This is a rule that the editors at Ares Games never liked, and it is occasion of a debate every time we do a new edition.
My rule was the one in the Rules & Accessories pack: you can not plan a straight.
The rule comes from the fact that if you have flames from your engine and you fly straight, they reach you. It happened.
I preferred to forbid to plan a straight, not to penalise somebody who already planned a straight as you say. But there are some issues. If you plan a straight and it is forbidden, what happens? It is illegal, and if you do not use the optional rules that with an illegal manoeuvre you go out of control and are eliminated, then you must replace the illegal manoeuvre with a straight and take an A damage token. For me it worked - keep the straight and take the damage. But some people found that it was counter intuitive to replace a straight with a straight.
For clarity and simplicity sake, the rule has been edited explicitly stating all effects and linking the effect to execution of a straight, that's easier to check than seeing if it was an illegal manoeuvre when planned. So if you are going straight and the flames erupts, they reach the pilot and you are eliminated. A kind of an additional explosion. Realistic maybe, but unpleasant in game terms.
So keep it as it is now written, ignore it or use the previous rule instead (an illegal manoeuvre is a straight planned while on fire instead than revealed while on fire, and it means an A damage with normal rules and elimination with the optional one) as you prefer.
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