Fighter with the most kills

[Viggen 644]

Simple enough question that I can't find an answer full answer to. Which aircraft has the most air to air kills ever?

[Caesar 305]

If I had to guess, either the F6F Hellcat at 5271 aircraft shot down, or the P-51 with 4950 - that is if you were to trust Wikipedia, which I don't. I would not be surprised, however, these two being high performance fighters which flew in WWII against large quantities of enemy aircraft.

Edited January 2, 2011 by Caesar

[+streakeagle 871]

No doubt about it, must be a WW2 fighter.

I would venture a guess: Bf-109 if you count all variants together.

What other aircraft had multiple 100+ kill aces and even a 300 kill ace?

The allies had many fighters to divide their kills up, the Luftwaffe had principally just two, Bf109 and Fw190.

The Bf109 flew air combat missions from the Spanish Civil War through the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Between daily massive bombing raids from England and the Eastern Front, there were certainly plenty of opportunities to score kills.

 

But, as effective as the Bf109 was, what was its kill ratio?

The F-15 has served far longer and is supposedly still undefeated in air-to-air (can't ever trust Israel to be 100% accurate about losses).

But how can you really compare combat statistics of anything that has happened since WW2 with WW2?

The USAF had over 100,000 aircraft at its peak and almost every aircraft was produced in numbers over 5,000, typically 10,000 or more.

Since then, the lucky few like the MiG-15, F-86 Sabre, MiG-21, and F-4 get produced in numbers like that.

 

Since the A6M served from the start of WW2 to the end, it might have a decent total as well.

Though its effectiveness fell off rapidly after 1942 as technology passed it by and more importantly the quality of Japanese pilots fell dramatically.

[Freiwillige 1]

Yea I would have to put it between the 109 the P-51 or the F6F. My guess would go to the 109 since it saw heavy combat from beginning to end.

[+streakeagle 871]

If you can trust Wiki:

he Bf 109 was credited with more aerial kills than any other aircraft. One hundred and five (possibly 109) Bf 109 pilots were credited with the destruction of 100 or more enemy aircraft. Thirteen of these men scored more than 200 kills, while two scored more than 300. Altogether this group were credited with nearly 15,000 kills between them.[56] Official ace status was granted to any pilot who scored five or more kills. Applying this to Luftwaffe fighter pilots and their records reveals that "Ace" status belonged to more than 2,500 German pilots.[57] Against Soviets, the Finnish-flown Bf 109Gs claimed a victory ratio of 25:1 in favour of the Finns.

 

Think about it, thats more than the P-51 and F6F together :)

Edited January 2, 2011 by streakeagle

[macelena 1,070]

I think it could be, most possibly, the Me-109. The Me was in service longer than any of those, who entered the war quite later, flew many times against aircraft whose performances were inferior, or any other advantage. Look at some of the aces it produced, most of them got more kills than any allied fighter pilot.

 

EDIT- Just checked, 15.000 kills for the Me-109. That would be the clear "winner".

Edited January 2, 2011 by macelena

[Caesar 305]

Think StreakEagle is right - I was thinking of Allied Fighters; considering it would have fought on both fronts of the European side of the war, and was a scourge for bombers as well as fighters, on top of number of aces and overall allied a/c lost, that's probably a higher scorer than either the F6F or P-51.

[Lt. James Cater 62]

Even though we determined the BF-109 for sure as the top scoring plane, i think that the FW-190 also has more kills than the Mustang and Hellcat combined.

 

When you fought against the odds the Germans did, you certainly were in a target rich environment. Add minimal time away from the front and one could certainly run up a score provided you stayed alive long enough.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

109....nobrainer.

[Viggen 644]

I saw that on wikipedia but, it being wikipedia, I wasn't sure.

 

So that means the 109 has two titles under its belt: most produced fighter and most kills. Not bad for the little fighter.

[+Gepard 11,356]

Yes the Me-109 was the top scorer. But on the side of the allied planes the Spitfire and the soviet Yak typs have much more kills than every american fighter plane.

The brits and soviets had had much more chances to get in dogfight with enemy planes. Sure, a Mustang was an outstanding plane, but it has flown normaly 1 sortie a day. At the eastern front up to 8 or 10 sorties were not uncommon.

[Stingray72 6]

Yeah, I was also thinking the 109. It for sure was produced in greater numbers than any other fighter a/c in WWII, and it fought in combat longer than any other plane as well.

 

~Stingray

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

streak::

The F-15 has served far longer and is supposedly still undefeated in air-to-air (can't ever trust Israel to be 100% accurate about losses).

Interesting question. Fighter with the most survivability?

 

Just found this....P-47... "Only 0.7 per cent of the fighters of this type dispatched against the enemy were to be lost in combat."

~> http://www.skylighters.org/p47/index.html

 

I've read the Ilya Morametz (sp?) 4 engine Russian bomber in WW1 was never shot down even in numerous air combats with German scouts, although one did fall apart after landing, after being attacked by maybe a dozen German scouts.

 

 

Any idea about SPAD in WW1? That was a beefy fighter.