HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...
during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually considered to be five or more. The concept of the "ace" emerged in 1915 during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, at the same time as aerial dogfighting. It was a propaganda term intended to provide the home front with a cult of the hero in what was otherwise a war of attrition. The individual actions of aces were widely reported and the image was disseminated of the ace as a chivalrous knight reminiscent of a bygone era. For a brief early period when air-to-air combat was just being invented, the exceptionally skilled pilot could shape the battle in the skies. For most of the war, however, the image of the ace had little to do with the reality of air warfare, in which fighters fought in formation and air superiority depended heavily on the relative availability of resources. Use of the term ace to describe these pilots began in
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, when
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
newspapers described Adolphe Pégoud, as french: label=none, l'As (the ace) after he became the first pilot to down five
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
aircraft. The British initially used the term "star-turns" (a show business term). The successes of such German ace pilots as Max Immelmann and
Oswald Boelcke Oswald Boelcke PlM (; 19 May 1891 – 28 October 1916) was a World War I German professional soldier and pioneering flying ace credited with 40 aerial victories. Boelcke is honored as the father of the German fighter air force, and of air ...
were much 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. In the '' Luftstreitkräfte'', the ''Pour le Mérite'' was nicknamed ''Der blaue Max''/The Blue Max, after Max Immelmann, who was the first pilot to receive this award. Initially, German aviators had to destroy eight Allied aircraft to receive this medal.Payne, Dr. David
"Major 'Mick' Mannock, VC: Top Scoring British Flying Ace in the Great War."
'' Western Front Association'', May 21, 2008.
As the war progressed, the qualifications for ''Pour le Mérite'' were raised, but successful German fighter pilots continued to be hailed as national heroes for the remainder of the war. The few aces among combat aviators have historically accounted for the majority of air-to-air victories in military history.Dunnigan 2003, p. 149.


History


World War I

World War I introduced the systematic use of true single-seat fighter aircraft, with enough speed and agility to catch and maintain contact with targets in the air, coupled with armament sufficiently powerful to destroy the targets. Aerial combat became a prominent feature with the Fokker Scourge, in the last half of 1915. 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. As the German fighter squadrons usually fought well within German lines, it was practicable to establish and maintain very strict guidelines for the official recognition of victory claims by German pilots. Shared victories were either credited to one of the pilots concerned or to the unit as a whole – the destruction of the aircraft had to be physically confirmed by locating its wreckage, or an independent witness to the destruction had to be found. Victories were also counted for aircraft forced down within German lines, as this usually resulted in the death or capture of the enemy aircrew. Allied fighter pilots fought mostly in German-held airspace and were often not in a position to confirm that an apparently destroyed enemy aircraft had in fact crashed, so these victories were frequently claimed as "driven down", "forced to land", or "out of control" (called "probables" in later wars). These victories were usually included in a pilot's totals and in citations for decorations. The British high command considered praise of fighter pilots to be detrimental to equally brave bomber and reconnaissance aircrew – so that the British air services did not publish official statistics on the successes of individuals. Nonetheless some pilots did become famous through press coverage, making the British system for the recognition of successful fighter pilots much more informal and somewhat inconsistent. 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". This shows that his No. 46 Squadron RAF counted shared kills, but separately from "solo" ones—one of a number of factors that seems to have varied from unit to unit. Also evident is that Lee considered a higher figure than five kills to be necessary for "ace" status. 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. Other Allied countries, such as France and Italy, fell somewhere in between the very strict German approach and the relatively casual British one. They usually demanded independent witnessing of the destruction of an aircraft, making confirmation of victories scored in enemy territory very difficult.Franks and Bailey 1992, p. 6. The Belgian crediting system sometimes included "out of control" to be counted as a victory. The United States Army Air Service adopted French standards for evaluating victories, with two exceptions – during the summer of 1918, while flying under operational control of the British, the 17th Aero Squadron and the 148th Aero Squadron used British standards. American newsmen, in their correspondence to their papers, decided that five victories were the minimum needed to become an ace. While "ace" status was generally won only by fighter pilots, bomber and reconnaissance crews on both sides also destroyed some enemy aircraft, typically in defending themselves from attack. The most notable example of a non-pilot ace in World War I is
Charles George Gass Charles George Gass, MC (18 April 1898 – March 1977) was the highest scoring observer ace during the First World War, with a total of 39 victories (16 solo) scored serving as a gunner flying with various pilots. After working in the Post Office ...
with 39 accredited aerial victories.


