With all of the WW2 era air combat rules out there, why do we play Mustangs? The primary answer is that we need to be able to do a group game and not have to spend a few hours explaining how to play to those who aren't that interested in air combat gaming. Mustangs is simple to set up and get players immersed into the system as it uses a series of maneuver markers to regulate movement. Combat and altitude are dealt with easily as well, so even someone new to the game can be flying multiple aircraft in less than 15 minutes. This enable us to sometimes have over 20 aircraft on the board and still finish in around 3-4 hours, which is perfect for game nights.WW2 Air Combat Over Europe
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From the English Channel to Germany
Most of our group at one time or another has been involved with air combat gaming. From the early days in the 70s playing Richtofen's War or Blue Max to Mustangs today, air combat has always been one of our most popular periods to game. Many of us started out with boardgames, moved to 1/72nd scale aircraft, then finally to 1/300th miniatures for our games. Along the way we've found what works, what we don't like to play, and how to run large group games with a lot of aircraft on the table. At this time we have enough aircraft to do German raids in 1940 either over the English Channel or England itself, bomber raids deep into Germany in 1945, fighter sweeps, and are working on other theaters for the future. 
A favorite game is where we run a "Gimmicks of the Luftwaffe" scenario where a stream of B-17s escorted by P-51s and P-38s gets bounced by the Germans flying every kind of experiemental design they ever made. This generates a lot of excitement and fun for the group as you get to see what these unusual aircraft might have done if the war went on past spring of 1945. Despite this being one of our most popular periods we usually only play it around twice a year. As we move into other theaters such as the Pacific or East Fornt, hopefully this will change!
The aircraft you see in the images are a mix of 1/285th and 1/300th from GHQ, CinC, Scotia, and Ros-Heroics/Navwar. The B-17s are die-cast toys sold through various sites. The ships are 1/600th kits from the old Airfix line plus some from the coastal series by Skytrex. Mats are fabirc with the hex corners painted in by hand with acrylic paint. We use five inch hexes as you sometimes need to have multiple aircraft in the same hex. Future plans are to make some winter hex mats, a Pacific island mat, and a desert mat for WW2 actions in North Africa and it can also be used dual purpose for Arab-Israeli Wars or Persian Gulf scenarios with the Phantoms rules where necessary.