does anyone cheat

I'm reminded of one of the great movies of our time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Captain Kirk's handling of the Kobayashi Maru Scenerio.  While he rigged the simulation so that he could win the un-winnable situtation, which is cheating, he got top marks on it for thinking outside the box.  So, it's not cheating its just thinking beyond the box.

 

Besides, any movie starring William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban must be right.  

I do all the time. For instance, with my LAV-25 that I am working on, they gave me parts that go on the inside of the back doors, I am closing them, so why put the parts in? And even if I did open them and add the parts, theres not inside for the whole vehicle, so I can't even if I wanted to. I don't bother, takes to much time and effort lol.

Admit it nothing, I get lazy towards the end of a build, I just want a finished model on the shelf. I leave off and cheat on all sorts of stuff. Gear bay door actuators, sensors, aoa indicators, etc gone while still on the sprues sometimes. The overall accuracy is not that important in my mind as the history. I don't mind a bit of sacrifice of detail to have a completed model.

Depends upon how 'committed' I become to the plane

The F-15 that I just finished, I went 'nuts'  and treated the radar parts as if their detail was critical of the final outcome (no one will ever see my work unless the nose cone is removed).

But I have three other planes on my workbench at the moment that I have cheated that I have three sets of landing gear, cockpits, and such for the parts box.

Yeah I guess I am with the majority here…. Work hard on the stuff you can see and leave the hidden stuff in the box.  I did all the wiring on the engine of my 1/24 190D-9 and its all hidden.  Yeah I know its there but I should have left it outside the plane on a rack or something.

 

In the P-47 GB a few guys were talking about the baffles or ducts or whatever they were inside the fuselage.  Glad I read that cause it talked me out of doing all that PE bending.

Sometimes my 'cheating' is for the better. Some well detailed smaller scale aircraft kits have hundreds of 'don't walk', 'jacking point', 'earth point' etc, marks all over them.

When applied they become 'stand out' items and your attention is drawn imediately to them, where on the real aircraft, even up really close, they are not obvious in the least. 

Why go to all the extra work when the end result is less realistic than the 'lazy' one?