Between the world wars

Between the two world wars, there were two theaters that produced flying aces, the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Spanish ace Joaquín García Morato scored 40 victories for the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Part of the outside intervention in the war was the supply of "volunteer" foreign pilots to both sides. Russian and American aces joined the Republican air force, while the Nationalists included Germans and Italians. The Soviet Volunteer Group began operations in the Second Sino-Japanese War as early as December 2, 1937, resulting in 28 Soviet aces. The Flying Tigers were American military pilots recruited sub rosa to aid the Chinese Nationalists. They spent the summer and autumn of 1941 in transit to China, and did not begin flying combat missions until December 20, 1941.


World War II

In
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as or 26.83. Some U.S. commands also credited aircraft destroyed on the ground as equal to aerial victories. The Soviets distinguished between solo and group kills, as did the Japanese, though the Imperial Japanese Navy stopped crediting individual victories (in favor of squadron tallies) in 1943. The
Soviet Air Forces The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
has the top Allied pilots in terms of aerial victories, Ivan Kozhedub credited with 66 victories and
Alexander Pokryshkin Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
scored 65 victories. It also claimed the only female aces of the war: Lydia Litvyak scored 12 victories and Yekaterina Budanova achieved 11. The highest scoring pilots from the Western allies against the German Luftwaffe were Johnnie Johnson ( RAF, 38 kills) and Gabby Gabreski ( USAAF, 28 kills in the air and 3 on the ground). In the Pacific theater Richard Bong became the top American fighter ace with 40 kills. 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 Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. The German Luftwaffe continued the tradition of "one pilot, one kill", and now referred to top scorers as ''Experten''. Some Luftwaffe pilots achieved very high scores, such as Erich Hartmann (352 kills) or Gerhard Barkhorn (301 kills). There were 107 German pilots with more than 100 kills. Most of these were won against the Soviet Air Force. The highest scoring fighter ace against Western allied forces were
Hans-Joachim Marseille Hans-Joachim Marseille (; 13 December 1919 – 30 September 1942) was a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot and flying ace during World War II. He is noted for his aerial battles during the North African Campaign and his Bohemian lifestyle. One o ...
(158 kills) and Heinz Bär (208 kills, of which 124 in the west). Notable are also Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, with 121 kills the highest-scoring
night-fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used ...
ace, and Werner Mölders, the first pilot to claim more than 100 kills in the history of aerial warfare. Pilots of other Axis powers also achieved high scores, such as Ilmari Juutilainen (
Finnish Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment = 159 , equipment_label ...
, 94 kills), Constantin Cantacuzino ( Romanian Air Force, 69 kills) or
Mato Dukovac Mato Dukovac (23 September 1918 – 6 June 1990) was the leading Croatian fighter ace of World War II, credited with between 40 and 44 confirmed victories. He joined the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia following the Axis invasion o ...
(
Croatian Air Force The Croatian Air Force ( hr, Hrvatsko ratno zrakoplovstvo or HRZ) is a branch of the Croatian Armed Forces whose primary task is to ensure the sovereignty of the airspace of the Republic of Croatia and to provide aviation support to other branc ...
, 44 kills). The highest scoring Japanese fighter pilot was Tetsuzō Iwamoto, who achieved 216 kills. A number of factors probably contributed to the very high totals of the top German aces. For a limited period (especially during Operation Barbarossa), many Axis victories were over obsolescent aircraft and either poorly trained or inexperienced Allied pilots. In addition, Luftwaffe pilots generally flew many more individual sorties (sometimes well over 1000) than their Allied counterparts. Moreover, they often kept flying combat missions until they were captured, incapacitated, or killed, while successful Allied pilots were usually either promoted to positions involving less combat flying or routinely rotated back to training bases to pass their valuable combat knowledge to younger pilots. An imbalance in the number of targets available also contributed to the apparently lower numbers on the Allied side, since the number of operational Luftwaffe fighters was normally well below 1,500, with the total aircraft number never exceeding 5,000, and the total aircraft production of the Allies being nearly triple that of the other side. A difference in tactics might have been a factor as well; Erich Hartmann, for example, stated "See if there is a straggler or an uncertain pilot among the enemy... Shoot him down.", which would have been an efficient and relatively low-risk way of increasing the number of kills. 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.


Post-World War II aces


Korean War

The
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...
of 1950–53 marked the transition from piston-engined propeller driven aircraft to more modern jet aircraft. As such, it saw the world's first jet-vs-jet aces. The highest scoring ace of the war is considered to be the Soviet pilot
Nikolai Sutyagin Nikolai Vasilyevich Sutyagin (russian: Николай Васильевич Сутягин; 5 May 1923 – 12 November 1986) was a Soviet fighter pilot in the World War II, Second World War and the Korean War. He is considered by most Russian source ...
who claimed 22 kills.


