Age and the Fighter Ace

AGE AND THE FIGHTER ACEBarrett TillmanThe fighter ace had a long from 1915, when European pilots began compiling their Great War records, to 1982 when Israel produced the last known aces. But since then, air combat has become nearly extinct on Planet Earth. The last time the combined U.S. armed forces shot down ten enemy aircraft in one day was 1972; the most recent American aerial victory came over Yugoslavia in 1999.That said, it’s instructive to look back at the demographics of fighter pilots from the earliest practitioners to seasoned professionals in World War II and the jet age. Research for this article was conducted by interviews and correspondence in the 1970s, when hundreds of surviving aces were available, not only among Americans but among foreign air arms as well. Like so much military history, a comparable article could not be written today. In 2016, only one of the contributors is still living, but the comments by a variety of combat pilots are preserved for airmen yet unborn.The author, Barrett Tillman, has almost unrivaled expertise with his subject. He was executive secretary of the American Fighter Aces Association for fourteen years (1983–1997) and dealt with aces from half a dozen wars and a dozen nations