Thumbing the hat switch on my flight stick enabled me to look out of the cockpit over either wing, to the left rear, right rear, above my head and directly behind. If the cockpit view is too limiting, or if you want to slightly speed up your frame rate, you can make the cockpit go away by hitting a hotkey. When you do that you also provide yourself with a panoramic if less realistic view of the magnificently rendered Pacific Ocean and whatever islands you're flying over. The exterior view of the front of your fighter does not take your breath away like it does in WWII Fighters . You also don't see hundreds of empty shells spitting out of your plane and falling earthward like metal rain as you fire your guns.
Planes do suffer area damage and pieces break off.
Hit an enemy fighter's engine and smoke billows and trails. Again the visuals don't approach WWII Fighters' stunning fireballs. But I like the less spectacular plane explosions and smoke in Combat Flight Simulator 2 . They seem more realistic, and they are significantly better than what I remember from European Air War .