Interesting article about Top Gun

[Max2147]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

Yes. I'd say the sheer number of missions flown by the Luftwaffe pilots was the biggest factor in their high number of kills compared to other nations pilots in WWII.

Agreed. A factor that contributed to that was that German aircraft were usually used in conjunction with the army, so they were usually over their own territory or close to the front lines. That meant that a pilot who was shot down and bailed out had a good chance of getting back to friendly territory, where he'd get another fighter and go fly more missions. The top German aces got shot down dozens of times.

On the other side, the British and especially the Americans were flying long distance missions deep into enemy territory. If they bailed out, they were POW's for the rest of the war.