This is coolbert: Here is an amazing observation from World War Two regarding fighter pilots from all sides of the conflict.

The number one American ace fighter pilot was Richard Bong. He shot down forty Japanese planes and was the highest scoring ace of all American pilots. For this feat Richard Bong received the Medal of Honor. This was a great feat.

Contrast the record of Richard Bong with the record of the many German aces in the same war, and you have to say whoa, wait a minute. Many German pilots in the same war did far, far better than Dick Bong. Now, you may say, how is that possible, and how much better? Well, for example, Erich Hartmann ended up with 352 kills on the eastern front. Yes, Hartmann is credited with shooting down 352 enemy planes and did this in an eighteen month period!!! And these were not just Russian planes either. On one day over Ploesti, Hartmann shot down seven P-51's of the U.S. Army Air Corps! So Hartmann just did not excel at shooting down dumb stupid Russians that did not know what they were doing and had inferior gear! Beyond Hartmann, the Germans had many aces that shot down over a hundred enemy aircraft, and a number that had shot down two hundred or more!! These guys were really good. To see a site asking the question about why the German pilots were so good, and offering possible explanations, click here.

One aspect about the above site that is missing is that it does not cover the night fighter pilots. A lot of them were also aces with large number of enemy aircraft downed. These were almost all British bombers that had to be sought out in the dark, most of the time without radar [sometimes with radar and searchlight], and attacked using unconventional methods. One method was to fly under the bomber firing with a cannon that was aimed upward from the mid-section of the night fighter. This technique was very successful but called for skillful piloting.

I think that plain old superior and skillful piloting was the main reason that the Germans were so good. These men were from the start naturals who were recognized as such and were well trained and ready for dogfighting. In the dogfight, they did not have to think about flying the plane. That came as second nature to them. Their concern was the tactics that would allow them to vanquish their opposition. And this skill was primarily, at least from what I understand, from an early German practice of training pilots by glider. The Germans trained their pilots in the initial stages by glider. Developing superior piloting skills this way would allow the pilot to concentrate on dogfighting ability and tactics and leave the flying of the plane to his highly developed second nature. These superior pilots became so much as one with the plane that they did not have to worry about flying, just about killing the enemy.

coolbert.