woaw look at the german numbers !

[hotcoffe]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_flying_aces

[Zimme83]

With a lot of targets and the fact that they flew until they got killed instead of becoming instructors that is the result.
I haven't checked but i guess that the Finnish air force was even more successful in terms of how big % of the pilots that became aces.

Also worth mentioning is that Finland received a total of 159 Bf 109 during the war (102 of them survived the war), compare that to the Luftwaffe that even as late as march 1945 still received around 1000 109:s/month..

[hotcoffe]

[NatCigg]

never lost a wingman, wtg hartman.

I could only imagine how he flew to kill and live.  I wonder if he flew above his group, separate, how he managed to live, did he simply obey the rules and bnz his way around.  seems like something would happen upon him, and im sure it did.  I guess a good bit was luck, a good bit was skill.  like natural evolution, hes the one that walked away.

 

[Zimme83]

Most aces were shot down or crashed but they were the ones that beat the odds. For example: Hartmann crashed 14 times. Marseille were shot down during BoB and Gunter Rall were shot down 8 times.

So it was a lot about luck, the aces were those that survived long enough to learn how to fight. Although most of them were gifted pilots that were able to learn a bit faster than the others.

But in the end proper training is more important, at the end of the war a German rookie with 70 hours of training had little chance of surviving against British and American pilots with 400 hours of training...

[Devil 505]

Johannes Steinhoff was also shot down 14 times, but only ever bailed out once and ditched the rest. He did not trust parachutes.

[oakranger]

never lost a wingman, wtg hartman.

I could only imagine how he flew to kill and live.  I wonder if he flew above his group, separate, how he managed to live, did he simply obey the rules and bnz his way around.  seems like something would happen upon him, and im sure it did.  I guess a good bit was luck, a good bit was skill.  like natural evolution, hes the one that walked away.

 

He was using a hack code that includes aimed bot, unlimited fuel/ammo,  masked weight and performance.

[Zoney]

He was using a hack code that includes aimed bot, unlimited fuel/ammo,  masked weight and performance.

/.activatecloakingdevice

[DaveBB]

I read in "Dirty Little Secrets of World War II" that 5% of the pilots scored over 50% of the kills.  Eagl has weighed in on this before, but it's a certain personality type (combined with the right training) that makes a true killer in the skies.

[Devil 505]

It's not that simple, If you read about these pilots you will find many different personalities even among the elite aces.

[DaveBB]

It's not that simple, If you read about these pilots you will find many different personalities even among the elite aces.

I respectifully disagree. Obviously the ability to process the OODA loop comes into play, as well as being aggressive and being physically able to handle the violent nature of manuevering a fighter.  We will get more into this tomorrow, but here are some very unusual traits that they found among the majority of American aces:

The majority of American aces were shorter than average, had brown hair, and were much more likely to have daughters than sons. 

[Devil 505]

Correlation does not prove or imply causation.

[oakranger]

It's not that simple, If you read about these pilots you will find many different personalities even among the elite aces.

Part true.  Read one study that pilots with blue eyes (i think)  had better aim and high kills status. 

[FBKampfer]

It's also statistically true that people with brown eye are more likely to develop cancer.

But they're unrelated. It's simply that there are more brown eyed people, especially in areas where healthcare is less developed. Hence more cancer, and a bit of statistical overlap.

Statistically, people of African descent are more likely to attacked by lions. But also more likely to kill wildebeest. Which themselves are statistically more likely to kill lions than are humans of African descent. Its a cosmic game of statistics rock paper scissors!

Statistically, 100% of people who drink water die.


Lets try not to be dumber than we can help. The arm of coincidence is astoundingly long, and most of you are likely far worse at statistical analysis than you would believe.

[zack1234]

I have one blue eye and one brown