Yeah, the only benefit in loading the mesh would be if you wanted to create lots of F22's as single limbs, which you probably don't. If you wanted to have enemy planes, you could just load one in and instance or clone that object to make new ones. Meshes are usually used when making a model from memblocks (from scratch) or when adding meshes to an existing object.
I'm not sure if it's clear why loading as a mesh is an issue - but the main problem is that a mesh is just that, a single mesh. If your plane has moving parts, flaps, rudders, foldy wheels, cockpit, or if it uses more than one texture file, or if it's animated in any way, then you will have major issues - a mesh is a single object, no limbs, and can only have 1 base texture applied to it. You can of course have shaders etc, but you couldn't for instance, have a different texture for the cockpit than the rest of the plane.
Anyhoo, just making that clear, not trying to lecture you
- best to use the right methods from the outset with this stuff, in this case it's actually less work and less hassle to just load the model right in.
