheels were down and gave a ‘green light for landing clearance. Numbers One and Two touched down in turn and cleared to the right, off the runway and across the grass towards the dispersal point. Number three landed, but instead of turning off the runway, it made a 180-degree turn on the runway and started to backtrack into the landing path of Mustang Number Four. I grabbed the Verey pistol, cocked it and, with one finger in my ear, squeezed the trigger. A loud bang, and a bright red flare arched into the sky, to be answered by the roar of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, as Mustang Number Four applied full power for the overshoot. ‘Paddy’ arrived, breathless, up the steps to greet a new, shaking Airfield Controller after his first ‘experience’. There would be many more to come."

From http://www.catcs.co.uk/ppete.htm

Thank's for that Dozer. For me that settles it, flares have to be in