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92-432: 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, describing Adolphe Pégoud as l'as (the ace), after he downed seven German aircraft. The notion of an aerial "victory" arose from the first aerial combats, which occurred during

184-915: A Fokker Flugzeugbau engineer. Among several pre-war patents for similar devices was that of Franz Schneider , a Swiss engineer who had worked for Nieuport and the German LVG company. The device was fitted to the most suitable Fokker type, the Fokker M.5K (military type name "Fokker A.III"), of which A.16/15, assigned to Otto Parschau , became the prototype of the Fokker Eindecker series of fighter designs. Fokker demonstrated A.16/15 in May and June 1915 to German fighter pilots, including Kurt Wintgens , Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann . The Fokker, with its typical Morane controls, an over-sensitive balanced elevator and dubious lateral control,

276-496: A II Wing RFC method was for the reconnaissance aircraft to lead, escorted on each side 500 ft (150 m) higher, with another escort 1,000 ft (300 m) behind and above. On 7 February, on a II   Wing long-range reconnaissance, the observation pilot flew at 7,500 ft (2,300 m); a German aircraft appeared over Roulers (Roeselare) and seven more closed in behind the formation. West of Torhout (Thourout) two Fokkers arrived and attacked at once, one diving on

368-469: A cam driven by the engine controlled the timing of the machine-gun for its fire to be limited to the intervals between the propeller blades' travel past the barrel. Unlike earlier proposed gears, the Stangensteuerung was fitted to an aircraft and proved effective. In a postwar biography, Fokker claimed that he produced the gear in 48   hours but it was probably designed by Heinrich Lübbe ,

460-538: A common problem. Nearly 50% of Royal Air Force (RAF) victories in the Battle of Britain , for instance, do not tally statistically with recorded German losses; but at least some of this apparent over-claiming can be tallied with known wrecks, and German 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

552-643: A flight of 70 Squadron . The effect of the new Allied types, especially the Nieuport, was of considerable concern to the Fokker pilots; some even took to flying captured examples. Idflieg was sufficiently desperate to order German firms to build Nieuport copies, of which the Euler D.I and the Siemens-Schuckert D.I were built in small numbers. New D type single-seat, biplane fighters, particularly

644-585: 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 , 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

736-507: 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

828-545: A minute, establishing a world record. These claims, however, have been widely contested by the Indian Air Force . Fokker Scourge The Fokker Scourge ( Fokker Scare ) occurred during the First World War from July 1915 to early 1916. Imperial German Flying Corps ( Die Fliegertruppen ) units, equipped with Fokker Eindecker (Fokker monoplane) fighters , gained an advantage over

920-611: A new and supposedly invincible aircraft, caused dismay among the Allied commanders and lowered the morale of Allied airmen. In his memoir Sagittarius Rising (1936), Cecil Lewis wrote, Hearsay and a few lucky encounters had made the machine respected, not to say dreaded by the slow, unwieldy machines then used by us for Artillery Observation and Offensive Patrols. On 14 January, RFC HQ issued orders that until better aircraft arrived, long and short-range reconnaissance aircraft must have three escorts flying in close formation. If contact with

1012-596: A number of our gallant officers in the Royal Flying Corps have been rather murdered than killed. Even among writers who recognised the hysteria of this version of events, this picture of the Fokker Scourge gained considerable currency during the war and afterwards. In 1996 Peter Grosz wrote, The epithet Fokker Fodder was coined by the British to describe the fate of their aircraft under the guns of

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1104-625: A perceived dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the supply of aircraft to the Royal Flying Corps, a campaign that was begun by the pioneering aviation journalist C. G. Grey and Noel Pemberton Billing M.P., founder of Pemberton-Billing Ltd (Supermarine from 1916) and a great enthusiast for aerial warfare. As aerial warfare developed, the Allies gained a lead over the Germans by introducing machine-gun armed types such as

