Everyone keeps talking about hypothetical 1v5s, but nothing has been produced. I have actually *seen* and been the victim of Bruv fighting 1v3 against myself in an La7, and two other guys in Spits. We were together, we knew that lone SpitVIII was probably Bruv and we wanted to shoot him down. I've been doing this a lot of years and am no fool. He got me fair and square after slaughtering the other two guys fair and square. It's more than aim, he had to balance perfectly between the two pitfalls of staying so fast that he can't hit anything, and losing his energy advantage and being subject to attack from the other two planes while killing one. He did it perfectly. Dude's stats say 13 kills per hour which you absolutely cannot get by making 500mph guns passes and extending a sector. Dude can fight effectively, even against bad odds. To say anything else is inaccuracy.
I see a lot of guys saying being able to stack up the pelts in the MA ain't nothing, because they could purportedly kill the pelt stacker in a duel. I've been through that stage as well. Dueling and the MA success are two related but separate skills. I got a lot happier with the game and less frustrated when I quit expecting the MA to be be "fair".
Also, I notice lots of people showing scorn for flying for score, yet seemingly being very concerned with some alleged bad guys' high score. What's it to you? I don't even bother to read who is on the leaderboards every month. You wanna see true non-concern with score, check fighter ranks for BoNeZ right quick :-)