I was thinking about the comment regarding fighting ICONS and not the plane.....and realized that in the last 6 years the ICON system has actually regressed.
Originally, in AirWarrior, ICONS were not in the "flight window", but off the screen to the side with a position indicator on the top of the screen showing you the rough location of the plane the ICON was identifying. So while you got identification and range data, you did NOT get an automatic position finder from them. It was still possible to "lose" a plane against the terrain, and in a massive furball it became difficult to keep track of your target.
Then WB's came along with its full-screen play window and ICON tags attached directly to aircraft, and AW soon followed by adding this as an option (later the default setting).
AH has attempted to re-create some of that "lose the plane" by features such as greying out the ICON against clouds and removing it in certain circumstances.
I think it is possible to have this same sort of setup without regressing to AW's much-hated "periscope mode". If you cut off a small space (3-4 lines worth of text space) at the bottom of the screen as space for ICONS with a tiny space (1 line) at the top for the tagging, you could put the ICONS offscreen instead of attaching them to the NME plane and even have another positive result--the view window would become wider than it is tall, as human eyes are. Indeed, if you combine this idea with AH's system of removing/greying out ICONS based on visability, there is potential for the best ICON setup ever.
I don't see this happening in the near future (obviously it would require a considerable amount of work), but perhaps is something to look at in the future.
J_A_B