1196-646: A single-seat fighter, began to arrive at the front in February 1916. This aircraft had a modest performance but its superior manoeuvrability gave it an advantage over the Eindecker , especially once the Lewis gun was fixed to point in the direction of flight. On 8 February, 24 Squadron (Major Lanoe Hawker ) arrived with D.H.2s and began patrols north of the Somme; another six D.H.2 squadrons followed. On 25 April, two of

1288-415: 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. The Belgian crediting system sometimes included "out of control" to be counted as

1380-435: A victory. The United States Army Air Service adopted French standards for evaluating victories, with two exceptions – during the summer 1918, while flying under the 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

1472-471: 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. The Korean War of 1950–53 marked

1564-603: 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). The series of wars and conflicts between Israel and its neighbors began with Israeli independence in 1948 and continued for over three decades. Brig. General Jalil Zandi (1951–2001) was an ace fighter pilot in the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force , serving for

1656-508: 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

1748-546: The Battle of Arras (9 April – 16 May 1917). In the next two years, the Allied air forces gradually overwhelmed the Luftstreitkräfte in quality and quantity, until the Germans were only able to gain temporary control over small areas of the Western Front. When this tactic became untenable, development of new aircraft began, which led to the Fokker D.VII . The new aircraft created another Fokker Scourge in

1840-512: 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 , as it was considered "less embarrassing". By the war's end, the US had nevertheless confirmed 249 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

1932-427: The Fokker D.II and Halberstadt D.II , had been under test since late 1915 and the replacement of the monoplanes with these types began by mid-1916. In February 1916, Inspektor-Major Friedrich Stempel began to assemble Kampfeinsitzer Kommando (KEK, single-seat battle units). The KEK were units mostly of two to four fighters, equipped with Eindeckers and other types which had served with FFA units during

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2024-551: The Immelmann turn , a zoom after the dive, followed by a roll when vertical to face the opposite way, after which he could turn to attack again. The mystique acquired by the Fokker was greater than its material effect and in October, RFC HQ expressed concern at the willingness of pilots to avoid combat. RFC losses were exacerbated by the increase in the number of aircraft at the front, from 85 to 161 between March and September,

2116-573: The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the French Aéronautique Militaire . The Fokker was the first service aircraft to be fitted with a machine gun synchronised to fire through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The tactical advantage of aiming the gun by aiming the aircraft and the surprise of its introduction were factors in its success. This period of German air superiority ended with

2208-678: 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

2300-786: The Soviet Air Force . The highest scoring fighter ace against Western allied forces were Hans-Joachim Marseille (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 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 , 94 kills), Constantin Cantacuzino ( Romanian Air Force , 69 kills) or Mato Dukovac ( Croatian Air Force , 44 kills). The highest scoring Japanese fighter pilot

2392-750: The Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus fighter and the Morane-Saulnier L . By early 1915, the German Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Supreme Army Command) had ordered the development of machine-gun-armed aircraft to counter those of the Allies. The new "C" class , armed two-seaters and twin-engined "K" (later "G") class aircraft such as the AEG G.I were attached in ones and twos to Feldflieger Abteilungen (FFA) artillery-observation and reconnaissance detachments for "fighter" sorties, mostly

2484-406: The "Scourge" were the eminent pioneering aviation journalist C.   G. Grey, founder of The Aeroplane , one of the first aviation magazines and Noel Pemberton Billing, a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) pilot, notably unsuccessful aircraft designer and manufacturer and a Member of Parliament from March 1916. Their supposed object was the replacement of the B.E.2c with better aircraft but it took

2576-405: The 55-minute flight to the rigid formation which the two Fokkers were unable to disrupt. On 7 February, a 12 Squadron B.E.2c., was to be escorted by three B.E.2cs, two F.E.2s and a Bristol Scout from 12 Squadron and two more F.Es. and four R.E. aeroplanes from 21 Squadron . The flight was cancelled due to bad weather but twelve escorts for one reconnaissance aircraft demonstrated the effect of

