Welcome MartinDavies! PE is worth having for scenery improvements alone. For me it runs slightly smoother than UE, too. Rear gunners vary in alertness. Sometimes you'll get a great one, other times, not.
Once you get comfortable with things, come join us in a DiD campaign (see sticked post in the forum). That is campaign mode with a bunch of us sticking to the same flying dates and comparing stories. Closest you'll get to MMP campaigns with this old bird