I've been very impressed so far, actually. There's not much content yet, but the quality of the available content is excellent.
Most importantly, the flight model physics "feels" quite good, although I never flew the LaGG-3 much in IL-2 so I can't really say how exactly it compares. I only did brief flight testing so far, but here's what I've found:
-in unaccelerated stalls (flying straight and level, 1g of loading, pulling nose up more and more with engine on low power until stall occurs), one of the wings drops gently and the aircraft pitches down. The wing can be either, it's quite gentle movement and easily recoverable. The aircraft feels slightly more massive than on 1946.
-in accelerated stalls (more than 1g of load, usually in a turn) the stall seems to happen slightly before it does in 1946 in clean configuration (didn't test with flaps yet) so the aircraft feels maybe a tad bit less maneuverable than in 1946. Like with the unaccelerated stall, typically one of the wings stalls first, but my turns were not perfectly coordinated so either of the wings could stall. You hear quite audible buffeting of the airflow at the onset of the stall and if you reduce angle of attack you won't stall at all. The LaGG-3 doesn't seem to be very prone to tip-stalling or spinning out of control (although I did plow it to the ground from a too low Split-S when it just wouldn't pull up).
-Even though trim controls are not operational yet, the aircraft tends to fly quite straight and true as far as rudder trim is considered. The "ball" requires far less rudder inputs to stay at the center than it does in IL-2, where not only engine torque but the speed of the aircraft can change the required yaw trim substantially.
-In general the aircraft feels more "present" and massive than most planes in 1946. Engine doesn't have overheating simulated yet, but water radiator and oil radiator cowling can be opened independently from each other and they have a simulated effect on the aerodynamics.
-Hangar menu is the slowest part of the game, and for some reason does not have proper anti-aliasing implemented. With my PC, the menu runs at 30-40 FPS.
-in-game performance is
excellent, and the lack of anti-aliasing is confined to the hangar graphics. Edges are smooth, my PC gives me a steady 60 FPS most of the time and I'm happy with that.
-in crashes, the aircraft deformed into separate pieces quite nicely. I'll need to perform more crash testing to see if the deformation is truly dynamic (although that feature may be added in later).
-so far, the simulation of the aircraft's systems is not quite on the level of Cliffs of Dover (not to mention DCS P-51D) but I expect the features to change as the development proceeds. For example, there's no discrete magnetos and the starter switch only has two positions - engine on or engine off. Variometre (VSI) is not working on the LaGG control panel either (maybe some Soviet aero techie forgot to plug it in). I'm sure VVS pilots had instrument failures or simply had to fly with partial panel from time to time.
I've had a few program crashes but nothing that I didn't expect from an early access version. It's a good flight simulator already, fun to fly the LaGG-3 around, environment is really beautiful and it'll only get better as they add content and features.
Just waiting to see what kind of modding possibilities this game will offer when it's fully released... I'm sure everyone here agrees that will be one of the crucial points that determine the lifeline of a game/simulation like this.
Waiting for good things to happen.