2668-401: The Allied lines limited the degree of air superiority they were able to attain. The scourge waned during the Battle of Verdun (21   February – 20   December 1916). The Germans tried to impose an air barrage ( Luftsperre ) which concealed much of the German preparation for the offensive from French aerial reconnaissance. During March and April increasing numbers of

2760-404: The B.E. and wounded the pilot in the arm. By late October, towards the end of the Battle of Loos , more Fokkers (including the similar Pfalz E-type fighters, which were also called Fokkers by Allied airmen) were encountered by RFC pilots and by December, forty Fokkers were in service. In the new fighters, pilots could make long, steep dives, aiming the fixed, synchronised machine-gun by aiming

2852-531: 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

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2944-527: The D.H. pilots were attacked and found that they could out-manoeuvre the Fokkers; a few days later, without opening fire, a D.H. pilot caused a Fokker to crash onto a roof at Bapaume. The Nieuports proved even more effective when the first Nieuport 16s in British service were issued to 1 and 11 Squadrons in April. By March 1916, despite frequent encounters with Fokkers and the success of Eindecker aces,

3036-504: The Fokker monoplanes, but given [its] acknowledged mediocrity, it comes as something of a shock to realise how abysmal the level of British aircraft performance, pilot training and aerial tactics must have been.... The period of Allied air superiority that followed the Fokker Scourge was brief; by mid-September 1916, the first twin- Spandau armed Albatros D.I fighters were coming into service. The new aircraft were again able to challenge Allied aircraft, culminating in " Bloody April " during

3128-417: The Fokkers in reducing the efficiency of RFC operations. British and French reconnaissance flights to get aerial photographs for intelligence and artillery ranging data had become riskier, in spite of German fighters being forbidden to fly over Allied lines (to keep the synchronisation gear secret). This policy, for various reasons, prevailed for most of the war; the rarity of German fighters appearing behind

3220-453: The French lines. The claims were not confirmed but research has shown that the first claim matches French records of a Morane forced down on 1   July near Lunéville , with a wounded crew and a damaged engine, followed three days later by another. By 15   July, Wintgens had moved to FFA   48 and scored his first confirmed victory, another Morane   L. Parschau had received

3312-512: The German air service. The fighters of the KEK were concentrated into fighter squadrons ( Jagdstaffeln ) the first of which, Jagdstaffel 2 ( Jasta 2 ) went into action on the Somme on 17 September. By this time, the last of the Eindeckers , long outmoded as front line fighters, had been retired. Among British politicians and journalists who grossly exaggerated the material effects of

3404-572: 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 , both the U.S. and Communist air arms claimed a 10-to-1 victory/loss ratio. 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

3496-488: The MG08 Spandau ) machine-gun, using the more reliable production version of the Fokker gear. The Fokker Scourge is usually considered by the British to have begun on 1   August, when B.E.2cs of 2 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC) bombed the base of FFA   62 at 5:00 a. m., waking the German pilots, including Boelcke (most likely, still with E 3/15) and Immelmann (flying E 13/15), who were quickly into

3588-733: The Second Sino-Japanese War as early as December 2, 1937, resulting in 28 Soviet aces. The Flying Tigers were American military pilots who 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. In World War II many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as 11 + 1 ⁄ 2 or 26.83. Some U.S. commands also credited aircraft destroyed on

3680-880: The Ukrainian government claims that Ukrainian pilot Vadym Voroshylov shot down 5 Shahed 136 drones before being forced to eject from his MiG-29 aircraft after it was hit by debris from the last Shahed-136 that had shot down. Voroshylov had shot down two Russian cruise missiles the day prior. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the fighting in Ukraine, Lieutenant Colonel Ilya Sizov "destroyed 12 Ukrainian aircraft (3 Su-24 aircraft, 3 Su-27 aircraft, 3 MiG-29 aircraft, 2 Mi-24 helicopters, 1 Mi-14 helicopter) and two Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile complexes. In February 2024, it

