Best pilot

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lesofprimus said:
I have to agree with Adler and say Heinz Bär as well.... Combat proves a pilot, and the man proved more than any other in my book....

And for the mix, how bout Jimmy Doolittle and his accomplishments???
Click to expand...

I agree Doolitte, Dan - I mentioned him in that second tier below Crossfield/Yeager for me personally as best Pilots.

Turner, Doolittle, Mantz, