The unconscious chauvinism we all easily suffer from is interesting to spot.
Our guys are the best - and must be better than their guys. Look, their guys have scored more than our guys! How? Obviously they cheated... Welll... No.
I'm no expert on aces, but a couple of thoughts.
tom d. friedman's answer in his first post is a good on on the origins of the term. In W.W.I the RFC/RAF refused to recognise the term, and few air forces ever have done 'officially' but it also always makes good stories for the folks back home, particularly for an arm of service that is essentially
defensive. (Fighter pilots don't win wars - they stop their side from losing.) Generally five air victories was regarded as 'ace' status. The argument over air to ground kills is a hot one; essentially the most useful 'victory' is where the enemy aircrew are taken out - either killed, injured or captured - as they take time and money to train, whereas aircraft are easier to replace. The RAF was running out of
pilots, not
fighters in 1940.
The German system is generally held by those that have studied it to be tight and structured, generally held to be a good victory tally process. There were exceptions, some bad claims, and some overclaiming, but no more than any Allied air force.
The 'they cheated' or 'they had an easier system' theories come around with monotonous regularity; AFAIK, there's no
evidence for those theories, except they are the natural result of the equally natural incredulity of people hitting these stats for the first time, and finding the last round of discussions to support the new advocates of the view. Myths are hard to kill.
There is no argument that ONLY the Germans got into three digit ace classification, and the highest scoring western aces were in the half century bracket. Effectively, some German aces scored
ten times as much as most western Allied aces!
Why?
Well, there's a lot of reasons advanced, some good ones so far. Plus:
First - Bear in mind that the German aces were operating in a 'target rich environment' in many cases from 1936/9 to 1945; sometimes on the offensive, and later defensively, but there were always enemy aircraft to shoot at. As a tactical air force the Luftwaffe rarely
maintained air superiority (they lost in on the Eastern front) unlike allied air forces which did on occasion.
Second - they had time (mentioned already) and they 'maintained currency'. They did have periods of leave, but never generally had 'rest tours' or periods as most western forces did. So they were in the front line longer, and stayed good, or were killed.
Currency is an often underestimated advantage, and provided fatigue doesn't take over, was often decisive.
Thirdly - tactics and tools - The aces were generally able to specify the a/c they wanted to a degree, and also were able to structure the combat to their (personal or formation) advantage at times. They also always had competitive (more than adequate if not 'the best') aircraft types. We all tend to get hung up on 'was x fighter aircraft better than y' when the difference in performance is almost always less than 10% - a factor
much less important that pilot skill, experience, currency and tactical ability.
Fourthy - There were periods when experienced Luftwaffe pilots faced air forces which had not been in battle before. Sometimes, like May 1940 or
Barbarossa, they had surprise and lighting advance on their side as well. The Allied air forces rarely if ever faced whole Axis units that were
without any combat experience.
The Commonwealth and the US forces developed excellent training regimens for their pilots, and apart from a few critical points (late Battle of Britain, 1941/2 in the Pacific) had ample pilots, allowing the luxury of rotating pilots through the front line. Also the Allies had training bases entirely uninterupted by fuel shortages and enemy action. Canada's contributions were Corvettes, raw materials and the Empire Air Training Scheme - also based in Southern Africa and Australia. Germany had none of these advantages, and so the junior pilots were often killed by their own 109 on take off or landing or in their early combats. (Early combat vulnerability being a perennial issue for all fighter forces.) Thus 'the best' or ' Experten' as they were known had even more thrown on their shoulders - a challenge they by and large, rose to.
All credit should be given to the Luftwaffe for unarguably having the highest scoring fighter pilots in history. However that's a symptom of the services failure as well. A few incredible fighter aces and a mass of vulnerable neophytes plus 'wonder weapons' will not win the war. Adequate equipment in sufficient numbers (the US production achievement) flown by competent pilots who aren't run into the ground will win - or 'God is on the side of the big battalions'.
There's a good 'primer' on aces here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_ace
Regards,