3772-561: 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 , 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

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3864-603: The Warsaw Pact and others had begun arming North Vietnam with MiG-21 jets. 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. 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

3956-497: The advent of more advanced technology, a third category of ace appeared. Charles B. DeBellevue 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 and Radar Intercept Officer William P. Driscoll . The first military aviators to score five or more victories on

4048-402: The air after the raiders. Boelcke suffered a jammed gun but Immelmann caught up with a B.E.2c and shot it down. This aircraft was flown as a bomber, without an observer or Lewis gun, the pilot armed only with an automatic pistol. After about ten minutes of manoeuvring (giving the lie to exaggerated accounts of the stability of B.E.2 aircraft) Immelmann had fired 450   rounds, which riddled

4140-484: 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. 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

4232-552: 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

4324-459: 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,

4416-421: The aircraft. The machine gun was belt-fed, unlike the drum-fed Lewis guns of their opponents, who had to change drums when in action. The Fokker pilots took to flying high and diving on their quarry, usually out of the sun, firing a long burst and continuing the dive until well out of range. If the British aircraft had not been shot down, the German pilot could climb again and repeat the process. Immelmann invented

4508-484: The arrival in numbers of the French Nieuport 11 and British Airco DH.2 fighters, which were capable of challenging the Fokkers, although the last Fokkers were not finally replaced until August–September 1916. The term "Fokker Scourge" was coined by the British press in mid-1916, after the Eindeckers had been outclassed by the new Allied types. Use of the term coincided with a political campaign to end

4600-540: The date and location of combat, and the foe vanquished, for every victory accredited by an aviator's home air service. Above the Trenches Series Flying ace The concept of the " ace " emerged in 1915 during World War I , 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

4692-510: 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 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). These victories were usually included in a pilot's totals and citations for decorations. The British high command considered

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4784-572: The early Bristol F.2b , 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

4876-618: The early days of World War I. Different air services developed their own definitions of exactly what an aerial victory might be, as well as different methods of assessing and assigning credit for aerial victories. All standards had accuracy flaws that led to overclaiming aerial victories. Former Wings editor Wayne Ralph (2008) observed: 'In the First World War, the Second World War and also the Korean War, overclaiming

4968-532: The escort of unarmed aircraft. On 18 April 1915, the Morane-Saulnier L of Roland Garros was captured, after he was forced to land behind the German lines. From 1   April, Garros had destroyed three German aircraft in the Morane, which carried a machine-gun firing through the propeller arc. Saulnier had failed to develop a synchroniser and with Garros, as an interim solution, fitted metal wedges to

5060-477: The escorts was lost, the reconnaissance must be cancelled, as would photographic reconnaissance to any great distance beyond the front line. Sending the B.E.2c into action without an observer armed with a Lewis gun also became less prevalent. The new tactic of concentrating aircraft in time and space had the effect of reducing the number of reconnaissance sorties the RFC could fly. New defensive formations were devised;

5152-643: The feat, including legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager . In the Soviet offensive of 1944 in the Karelian Isthmus , Finnish pilot Hans Wind shot down 30 Soviet aircraft in 12 days with his Bf 109 G . In doing so, he obtained "ace in a day" status three times. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Pakistani pilot Muhammad Mahmood Alam claimed to have downed five aircraft in a single sortie on 7 September 1965 with four downed in less than

5244-471: The five M.5K/MGs and about ten early production E.I airframes. The pilots flew the new aircraft as a sideline, when not flying normal operations in two-seater reconnaissance aircraft. Boelcke, in FFA   62, scored his first victory in an Albatros C.I on 4   July. M.5K/MG prototype airframe E.3/15, the first Eindecker delivered to FFA   62, was armed with a Parabellum MG14 gun, synchronised by