Vietnam War

The Vietnam People's Air Force had begun development of its modern air-forces, primarily trained by Czechoslovak and Soviet trainers since 1956. 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. The MiG-17 generally did not have sophisticated radars and missiles and relied on dog-fighting and manoeuvrability to score kills on US aircraft. Since US aircraft heavily outnumbered North Vietnamese ones, the Warsaw Pact and others had begun arming North Vietnam with MiG-21 jets. The VPAF had adopted an interesting strategy of "guerrilla warfare in the sky" utilising 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 manoeuvrability. The VPAF had carried out the first air-raid on US ships since WW2, with two aces including Nguyễn Văn Bảy attacking US ships during the Battle of Đồng Hới in 1972. Quite often air-to-air losses of US fighter jets were re-attributed to
surface-to-air missiles A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft sys ...
, as it was considered "less embarrassing". By the war's end, the US had nevertheless confirmed 245 air-to-air US aircraft losses while the figures for North Vietnam are disputed, ranging from 195 North Vietnamese aircraft from US claims to 131 from Soviet, North Vietnamese and allied records. 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. American F-4 Phantom II, F-8 Crusader and F-105 fighter crews usually had to contend with
surface-to-air missiles A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft sys ...
, anti-aircraft artillery, and machine gun fire before opposing fighters attacked them. 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).


Arab–Israeli war

The series of wars and conflicts between Israel and its neighbors began with Israeli independence in 1948 and continued for over three decades.


Iran–Iraq war

Brig. 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. His record of eight confirmed and three probable victories against Iraqi combat aircraft qualifies him as an ace and the most successful pilot of that conflict and the most successful Grumman F-14 Tomcat pilot worldwide.Cooper, Tom and Farzad Bishop
"Fire in the Hills: Iranian and Iraqi Battles of Autumn 1982."
ACIG, September 9, 2003. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
Brig. General Shahram Rostami was another Iranian ace. He was also an F-14 pilot. He had six confirmed kills. His victories include one MiG-21, two MiG-25s, and three Mirage F1s. Colonel Mohammed Rayyan was also another ace fighter pilot who shot down 5 to 8 Iranian aircraft, mostly F-4 Phantoms during the war.


Indo-Pakistan War

Air Commodore Muhammad Mahmood Alam was an ace fighter pilot in the Pakistan Air Force. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Alam downed five aircraft in a single sortie on 7 September 1965 with four in less than a minute, establishing a world record. These claims, however, have been widely contested by Indian Air Force officials.


Russo-Ukrainian War

On 13 October 2022, the Ukrainian government reported that an unidentified Ukrainian pilot shot down 5 Shahed 136 drones and two cruise missiles earlier that day before being forced to eject from his MiG-29 aircraft.


Accuracy

Realistic assessment of enemy casualties is important for intelligence purposes, so most air forces expend considerable effort to ensure accuracy in victory claims. 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 World War I the standards for confirmation of aerial victories were developed. The most strict were the German and French ones which required both the existence of traceable wrecks or observations of independent observers. 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". Aerial victories were also divided among different pilots. This led to vast overclaims on the British and partially on the US American side. Some air forces, such as the USAAF, also included kills on the ground as victories. 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 are either killed or captured. It is for this reason that at least 76 of the 80 aircraft credited to Manfred von Richthofen can be tied to known British losses—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 II overclaims were a common problem. Nearly 50% of RAF victories in the Battle of Britain, for instance, do not tally statistically with recorded German losses—but some at least of this apparent over-claiming can be tallied with known wrecks, and aircrew known to have been in British PoW camps. An overclaim of about 2-3 was common on all sides, and Soviet overclaims were sometimes higher. The claims of the Luftwaffe pilots are considered as mostly reasonable and more accurate than those according to the British and American system. To quote an extreme example, in the
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...
, both the U.S. and Communist air arms claimed a 10-to-1 victory/loss ratio.


