This is in the same vein as the HO thread. Not a personal attack whatsoever, but a clinical look at the anatomy of a "suspicious" player/move.
First, the context: what happens in these instances? No one ever knows, because the accusers almost always have
nothing but their word to support their claims. That's what's called "
anecdotal evidence". The same thing happened in WWII.. "That weird looking enemy plane did something incredible!" But they have nothing but a vague recollection - no precise numbers to make a precise quantitative rather than subjective, qualitative assessment.
I'm going to say the C word here, but much the same way Germany allows you to display the swastika for strictly documentary purposes devoid of political agenda, here I think I'm allowed to illustrate how (if nothing else, for about a dozen clueless people stirred up by a certain player who needed everyone to know he was quitting on ch200 yesterday) this is why it's literally useless and counterproductive to openly talk about cheating.
1) It's nothing but anecdotic hearsay. Player A flawlessly executes an excellent maneuver on Player B, who's a hungover and brand new player (primed to scream wolf), and from that anecdote you've got an amplification of what REALLY happened, everytime the anecdote is passed along. And then you don't even need to be new. You can be a relatively old player and still do it, like the film below shows.
2) If you're serious about dealing with cheating, there's more sense in reporting what you see concretely (film, screenshot), and directly and quietly to HTC than in endlessly mouthing off about how more or less common it is, with no supporting evidence other than "I'm quitting so there's no reason for me not to tell the truth": 2a) Cheating's not common. 2b) "The people have right to know" is poop-stirring nonsense.
Second, the important part:
Hard evidence. How
little do you have to out-fly someone to trigger some echo of rumors started by one clueless and/or confused player? See for yourself:
Ta152 vs 190A5 So what happens here? The A5 is on the deck (390 TAS, 1kft) flying across the 152's path (360 TAS, 4kft). 152 spots it and dives right to the A5's six (less than 150 yards out), at this point the speeds are 430 and 340 respectively. Ta152 shoots a burst, only 20mm land for no lethal damage, and A5 sharply breaks to the left (A5 @ 330 TAS, 152 @ 400). Ta152 lets the A5 do its evasive to get into a lagging position (saves E while keeping a mostly dominant position - still behind the A5's 3-9 line - that means the A5's rear hemisphere, while letting (forcing) the A5 show its hand) and once it's clear that the A5 isn't feinting, does a hard-rudder turn that's aimed at bringing itself back close on the A5's six while scrubbing speed so that when it gets there, it's slowed enough to avoid overshooting (which the A5 could still cause).
That's all it takes to make someone
perceive something fishy. And without film there's no telling what's what. Yes, the Ta152 probably would have been right near the limit of its wingtips if it had made that left turn (to match the A5's evasive) in strictly
coordinated flight. The line of thought the A5 would have best followed wasn't screaming wolf but something like Holmes' axiom:
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" -- All the A5 pilot needed to realize was that there's more than one way to make even something as basic as a flat turn, and/or that the 152 wasn't going all that fast.
