Hello Catfish!
You are correct in that the current Zepp (With new damage model) and AEG are not in the current release. But a Patch will be coming out soon with these things and many more. It really does work without the CD if you go the All-In-One route. And it's pretty easy to set up.
The failing cylinders are an option the damage model can do. Due to time constraints I have not done this with the WWI kites yet... SDOE is the third generation of sims from Parsoft Interactive that used real physics modeling. The first was A-10 Attack. You may remember that one if you had a Mac.

Of course the physics engine in SDOE is much upgraded from that 1995 release as PCs got faster.
The first Zepp L-11 for FS-WWI had an inner frame, but when it was shot down it broke up into sections right away (After exploding) and fell fast. At the time this was the only way I could get it to work correctly without months of R&D (I was on a time constraint). For the past couple of months I have been working on this new damage model where the underlying frame is still sectional but built in such a way that the cells and skin can blow up and leave the frame and left over bits together. Keep in mind due to FPS concerns the frame is a simplified 3d mesh compared to the real thing, but this game engine is ten years old now.

I could even make it to where the frame collapses a bit after crashing but that would take even more time (Like three more months of steady work). One other thing I should mention is that this Zepp does not fly like a real Zepp. SDOE never got lighter-than-air support in its patches. But, it can fly really really slow (The "stall" speed is 23-25 mph) and indeed can float in a mission with head wind. The Zepp landing training mission has a 20 mph head wind which just about makes this Zepp float. I did not want to give it a full 25 mph head wind as you need to move forward and land!
I am trying to find pictures of the internal gas bags. I want to model these basic shapes in 3d for the inner Zepp mesh that you see when the canvas blows out (Exploded looking of course). Do you have any basic diagrams?
Feel free to post these and any other screenshots away.