CFS3 has been out since 2002. Advanced as it was at the time (similar to how far ahead FSX is now) the rig you've got will be more than capable of handling it.
You can take off and land the planes. In all versions of CFS you start the mission on the runway. You can choose whether to land though as you do get a debrief option on completion of all the mission goals. This will take you to the debrief screen and skip the landing. However you can ignore this prompt, or cancel it and land by yourself.
Online is quite complicated. The aircraft avaliable are strictly limited by what the host has on his computer. So any addons that the host has will be avaliable in the match as long as the game isn't set to stock aircraft only. If you have an aircraft that the host doesn't have then you won't be able to use it. Also, the game recognises different aircraft by the .dp or weapons file. So if there have been any changes to that then it will become a different aircraft in the eyes of the game and won't be avaliable for multiplayer games unless the host has exactly the same tweek to his aircraft.
How the campaigns in CFS3 work is you create a character who you will be for the duration of the campaign. The campaign map is most of western europe, England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany etc. Also, the campaign is not made up of pre made missions. You select an area of the front line which is shown on the map and you will be given a list of missions and targets. Select one and a mission will be generated. Depending on the importance of the target you will effect the war effort to various lengths. For example, destroying a convoy of ships will generally have little effect. Attacking an artillery position or squadron of tanks may cause the front line to move forwards. Attacking an several armaments factorys will cause the enemy to run low on supplys and weapons which will increase the chances of any offences undertaken by your side. You can fly for either Britain, America or Germany and the campaign lasts from between 1943 and the end of the war or 1947, which ever comes first.
On top of that there are also single, prefabricated missions to fly, plus a free flight and quick combat mode.
3rd party addons may seem slim at first. However there are a few huge freeware expansions that you can install which are basically stand alone sims run off CFS3 as a base. There is a Korean version, I forget it's official title. Then there's Over Flanders Fields which is WWI based. And finally, there is MAW. Med Air War, the first part of which will hopefully be released around christmas time. As I said, these are massive expansions and are freeware. After M$ decided to axe the CFS series it was left to the freeware community to produce CFS4 by themselves and I believe that MAW will come pretty close to doing that.
Aside from that there are numerous freeware aircraft, missions, skins, effects etc to download. Mostly from
www.avhistory.org,
www.sim-outhouse.com and
www.groundcrewdesign.comRegardless of the bad press CFS3 got when it was released I, and may others believe it to be the finest combat flight sim avaliable and is well worth getting.