Non-pilot aces

While aces are generally thought of exclusively as fighter pilots, some have accorded this status to gunners on bombers or reconnaissance aircraft, observers in two-seater fighters such as the early
Bristol F.2b The Bristol F.2 Fighter is a British First World War two-seat biplane fighter and reconnaissance aircraft developed by Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It is often simply called the Bristol Fighter, ''"Brisfit"'' or ''"Biff" ...
, and navigators/weapons officers in jet aircraft such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. Because pilots often teamed with different air crew members, an observer or gunner might be an ace while his pilot is not, or vice versa. Observer aces constitute a sizable minority in many lists. In World War I, the observer Gottfried Ehmann of the German '' Luftstreitkräfte'' was credited with 12 kills, for which he was awarded the Golden Military Merit Cross. In the Royal Flying Corps the observer
Charles George Gass Charles George Gass, MC (18 April 1898 – March 1977) was the highest scoring observer ace during the First World War, with a total of 39 victories (16 solo) scored serving as a gunner flying with various pilots. After working in the Post Office ...
tallied 39 victories, of which 5 were actually confirmed. The spread was caused by the lavish British system of aerial victory confirmation. In World War II,
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
S/Sgt. Michael Arooth, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress tail gunner serving in the 379th Bombardment Group, was credited with 19 kills and the Consolidated B-24 Liberator gunner Arthur J. Benko ( 374th Bombardment Squadron) with 16 kills. The Royal Air Force's leading bomber gunner, Wallace McIntosh, was credited with eight kills while serving as a rear turret gunner on Avro Lancasters, including three on one mission. Flight Sergeant F. J. Barker contributed to 12 victories while flying as a gunner in a Boulton Paul Defiant turret-equipped fighter piloted by Flight Sergeant E. R. Thorne. On the German side, Erwin Hentschel, the Junkers Ju 87 rear gunner of Luftwaffe pilot and anti-tank ace
Hans-Ulrich Rudel Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a German ground-attack pilot during World War II and a post-war neo-Nazi activist. The most decorated German pilot of the war and the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with ...
, 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). With the advent of more advanced technology, a third category of ace appeared.
Charles B. DeBellevue Colonel Charles Barbin DeBellevue (born August 15, 1945) is a retired officer in the United States Air Force (USAF). In 1972, DeBellevue became one of only five Americans to achieve flying ace status during the Vietnam War, and the first as a USA ...
became not only the first U.S. Air Force weapon systems officer (WSO) to become an ace but also the top American ace of the Vietnam War, with six victories. Close behind with five were fellow WSO
Jeffrey Feinstein Jeffrey S. Feinstein (born January 29, 1945) is a retired career officer of the United States Air Force (USAF). During the Vietnam War, Feinstein was a weapon systems officer, an integral part of two-man aircrews with the emergence of air-to-air mi ...
and Radar Intercept Officer William P. Driscoll.


Ace in a day

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 Julius Arigi (3 October 1895 – 1 August 1981) was a flying ace of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I with a total of 32 credited victories. His victory total was second only to Godwin von Brumowski. Arigi was considered a superb natur ...
and observer/gunner
Johann Lasi ''Stabfeldwebel'' Johann Lasi (born 1890, date of death unknown) was a World War I Austro-Hungarian flying ace, a Croat by ethnicity, credited with five aerial victories on 22 Aug 1916, while acting as an unauthorized rear gunner for Julius Arigi. ...
of the Austro-Hungarian air force, on August 22, 1916, when they downed five Italian aircraft. The feat was repeated five more times during World War I.Franks and Bailey 1992, p. 161. Becoming an ace in a day became relatively common during World War II. A total of 68 U.S. pilots (43 Army Air Forces, 18 Navy, and seven Marine Corps pilots) were credited with the feat, including legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager. In the Soviet offensive of 1944 in the Karelian Isthmus, Finnish pilot
Hans Wind Hans Henrik "Hasse" Wind (30 July 1919, Ekenäs – 24 July 1995, Tampere) was a Finnish fighter pilot and flying ace in World War II, with 75 confirmed air combat victories. He is one of the four double recipients of the Mannerheim Cross 2n ...
shot down 30 enemy aircraft in 12 days. In doing so, he obtained "ace in a day" status three times. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Pakistani pilot Muhammad Mahmood Alam downed five aircraft in a single sortie on 7 September 1965 with four in less than a minute, establishing a world record. These claims, however, as always have been widely contested by Indian Air Force.


