(Merged FB+AEP+PF) I have vulnerability turned on but in my first Campaign I hit the ocean after damage and basically trampolined into the air rather than blew up. Do I need to turn the vulnerability on somewhere other than in the game interface? Thanks.

In the brief screen go to difficulty,there you can set everything for how you want to play the game.If you are doing a campaign what you select there becomes bound for the entire campaign,after you hit fly,you cannot go back say after mission 1 is complete and revert the settings

Yeah did that but I still just bounce when I hit the ground.

You can't explode if you're invulnerable. The prop / engine can be damaged if you graze it along the water/ground, but you can't be destroyed by your actions or enemey actions.

I'm sorry if I haven't made myself clear. I have vulnerabilty switched ON. I am able to be shot to pieces, wings come off, my pilot can be killed but my plane doesn't get destroyed when it hit's the ground. It bounces up in the air until momentum makes it sit still on the ground. Is this a bad install maybe? Everything else seems to work perfectly.

I can't find the corresponding entry in the ini to make sure it is always switched on. Any ideas are welcome.

In order to enable damage from ground collisions, you should turn on the "Realistic Landing" option.
It's on the second page of difficulty settings.

Thanks I'll give that a try.

just hit the "realistic" button in those settings Smosh ...