Speaking of honor, I have to admit being a little dismissive of this whole "whining on 200" thing. That was until last night.
Since taking off the gondies, I'm having at least a brief undefeated streak. It's probably not coincidental. I mean, consider running up, twice last night, against some clown in a KI-84 who appeared to think he could rope a 109 (doable if It were saddled with gondos, certainly) - even after a chase at which, as established by the unchanging distance between the two, the 109 was at the same inital velocity before the climb. I call that foolishness and used my single 20/twin 50's to relieve the clown of his tail as he hopefull waited for me to stall. Still, he'd put up a good fight prior to running. We'd had several fairly involved cycles of maneuvering and jockeying, mostly in the vertical - and at least one reversal in which he'd sort of managed to flat-scissor me at the top of a loop. I was left doing a diving sort of dutch roll to get away. As a result of the fact that we'd locked horns pretty well for some time before the climactic scene in which I blew his ace off, I fired him a salute. Of course, he didn't respond so, when I again shot him down a little later, I didn't bother. As you wish - die without ceremony.
Not five minutes later, I engaged a Spit8 who happened to attack from an alt advantage over some guy named Thrash. The latter and I were separated by 2-3k. Since the Spitty had the advantage, I jumped in without all that much speed (near 250 and climbing, close enough to the g-14's E-M sweet spot I figured it worth a shot). I got the Spitty off Thrash and from there Thrash and I sort of traded being dogged by this nuisance until he foolishly squandered his E and I blew him out of his cockpit as I got a vertical angle on him. He fired off a salute. I responded with, "and you, XXX". I think just about anyone would interpret that as a return salute, right? No. The clown starts moaning on 200 about how we ganged him and that I should return the salute since it took two of us to kill him. I love the complaint because it manages to be both juvenile and grandiose all at that same time, a kind of study in the chiaroscuro, if that makes sense... I fired off a message to placate the forty whiner (first negative experience with anyone from that otherwise worthy squad) and went on about my business. My opinion: The guy should try flying a challenging ride well before first picking an easy-mode-ride losing fight with 2 opponents and then whining about getting ganged - and a course in reading comp might help as well since I really don't see why the first response was somehow insufficient.
At the end of the match, it's best to shake hands and walk away a winner or a loser - never as an actor or poseur engaged in theatrics.
