A lot of you seem unclear on what I mean by kill stealing. Mini D in particular seems willfully ignorant.
I do not consider anybody who shoots a flyable aircraft, no matter how damaged it is, a kill stealer. I do not think calling dibs on that Spit or whatever actually give the dib caller rights to it. None of that is kill stealing. That is all shooting down the enemy.
Kill stealing is exclusively when a non flyable aircraft is shot up by somebody who did not render it unflyable for the mere purpose of out damaging the person who actually did the work and getting credit for something they didn't earn.
Note that my proposed solution did not even attempt to solve the type of "killstealing" that most people seem to assume I'm talking about.
Maybe it could be programmed so that once an aircraft was definately dead it's icon disappeared and the kill was awarded.
By definately dead I mean something like a whole wing missing, the whole tail missing or the horizontal stablizer missing. Aircraft in this category would lose their icons and the kill would be awarded.
An aircraft missing half a wing, the verticle stabilizer, both aelirons, both elevators, on fire or all engines would not count as a positive kill because aircraft in those conditions could conceivably fly home (at least to allow a bail out over friendly territory) or still be a threat to somebody by diving for speed. Aircraft in this category would still be fair game for anybody and everybody to shoot at.
Mini D,
Nowhere did I start saying what a great pilot I am. Frankly, I'm average. Maybe the people doing the killstealing are the great sticks you insinuate they are, but they sure aren't putting it to use doing what I'm talking about. I am not saying "I called dibs on that and they shot it!" or "I put a few bullets into it and that marked it as mine to play with and they interferred!". I do not believe that either of those scenarios are kill stealing. I am only talking about the people who shoot up aircraft that are obviously doomed. I can easily tell when an aircraft is doomed on my FE, regardless of who made it so. I refuse to believe that the game is somehow providing my FE with special, more detailed information. People who shoot up wingless or tailess aircraft are kill stealers. Period.
Even informing others in the area that said aircraft is dead, aka "Scratch the Spit!", doesn't have any effect on these people. FWIW, I never call an aircraft dead unless I know that it has taken fatal damage.