The Winner is the He-111
There were a couple surprises in this survey, for example I did not expect the PBY-5A to make it past the first round. I expected the final round of voting to be closer than it was, but the He-111 won consistently by a large margin.
Judging from the first two rounds, I expected the Ki-43 and Beaufighter to be in the final round of voting against the He-111. However this is where my theory may have come into play. My prediction was that when someone's aircraft of interest was eliminated, they would consolidate their votes with one of the less popular aircraft, bringing that aircraft's tally up above aircraft that consistently did well. This was proven to be the case with both the Me-410 and the Yak-3. During Round 2, both of these aircraft were nearly eliminated, however similar aircraft that were eliminated were the A-26 and the Pe-2. I expect that people that voted for the Pe-2 switched their vote to the Yak-3 favoring a russian aircraft to win, and people favoring the A-26 switched to the Me-410 wanting a late war ground attack contender.
The Ki-43 and Beaufighter had a loyal fan base but nothing to attract new voters, which is why I think they went from leading the polls to falling behind the yak3 and the 410. I did not include my vote in any of the polls, but if anyone is interested I was pulling for the following aircraft in the following order:
1.) G4M2
2.) KI43
3.) M-18
Here are the results from all 4 rounds of voting
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
