But I work at a school district that has a nice URL filter on it, and the word bomber in the URL made the dumb little dog pop up and say "I can't go there."
Anyways, I understand that the external view is so that a buff pilot can simulate having gunners view the skies for him. However, I believe you're right, it's an over concession to game play. Your idea is good, in that you can't manuever in the external mode.
Why not just let the bomber pilot have "views" instead. For example, if you do a 6 view in a fighter, you turn your head around. If you do a 6 view in a buff, you get the tail gunner's view (without the gun controls though, you should get better view than you get through the gunner position, otherwise just use the gunner position itself) Right would be out the right waist gunner. Add the up and down would be like looking out the ball turret pointed down to the left, and up could be the top turret. Then limit the views based on the possible field of vision for the gunner positions on a given craft. Just a basic idea, and it needs lots of tweaking, but it might give a more realistic approach to modelling the gunners acting as spotters.
