We work hard to make simulated planes look like real ones. If one translates a Cyrillic character panel into English it will no longer look real. If we start to deviate from reality by making things that are "easier to use", then why not putting a glass cockpit with GPS into every plane, equip them all with spoilers and thrust reversers, make them all fly stable at any speed.... ?
At the other hand, I understand perfectly that Cyrillic characters scare Western users. Suprunov's Yak-40 has a switch to [temporarily!] change Russian inscriptions into English ones. This is a good technique to adopt. Then, there are English language manuals with translations for every gauge and switch. Tooltips are in English too. Finally, even without knowing the Cyrillic alphabet, you can perfectly pilot a soviet plane. In real life the are no tooltips, however the Tu-134 exported abroad often had "Post-it" flyers sticked next to the Russian inscriptions with translations into the local language, pretty much like tooltips.
Moreover, there is almost no sense to translate a panel into English ! The Russian inscriptions rarely say something comprehensible, most of them are abbreviations. What will you put instead of "[ch1059][ch1043][ch1055][ch1050]" that means Hydro-Semi-Compass Indicator ? HSCI ? Is it clearer ? You'll need anyway to look into the doc. And a "[ch1050][ch1059][ch1057]-1200" on the speedometer means "Course Speed Indicator, limited 1200km/h". Do you really need to put "CSI-1200" to understand this is a speedometer ? Some inscriptions do give indications, like groups of switches. But there are half-a-dozen of them in a panel, you'll quickly memorize them. You don't have to learn the whole Russian language to understand an inscription. You don't have to learn verb conjunction or substantive declination to understand "elektrichestvo" means "electricity". Learning 33 letters is not a hard work, most of them being common to latin and greek alphabets. Anyway, apart from flightsim, learning a language is always a good thing to do.
Samdim, can I just say that your An-24 totally rocks?
Well, now that's out the way I must say I agree with you on the language thing. Hundreds of millions of people speak Russian anyway, and expecting Russian panels translated into English is just the same as expecting all English panels to have Russian ones available. Serious flyers who want to get to know the systems inside out (not me, though) will put in the spade work to learn the Russian inscriptions. My problem with all these uber-realistic planes is the deliberate decision often made to FORCE casual simmers to learn how to start the aircraft properly by removing the ctrl-e start up function. I don't understand what is wrong with letting casual simmers, which today form probably the majority, start the aircraft simply and fly it around enjoying the awesome exterior model, sound pack and virtual cockpit eye candy, without going through a 15 minute orgy of checklists and switch clicking. I love 'flying' planes into which a lot of development time has been invested but I simply don't have time to learn the ins and outs of every virtual plane in my hangar - I fly mainly for relaxation and taking screenshots. This 'no ctrl-e' policy smells of elitism and snobbery, IMHO, even if it's not meant that way. Just my 2 kopecks ;)
