Hi, First of all congrats on picking what I think is the BEST flight sim ever. Please once you get ver 1.2 installed, look up the IL2 Forgotten Battles website for more patches. There is the Ace Expansion Pack which is available in stores (I got mine at MediaPlay), and since that release, there have been 2 patches for it. Again, those can be found on the UBI's Forgotten Battles site.
IL2 skins.com is an excellent source of skin downloads for the planes in the game. You will need an extracting program like WinZip to download them. IL2 skins also has a links button where you can start to "expand your horizons" as far as looking into the vastness of the FB community.
Also, if your pretty adept at flying already, look into IL2 Air Racing.com for the racing aspect of the game. I am a member of that community and we hold races on Friday and Saturday for official points. (The winner at the end of the year basically gets bragging rights). If your interested in that, contact the site admin to register and pick out a racing number.
Someone mentioned Hyperlobby. Excellent choice for online gaming. I usually go down in flames myself as the competion can be quite good.
Last but not least before I bore you to death (LOL), There is a sqadron page on UBI 's forums for anyone looking to join a virtual squadron. There are many great squads to pick from depending on what your preferences are. If you join one, you will probably need to download either Teamspeak, Ventrillo, or Roger Wilco so you can talk to your squad members while in-flight.
I hope I haven gotten too windy on this, but I get excited and want to help any new people along that want to get into Forgotten Battles. If you have any questions, dont hesitate to post a message. IF you join Hyperlobby, I go by AWL_Dixie. The AWL is for Allied Wing Legion which is a virtual squad that I am a member of. I go by the same name on the air racing servers.
Again, hope I havent bored you and welcome to the best flying community and flight sim, IL2 FB.
Oh yeah, just one more word... UBI is fixing on a new flight sim for FB called Pacific Fighters which will probably be release sometime next spring. It promises to have lots of carrier action as well.
Best regards, DixieChick