You know I don't think I've ever defraged or ran a chkdsk on my secondary drive where I keep all my games. I just might try that.
As for the planes thing. When I first checked it, when I was at Pearl, I wasn't actually running GFO. Uh! I had to go back over the install instructions, redo it, and then when I started the game I saw the GFO splash screen. And by that time I was on my way to my patrol zone and I didn't want to start over, since the first patrol was sort of a test anyway. But when I start my next patrol, I'll check the planes on the US carrier decks, and not that it really matters, but it's just eye candy, and I am a bit anal with those type of historical facts.
I'm just happy I'm getting back into the game again.