Warbird Information Exchange

how many "un aces" are there??? un aces being pilots who shot down from 1 to 4 planes, but not reaching the coveted fraternity of aces. how would you even explore this question?? by nation?? by conflict time line?? there are alot of untold stories out their. just because a pilot didn't reach the magic number 5 doesn't make them any less brave or less heroes.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

The UK, Commonwealth and European pilots fitting this category (2-4 kills) were documented a couple of years ago by Chris Shores in 'Those Other Eagles' (Grub Street).

Well worth getting hold of a copy if you're interested. Mine is a great reference work which I use frequently (along with both volumes of 'Aces High', which document the UK and Commonwealth aces)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Those-Other-Eag ... 1904010881

Big Undertaking. USAF 85 has all AAF pilots that were awarded any portion of an air victory for WWII.

I suspect Frank Olynyk is your best hope for all US pilots all wars with any air award (including less than one in a multiple pilot split)

I chatted with a Hellcat pilot at the Air Zoo once (they had let him climb into the F6F-5..first time he'd been in one since the war.) He he had four kills. He said he actually got five, but the last one exploded, and the Navy wouldn't confirm it since he didn't see it hit the water. Apparenlty, the dents and chunks of Japanese airplane stuck in his wing weren't convincing enough!


SN

When I read the title for this thread,I thought you were going to ask about pilots who were shot down by someone else at least 5 times.I believe that some of the Luftwaffe Experten might fit into that category.

They used to call a "4 kill" pilot, an "Ivory Ace" as they were 99% pure. ( for you young'uns, Ivory soap advertised in the past that it was 99% pure. No additives).

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Blue Skies,
Doug

www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com

The answer to "How many pilots scored aerial victories, but didn't make "ace" status?" - a lot! I don't know the exact percentages, but in the history of aerial combat there were a lot of kills scored by "non-aces".

In addition to his outstanding Stars and Bars, which highlights American fighter aces 1920-1973, Frank put out 10 separate softcover volumes on ALL victories claimed in a particular theatre or time period, such as "ETO", or "Pacific Theater" or "USMC in WWII", or US victories in WW1 or post-WWII, etc, etc.

Most of these volumes are dedicated to US pilots only, but a couple focus on the RAF and Commonwealth 300 and 400 series squadrons (IIRC), including, to my great delight in the latter volumes (because I almost didn't buy them), all three Eagle Squadron's complete tally of victories - all by date, time, victim, location, pilot involved, a/c serial/codes (usually), and source of "verification". I have all but his US-Mediterranean Theatre and the USN in WWII. I recently picked up the USMC in WWII volume by pure luck ... I was scanning eBay, and the auction was about to end. Not really being a "last second sniper", I simply put up the house and a couple of the kids as my "max bid", and I won it. Update: We live in a nice apartment now, and gosh, we'll miss those kids!

Frank told me a long time ago that he stopped publishing them because his local printer switched formats and his storage system for all his data was now obsolete for hard-copy printing! Frank said further that he wasn't sure about finding a way to publish them again in hardcopy because he didn't think they would sell for what they were worth/cost to produce. He was looking into having them all available as PDFs on CD. I thought that was a great idea since all the data would be available and affordable. I even offered to retail them for him on my site after he did the PDFs, but I got no reply.

Frank said he's working on, or already finished, a complete RAF in Europe in WWII set - forgot, but it's like a zillion pages long. That one would HAVE to be in PDF format!

You'll rarely see Frank's books listed for sale on the net ... like me, I guess, those who have them are reluctant to part with them!

Stand by for news.

Wade

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