How is an ace ranked?

Question

I am talking about a expert air combat pilot. How are they Ranked?

Answer 1

The Germans required ten kills in WWII, most other countries five. The Israelis probably have the most modern high ranking Jet aces simply from the fact they engage in the most combat. If not then that honor still belongs to a German who flew the Me-262 in WWII. Our highest scoring ace of all time is d**k Bong from WWII. Followed closely by Thomas McGuire from the same. The top scorer of all time will probably never be equaled unless some of those science fiction movies come true. That is Germany's Erich Hartmann in WWII. He scored 352 kills, almost all Russian. Compare this with Bongs 40 and McGuire's 38. But the reason is the axis pilots did not fly tours like allied. They stayed in combat until killed, disabled, or the war ended and they operated in what is now called a target rich environment. There were just more allied aircraft than axis, hence more chances to score. The highest scoring Japanese ace is considered to be Hirosyhi Nishawaza who did not survive the war. Our highest scoring jet ace is still Joesph McConnell from the Korean War. Any ace is bad news for a lesser pilot. it is estimated the handful of aces in any war score more than half the kills......Hartmann was anything but sneaky. He fought against odds many times. Yes, there were other Germans many with high scores for the reason given. A few would be Werner Moelders, Helmut Wicke, Adolf Galland, Emil Lang, Gunther Rall, Johanes Stienhoff. Even the German night fighters had high scorers. Prince Hienriech Zu-Sayn Wingestien for example. But so did the British. The key is as I said the greater numbers of allied aircraft and the tour system. Johnny Johnson with 38 is considered the British top scorer. But several tours. Sailor Malan is considered the greatest early ace of the RAF. But his 32 were almost all in the Battle of Britain. Much harder than later. He fought Werner Moelders one on one in the battle and beat him. Turned into him so hard he was able to rake Moelders 109 fore to aft. Moelders was badly wounded and barely made it back to base. When you compare allied aces tours with the same time frames in axis the scores are usually roughly equeal. Helmut Wicke was one of the three leading German scorers of the Battle of Britain. That is why I included him in the greatest German's. At the very end of the battle in early November 1940 there was a big dogfight over the channel and Isle of Wight by British and German fighters. Wicke was shot down by John Dundas a leading British ace. In turn Wicke's wingman shot down Dundas almost immediately. Both pilots bailed out over the channel but niethier was ever seen again.....Today the top British ace of the war is considered "Pat" Pattle. But he fought in the Mideast and Balkans and many of his squadrons records were lost in the German invasion of Greece. Pattles last fight was in Greece over Euless Bay at Athens. He shot down two 109's in quick succesion but another slipped in behind and shot him down into the bay. He never bailed out.....The big factor in todays wars is duration. They are usually over fast. Vietnam was an exception but there were so many restrictions on our pilots that unless attacked they literally could not shoot back. Just bomb. An all out air war with no target restrictions would have been over in a matter of days. But fighters are still vital. First to secure air superiority and then to bomb the other side into the ground. Air fighting still occurs. Just a couple years back a pair of Israel F-16's shot down a pair of Syrian Migs off Beriut....

Answer 2

I think you become an ace once you shoot down five planes. I've heard one. I'm not sure.

Answer 3

The top scoring ace of all time is Eric Hartmann, a German pilot during WWII with 352 kills.

The top American Ace is Richard Bong with 40 kills in the Pacific during WWII

Answer 4

Since you leave best answers to voters I'm probably wasting my time but I hate to see a good question so badly answered.  Originally an ace had five, substantiated kills.  This became more difficult when aircraft had a pilot and a weapons officer.  Who would get the credit?  

To answer you question, there are many means of ranking.

Answer 5

i dunno

Answer 6

In most countries, an ace is any pilot that has 5 or more confirmed aerial kills.

Answer 7

An Ace is a pilot that has shot down 5 aircraft.  I think you would need to judge them against their contemporaries.  The greastest was probably The Red Baron of Germany with over 80 kills before being shot down his self.  Up until the Korean war kills were done by utilizing guns, so pilot skill played a far greater role. When missiles came into play missiles could be fired before you ever seen the other aircraft,  Sidewinder had almost a perfect kill rate, The Phoenix missile and others could be fired in excess of 50 miles from the target.  I think that they have always ranked them by total kills, so the Baron is nimber 1 and Eddie Rickenbacker is Americas number 1.

Answer 8

After having shot down 5 aircraft.     It should be pointed out that a pilot just can't go along to his/her squadron leader and say "I've shot down 5 a/c"; all kills have to be verified by a witness or witnesses.

Answer 9

There's no specific ranking system for fighter pilots aside from his kill score and his official rank within his force. You'll find double aces, triple aces, etc. One thing that's significant is that a high kill score doesn't necessarily define a pilots skill, either. Hartmann had more than 300 kills, but attained most of them against inexperienced pilots with very sneaky tactics. He himself said that he would rather run if there was any indication that the enemy pilot even knew he was there. He was more of a master tactician, capable of setting up a favorale attack, than a great dogfighter. Richtophen, the "Red Baron" was a arguably one of the greatest dogfighters of WWI but only attained 80+ kills before being shot down. Our aces in Vietnam easily could have missed out completely if only a couple more of their missiles hadn't tracked. Basically, there are far too many variables in any conflict to make a defined ranking of pilots. Basically, results speak for themselves and we can only look at the scores.

Answer 10

Shoot down 5 ememy aircraft

Answer 11

As a high performance aircraft pilot (fighters), once you shoot down (air to air kills) 5 enemy aircraft then you are dubbed an ace.  repeating this feat only gets you the moniker of ace so many times over (insert number for each multiple of 5 air to air kills)

Not to argue, but for WW1 the Red Baron was considered the greatest fighter pilot.  In WW2 the Germans had some fighter pilots who had air to air victory scores that numbered over 250. If I remember correctly, there was one or two that had 300 plus.  Dont quote me on that one.

Do a google search.