See also

* Fighter aircraft * Iraqi aerial victories during the Iran–Iraq war * Light fighter *
List of aces of aces Ace of aces is a title accorded to the top active ace within a branch of service in a nation's military in time of war. The title is most closely associated with fighter aces, though there are other types, such as tank aces and submarine aces. ...
*
List of Egyptian flying aces The following Egyptian pilots are confirmed or alleged to have become flying aces by scoring five or more air-to-air victories while flying combat—mainly against the Israeli Air Force: * Ali Wajai (alias Ali Wagedy) flew a MiG 21 with 5 con ...
*
List of German World War II jet aces This list of German World War II jet aces has a sortable table of notable German jet ace pilots during World War II. Background A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during a ...
* List of Iranian aerial victories during the Iran–Iraq war *
List of Israeli flying aces The following is a list of Israeli flying aces in Arab-Israeli wars. List of aces See also * History of the Israeli Air Force * List of Egyptian flying aces * List of Syrian flying aces References Footnotes Bibliography * * * {{Lists of fl ...
*
List of Korean War flying aces Dozens of aviators were credited as flying aces in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The number of total flying aces, who are credited with downing five or more enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat, is disputed in the war. The Korean War saw the ...
* List of Spanish Civil War flying aces *
List of Syrian flying aces The following Syrian pilots became flying aces by scoring five or more confirmed aerial victories while flying combat against the Israeli Air Force. See also * MiG-21 aces * List of Israeli flying aces * List of Egyptian flying aces Notes Ref ...
* List of Vietnam War flying aces *
List of World War I flying aces The following are lists of World War I flying aces. Historically, a flying ace was defined as a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The term was first used by French newspapers, describ ...
* List of World War II aces by country *
List of World War II flying aces Fighter aces in World War II had tremendously varying kill scores, affected as they were by many factors: the pilot's skill level, the performance of the airplane the pilot flew and the planes they flew against, how long they served, their oppor ...
*
Lists of flying aces in Arab–Israeli wars Lists of flying aces in Arab–Israeli wars cover flying aces of the Arab–Israeli conflict The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Belich, Jamie. "Ace, air combat". Richard Holmes, Charles Singleton and Spencer Jones, eds. ''The Oxford Companion to Military History''. Oxford University Press, 2001 nline 2004 * Bergström, Christer. ''Barbarossa: The Air Battle, July–December 1941''. Birmingham, UK: Classic Publications, 2007. . * Dunnigan, James F. ''How to Make War: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Warfare in the Twenty-first Century''. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. . * Farr, Finis. ''Rickenbacker's Luck: An American Life.'' New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. . * Franks, Norman and Frank W. Bailey. ''Over the Front: A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces and Units of the United States and French Air Services, 1914–1918''. London: Grub Street, 1992. . * Franks, Norman, Frank W. Bailey and Russell Guest. ''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918''. London: Grub Street, 1993. . * . * Galland, Adolf ''The First and the Last'' London, Methuen, 1955 (''Die Ersten und die Letzten'' Germany, Franz Schneekluth, 1953). * * Guttman, Jon. ''Pusher Aces of World War 1''. London: Osprey, 2009. . * Hobson, Chris. ''Vietnam Air Losses, USAF, USN, USMC, Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia 1961–1973''. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2001. . * Johnson, J. E. ''Wing Leader''. London: Ballantine, 1967. * Lake, John. ''The Battle of Britain''. London: Amber Books, 2000. . * Lee, Arthur Gould. ''No Parachute''. London: Jarrolds, 1968. * O'Connor, Martin. ''Air Aces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 1914–1918''. Boulder, Colorado: Flying Machine Press, 1986. . * Pieters, Walter M. ''Above Flanders' Fields: A Complete Record of the Belgian Fighter Pilots and Their Units During the Great War, 1914–1918''. London: Grub Street, 1998. . * Robertson, Linda R. (2005). ''The Dream of Civilized Warfare: World War I Flying Aces and the American Imagination ''. University of Minnesota Press. , * Robinson, Bruce (ed.) ''von Richthofen and the Flying Circus''. Letchworth, UK: Harleyford, 1958. * Shores, Christopher. ''Air Aces''. Greenwich Connecticut: Bison Books, 1983. * . * Stenman, Kari and Kalevi Keskinen. ''Finnish Aces of World War 2'' (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces, number 23). London: Osprey Publishing. 1998. . * Thomas, Andrew. ''Defiant, Blenheim and Havoc Aces''. London: Osprey Publishing, 2012. . * Toliver, Raymond J. and Trevor J. Constable. ''Horrido!: Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe''. London: Bantam Books, 1979. . * Toperczer, Istvan. ''MIG-17 and MIG-19 Units of the Vietnam War'' (Osprey Combat Aircraft, number 25). London: Osprey, 2001. . * .


External links


Air Aces Homepage (A.Magnus)

Air Aces Website (Jan Šafařík)

Air Combat Information Group Website


{{Lists of flying aces Flying aces