I think to encourage the newer players we should change the system to say "So and so landed 435 bullets" That way they would feel success for anything they hit. Guys would be unloading their entire ammo load into barns and stuff just so they could get the highest number of bullets landed. They'd feel unstoppable. Then once they found they could hit the broad side of a barn, they might try hitting another plane. This would start probably with shooting planes just taking off as the chance of landing more bullets would be easier. but in time as they grew more confident they could graduate to moving targets like jeeps. And then once they've become good marksmen and hopefully feel more a part of the community they could try shooting at planes in the air.
Of course we'd have to figure out which bullet to use as our baseline bullet. Guys might all fly Spit Is with all those 303s and land a lot more bullets this way. The 109 drivers might get discouraged so we'd have to decide how many bullets one tater equals.
But I do believe this would be a far better system then the landing kills system in place now.