Got the Stormovik in turn 9 and was able to use it in turn 11.
So manually saving the game when leaving for the day, did the trick - a greate thx to adie for telling me this

Moderator: Panzer Corps 2 Moderators
Glad to help. Make it a habit of doing it at the beginning of each scenario whether you plan to continue to play or not. That's what I started to do some time ago and why I probably forgot all about that glitch!
The main benefit of the Il-2 is that it's got nearly identical bombing stats (I believe only 1 point less Soft Attack) to your Ju87s and a much greater Air Attack and Air Defense, allowing it to defend itself against enemy fighters much better than your mostly defenseless Ju87s.
Kerensky has stated several times in various threads that they are working on trying to make sure that one of PC1's biggest issues; the lack of enough Prestige in later parts of the Grand Campaign requiring you to hoard Prestige in early missions or fail; won't be a problem in Panzer Corps 2.