[ScousePilot]

Im pretty sure this has happens to everyone,

you spend 20 mins flying to where you are suposed to destroy a ship or what ever,
and as you start your attack run, the AA opens up, and 2 seconds later, they have blow your
wing off and you are now spiraling into the great blue ocean....

is there a way to save just before this happens so one doesnt have to start all the way back up....

[WhoDatNotSayin]

The short answer is no there isn't.

IL-2 wasn't written to do this, and modifying it, either officially via the source code, or unofficially via a mod, would probably be to complex an operation to be worthwhile attempting.

I'm not sure I'd want a feature like this anyway - it would be too tempting to take unnecessary risks, knowing you could just restore your last save if you got shot down.

[Bearkiller72]

While being no modder meself, I have to agree to Whodatnotsayin', that creating a mod or function like this,
is some major undertaking, since you'd have to track every movement of all actors in the mission you were playing,
capturing them, the moment you pressed "save" and then bring all of them back to life again, the moment you
reloaded the scene.

This might work for linear gameplay shooters, with lots of static scripted scenes.
But not with Sturmovik. In shooters, the area of movement is pretty cramped, because on foot you don't go 300mph.
Also, you'll always end up at the same scripted scenes, meeting a "boss".
But you don't in Sturmovik. You have larger areas, much more objects and you change position in 3D a lot,
quite a lot to "remember" for a logging function, and a lot to load, if wanted.

Or to say, a lot for the game engine to be re-initialized.

Perhaps there's "Quik-Save" for SOW?