5336-543: The form of an attack on the RFC command and the Royal Aircraft Factory. C.   G. Grey had orchestrated a campaign against the Royal Aircraft Factory in the pages of The Aeroplane , going back to its period as the Balloon Factory, well before it had produced any heavier-than-air aircraft. Before the unsuitability of the B.E.2c for aerial combat was exposed by the first Fokker aces, criticism

5428-542: 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. 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

5520-552: 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 has the top Allied pilots in terms of aerial victories, Ivan Kozhedub credited with 66 victories and Alexander Pokryshkin scored 65 victories. It also claimed

5612-422: The ground. Additionally, the British handicap of returning home against prevailing wind on the Western Front fattened German scores. The scores presented in the lists cannot be definitive, but are based on itemized lists that are the best available sources of information. Loss of records by mischance and the passage of time complicates reconstructing the actual count for given aces. Aces are listed after verifying

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5704-480: The hard winter of 1915–1916 and some aggressive flying by the new German "C" type two-seaters. Boelcke and Immelmann continued to score, as did Hans Joachim Buddecke , Ernst von Althaus and Rudolph Berthold from FFA   23 and Kurt von   Crailshein of FFA   53. The "official" list of claims by Fokker pilots for the second half of 1915 was no more than 28, many of them over French aircraft. Thirteen aeroplanes had been shot down by Immelmann or Boelcke and

5796-413: 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

5888-564: 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 maneuverability to score kills on US aircraft. Since US aircraft heavily outnumbered North Vietnamese ones,

5980-652: 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. 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. As

6072-549: The new E.1/15 (Fokker factory serial 191), the initial example of the five Fokker M.5K/MG service test examples for the Eindecker line of aircraft, when the A.16/15 (green machine), he had flown since the beginning of the war, was returned to the Fokker Flugzeugbau factory in Schwerin –Gorries for development. By the end of July 1915, about fifteen Eindeckers were operational with various units, including

6164-662: The new French Nieuport 11 fighters were sent to Verdun. Organised in specialist fighter squadrons ( escadrilles de chasse ) the Nieuports could operate in formations larger than the singletons or pairs normally flown by the Fokkers, quickly regaining air superiority for the Aéronautique Militaire . British F.E.2b pusher aircraft had been arriving in France from late 1915 and in the New Year began to replace

6256-442: 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

6348-486: The older F.B.5s. The pilot and observer had a good view forwards from their cockpits and the observer could also fire backwards over the tail. 20 Squadron , the first squadron equipped with the F.E., arrived in France on 23   January 1916, for long-range reconnaissance and escort flying. The new aircraft lacked the speed to pursue the Fokkers and had limited manoeuvrability but the F.E.s became formidable opponents, particularly when flying in formation. The Airco DH.2 ,

6440-504: 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

6532-450: The praise of fighter pilots to be detrimental to equally brave bombers 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

6624-441: The propeller; bullets that hit the blades were deflected by them. Garros burned his aircraft but this failed to conceal the nature of the device and the significance of the deflector blades. The German authorities requested several aircraft manufacturers, including that of Anthony Fokker , to produce a copy. The Fokker company produced the Stangensteuerung (push rod controller), a genuine synchronisation gear . Impulses from

6716-462: The reconnaissance machine and the other on an escort. Six more German aircraft appeared over Cortemarck (Kortemark) and formed a procession of fourteen aeroplanes stalking the British formation. None of the German pilots attacked and all the British aircraft returned, only to meet two German aircraft coming back from a bombing raid, which opened fire and mortally wounded the pilot of one of the escorts. The British ascribed their immunity to attack during

6808-513: The relative availability of resources. The use of the term ace to describe these pilots began in World War ;I, when French newspapers described Adolphe Pégoud , as l'As (the ace) after he became the first pilot to down five German 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 , and especially Manfred von Richthofen ,

