Fishu,
You spelled it all out right there......"IF"!
"IF" Hitler hadn't been such a control freak, the Nazis would have put the ME262 to use as a fighter sooner, instead of wasting time trying to make it into a blitz bomber like ole Adolf wanted.....and "IF" they had done that, likely the war would not have gone well for the Allies, German industries would not have been affected the way they were, and many German planes that saw limited production would have been made in far greater numbers..........."IF" things had actually happened that way.
"IF" the war had gone on longer, the F8F and F7F would have seen combat.......they were on the way, on carriers, combat ready, to the fighting when the Japanese surrendered. That seems to be some people's idea of whether or not a plane should be allowed in AH, whether or not it saw combat.
IMHO, any plane that did not see significant combat action, and by that I mean more than just a handful of sorties, or was only available in limited (and in some cases, miniscule) numbers, does not belong in the planeset. Period. Sure, the Germans were ahead of the Allies in several areas of technology, and produced some fine examples of aircraft that might have turned the war in their favor, had they had the ability to produce and operate them in significant numbers.
Germany came up with some fantastic designs, especially later in the war, but most of them were barely past what most would call the experimental or testing stages, and the fact that they were used in combat, if at all, was an act of desperation by the Luftwaffe.
Whether or not HT brings us rare bird like the TA-152 or not, I will probably keep with them. I disagree with the whole perk plane concept, at least the idea of putting the perk planes into the main arena. Set up another arena just for those planes, make it where the players have to earn points in order to even qualify to enter that arena, and then let the perk planes just have at one another would be my choice of how to do it. We all know what pilots will/would qualify within a day or two, while the rest of us wing merrily along in our regular old common birds........which is how I would likely do even in the unlikely event that I DID earn enough points for the perk arena.
If I have offended you in any way, please accept my apologies. I feel quite strongly about all this, and just wanted to voice my opinion.
[This message has been edited by eddiek (edited 11-22-2000).]
