Yeager claimed that he could make out formations of bogies at about 50 miles (I seem to recall him describing these formations as smudges against the sky which grew in detail as he approached). This seems perfectly reasonable. By 10 miles, he claimed to be able to make out individual fighters and ID them by model from most angles. This, also, is not unreasonable since in that situation he only needed to ID an Me-109, Me-110 or Fw-190--all of which look drastically different from any angle. Other pilots with unusually good eyesight, like Anderson, say very much the same thing. Remember that these men had vision far surpassing ordinary, in the 20/10 range.
The joke about Yeager bringing binoculars wasn't far off the mark--his natural vision WAS like having weak binoculars and he was the exception, not the rule.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I would expect that someone like Golland or Sakai or Mannock, all of whom had legandarily bad eyesight, would not have been capable of doing that. A computer game like AH without ICONS might not be too dissimilar from the experiences of these men.
As for the original debate--shooting ability is the second most important skill for a fighter pilot. Good SA is number 1. Actual ability to fly the plane is third.
J_A_B