6900-406: The rest by seven other Fokker pilots. January 1916 brought thirteen claims, most of them against the French, followed by twenty more in February, the last month of the "scourge" proper. Most of the victories were scored by aces rather than the newer pilots flying the greater number of Fokkers. Allied casualties had been light by later standards but the loss of air superiority to the Germans, flying

6992-533: 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. The feat was repeated five more times during World War I. 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

7084-514: The scourge was almost over. The bogey of the Fokker Eindecker as a fighter was finally laid in April, when an E.III landed by mistake at a British aerodrome. The captured aircraft was found not to have the superior performance it had been credited with. The first British aircraft with a synchronisation gear was a Bristol Scout, which arrived on 25 March 1916 and on 24 May the first Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft were flown to France by

7176-741: 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 . 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

7268-421: 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 who claimed 22 kills. 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

7360-402: The unreliable first version of the Fokker gear. At first, E.3/15 was jointly allocated to him and Immelmann when their "official" duties permitted, allowing them to master the type's difficult handling characteristics and to practice shooting at ground targets. Immelmann was soon allocated a very early production Fokker E.I, E.13/15, one of the first armed with the lMG 08 (a lightened version of

7452-550: The war could have been foreseen. Pemberton Billing also blamed the initially poor performance of British aircraft manufacturers on what he saw as the favouritism shown by the RFC, an arm of the British Army, towards the Royal Aircraft Factory, which, while nominally civilian, was also part of the army. Pemberton Billing claimed that, ... hundreds, nay thousands of machines have been ordered which have been referred to by our pilots as "Fokker Fodder" ... I would suggest that quite

7544-473: 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. 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

7636-439: The winter of 1915–1916. By July 1916, KEK had been formed at Vaux , Avillers , Jametz and Cunel near Verdun as well as other places on the Western Front, as Luftwachtdienst (aerial guard service) units, consisting only of fighters. In late May, German air activity on the British front decreased markedly, while the commander of the new Luftstreitkräfte , Oberst (Colonel) Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen , reorganised

7728-771: 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

7820-632: Was an Iraqi ace fighter pilot who shot down 10 Iranian aircraft, mostly F-4 Phantoms during the war. Air Commodore Muhammad Mahmood Alam was an ace fighter pilot in the Pakistan Air Force . During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 , Alam claimed to have downed five aircraft in a single sortie on 7 September 1965 with four downed in less than a minute, establishing a world record. These claims, however, have been widely contested by Indian Air Force officials. On 13 October 2022,

7912-457: Was common; it varied by theatre, nation and individual, but it was inevitable.' Ownership of the terrain below had its effect on verifying victory. An enemy aircraft that crashed in enemy held territory obviously could not be verified by the victor's ground troops. Because aerial combat commonly took place over or behind the German lines, German scores are generally considered more accurate because German aces' victories were more easily confirmed on

8004-508: 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 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 S/Sgt. Michael Arooth, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress tail gunner serving in

8096-527: Was difficult to fly; Parschau, who was experienced on Fokker   A types, converted pilots to the new fighter. The early Eindeckers were attached to FFAs, in ones and twos, to protect reconnaissance machines from Allied machine-gun-armed aircraft. Fokker Eindecker E.5/15, the last of the pre-production series, is believed to have been first flown in action by Kurt Wintgens of FFA   6. On 1   and 4   July 1915, he reported combats with French Morane-Saulnier   L (Parasols), well over

8188-474: 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. The most notable example of a non-pilot ace in World War I is Charles George Gass with 39 accredited aerial victories. Between the two world wars, there were two theaters that produced flying aces, the Spanish Civil War and

8280-450: Was not primarily aimed at the technical quality of Royal Aircraft Factory aircraft but because a government body was competing with private industry. When the news of the Fokker monoplane fighters reached him in late 1915, Grey was quick to blame the problem on orders for equipment that the latest developments had rendered obsolete. Grey did not suggest alternative aircraft, even supposing that the rapid development of aviation technology during

8372-479: 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

8464-554: 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 . 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,

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