Well .... alright then. Haha
I am honestly surprised by this choice of aircraft M3 decided to work on. But I'm more surprised at the absolute fallout it received on the community forums. I get that people were really hyped up about the prospect of some new fighter or attack aircraft, but seriously .... how did this personally hurt some of them? It's depressing to see how childish people reacted to a product reveal by a company that IN NO WAY has to release anything ever again. I am saddened by people who expect or feel entitled that 3rd party developers should be working on aircraft that THEY want. With that in mind, there's no aircraft that could ever please everyone. If a company stated they were going to release an A-7. then you'd have some people complain that they should be working on an F-8, or an A-6, or the Tornado, and how idiotic they are for choosing a stupid A-7. Now with that in mind, Yeah, this is a pretty big departure from the norm, and I wish that M3 would have done their little week long hype process a little differently, but it was all their choice to do so, and mine to follow along with. With ED coming forward and announcing the Yak-52, it's really should be no surprise that some developers might want to explore other aspects of this sim too.
M3's explanation as to why the chose this aircraft makes sense to me. To better learn and understand prop physics for future WWII aircraft development. And there's also no denying the fact that an online aerobatic community within DCS is alive and well. Those folks are going to love this thing, as well as the Yak-52. It's fun to take a powerful modern day jet and imagine you're doing an airshow routine over an airport. But doing that same thing in this CEII is going to require a completely different skill set. Just the torque alone from the prop at a high AoA and low airspeed will be crazy to fight with.
In conclusion ... am I disappointed in M3's reveal? Absolutely not. I seriously wish them the best, and I will picking up this aircraft. After all, how much fun have we been having just trying to figure out the Harrier in the traffic pattern? There's plenty of aircraft available for blowing thing up to kingdom come (and I can't wait for more of them). But I enjoy the sense of flight that DCS simulates, and both the Yak-52 and the CEII will compliment it very well.