Well here's a reply to a very old posting!
I found this same characteristic is even more inaccurate
when applied to WWI aircraft. In WWI combat a majority of the time the surviving(winner) of air combat
was the one who killed the opposing pilot first. I.E planes were not shot down, pilots were shot dead!
A fabric covered plane can take hundreds of hits and continue to fly and land, a pilot can take one or two!
The problem I found goes back to the original Sopwith Camel DP file issued with CFS1.
The sections of the fuselage are not correctly divided to reflect actual combat conditions.
So what I did was to create a "COCKPIT" section whereby the pilot becomes close to 90% of the section .
Set the lifepoints very low and the effect of "DEATH" turned on at a reasonable percentage.
Then you can simulated actual pilot fatality as it really occurred.
All my WWI planes are set this way and I can take out an opposing pilot with a FEW good hits to the direct cockpit section.
If you know how to work with DP files this is very easy to setup.
I have not done it to my WWII planes. And I believe CFS1 also over states WWII pilots invincibility. These planes had bulletproof glass canopies and armor plating
but still the original DP files did not set up strict "cockpit'
sections with high pilot area percentages.
It takes time to restructure each and every aircraft DP file. So someday I will rework them to relect reality.