Originally posted by TracerX
Have to agree with this one. Almost universally recognized as the most talented German pilot. This guy was the equivalent of Fester, BK, Levi, et al. only in real life. His skills were far greater than any that came before or after him on the German side, including Hartman. I am American, and have a natural tendancy to favor the US Aces, but I have to hand it to this guy. He was special. His death was a National tragedy.
See this link
Only thing I wonder about is how he'd have done in ETO against roughly equal aircraft and pilots who weren't flying ground attack.
101 of his kills are against P40s many of them early models of the RAF as well as 30 Hurricane Is. Even the Spit Vs he'd have flown against were flying with the large Vokes filter which really reduced speed and were not close to his 109F in performance. He could really control the fight.
Not saying he wasn't a great pilot, clearly he was, I just am hard pressed to see him in the same category as guys like Priller, Glunz etc who fought their entire careers against the best of the Allies out of England. I think they were in a far more difficult situation in terms of the aircraft they faced, the numbers, quality and experience of the Allied pilots, the circumstances etc.