Try to be a bit more tactful with your questions: you may not get the answer you want, but you will promote more interesting conversations than "WHEN WILL THIS BE DONE??? YOU MOST MAKE ESTIMATE!!!" ...Well, you get the idea...
Atmospheric combat is closer than you think in FSO. A few released mods have it (I've been told TBP has it, though I've not seen it in action), and several projects in development are using simplified flight mechanics (an X-COM mod as well as the original "Wings" mod). Nuke is working on a rather advanced script that will be very good indeed once it's stable. So, you very well might get to shoot down some Raiders amongst the clouds...