Benefit of AI's
The benefit of AI's rests in the designer's approach to compiling the model. Many ai's are such by simply not having a vc, which will not impact framerates all that much since the vc comes into play only in the virtual mode. So the real framerate benefits are rooted to the fact that instead of having the LOD 100 (most detailed) version being viewed, the designer may use an LOD 60 or 50 as the most detailed (which was designed to be more framerate friendly). Thus the plane that is seen is rather sparse and sometimes much less refined. Just renaming the main model to ai and not having a set of vc's really does not help too much. Not saying there is not some benefit, but it is much less then if the designer intends to make the ai's as part of the model when it is released. Look at a few examples. Some of the ai lancasters have a main model of about 3.1 mb (same size and nonAI's) and some 2.3 or so. The 2.3 were made when the designer decided to have ai's that were part of the original process so he/she was able to reduce the size and subsequently the load on the sim. Look at some of the Halifaxes, main model in the 4.2 range and ai's less then 1 mb. Compare that the the ai b17, and he111, the main model and ai have are the same size, so the only benefit would be possibly how cfs3 loads models w/ vc's which may result in a reduced load, but far less than if the model is designed as such.