Flying ace
[citation needed] The successes of such German ace pilots as Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke, and especially Manfred von Richthofen, the most victorious fighter pilot of the First World War, were well-publicized for the benefit of civilian morale, and the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest award for gallantry, became part of the uniform of a leading German ace.
This was also the beginning of a long-standing trend in warfare, showing statistically that approximately five percent of combat pilots account for the majority of air-to-air victories.
Allied fighter pilots fought mostly in German-held airspace[5][6] and were often not in a position to confirm that an enemy aircraft had crashed, so these victories were frequently claimed as "driven down", "forced to land", or "out of control" (called "probables" in later wars).
One pilot, Arthur Gould Lee, described his own score in a letter to his wife as "Eleven, five by me solo — the rest shared", adding that he was "miles from being an ace".
Aviation historians credit him as an ace with two enemy aircraft destroyed and five driven down out of control, for a total of seven victories.
They usually demanded independent witnessing of the destruction of an aircraft, making confirmation of victories scored in enemy territory very difficult.
[12] While "ace" status was generally won only by fighter pilots, bombers and reconnaissance crews on both sides also destroyed some enemy aircraft, typically in defending themselves from attack.
In the Mediterranean theater Pat Pattle achieved at least 40 kills, mainly against Italian planes, and became the top fighter ace of the British Commonwealth in the war.
Fighting on different sides, the French pilot Pierre Le Gloan had the unusual distinction of shooting down four German, seven Italian and seven British aircraft, the latter while he was flying for Vichy France in Syria.
For a limited period (especially during Operation Barbarossa), many Axis victories were over obsolescent aircraft and either poorly trained or inexperienced Allied pilots.
At the same time, the Soviet 1943 "Instruction For Air Combat" stated that the first priority must be the enemy commander, which was a much riskier task, but one giving the highest return in case of a success.
The Vietnam People's Air Force had begun development of its modern air-forces, primarily trained by Czechoslovak and Soviet trainers since 1956.
[24] The outbreak of the largest sustained bombardment campaign in history prompted rapid deployment of the nascent air-force, and the first engagement of the war was in April 1965 at Thanh Hóa Bridge which saw relatively outdated subsonic MiG-17 units thrown against technically superior F-105 Thunderchief and F-8 Crusader, damaging 1 F-8 and killing two F-105 jets.
[24] The VPAF had adopted a strategy of "guerrilla warfare in the sky" utilizing quick hit-and-run attacks against US targets, continually flying low and forcing faster, more heavily armed US jets to engage in dog-fighting where the MiG-17 and MiG-21 had superior maneuverability.
[30] American air-to-air combat during the Vietnam War generally matched intruding United States fighter-bombers against radar-directed integrated North Vietnamese air defense systems.
[citation needed] The long-running conflict produced 22 aces: 17 North Vietnamese pilots, two American pilots, three American weapon systems officers or WSOs (WSO is the USAF designation, one of the three was actually a US Naval aviator, with an equivalent job, but using the USN designation of Radar Intercept Officer or RIO).
General Jalil Zandi (1951–2001) was an ace fighter pilot in the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, serving for the full duration of the Iran–Iraq War.
[38] Colonel Mohammed Rayyan was an Iraqi ace fighter pilot who shot down 10 Iranian aircraft, mostly F-4 Phantoms during the war.
[46] In February 2024, it was reported that Captain Earl Ehrhart V of the United States Marine Corps had shot down seven Houthi drones while piloting an AV-8B Harrier II ground-attack aircraft from the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan.
[47] Realistic assessment of enemy casualties is important for intelligence purposes, so most air forces expend considerable effort to ensure accuracy in victory claims.
[citation needed] In World War II, the aircraft gun camera came into general usage by the Luftwaffe as well as the RAF and USAAF, partly in hope of alleviating inaccurate victory claims.
In contrast to this, the British system also accepted single claims of the pilots and deeds such as enemy planes "out of control", "driven down" and "forced to land".
[citation needed] The most accurate figures usually belong to the air arm fighting over its own territory, where many wrecks can be located, and even identified, and where shot down enemy aircrews are either killed or captured.
[49] The German Jagdstaffeln flew defensively, on their own side of the lines, in part due to General Hugh Trenchard's policy of offensive patrol.
In World War I, the observer Gottfried Ehmann of the German Luftstreitkräfte was credited with 12 kills,[61][62] for which he was awarded the Golden Military Merit Cross.
[66][67] On the German side, Erwin Hentschel, the Junkers Ju 87 rear gunner of Luftwaffe pilot and anti-tank ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel, had 7 confirmed kills.
The crew of the bomber pilot Otto Köhnke from Kampfgeschwader 3 is credited with the destruction of 11 enemy fighters (6 French, 1 British, 4 Soviet).
[70] The first military aviators to score five or more victories on the same date, thus each becoming an "ace in a day", were pilot Julius Arigi and observer/gunner Johann Lasi of the Austro-Hungarian air force, on August 22, 1916, when they downed five Italian aircraft.
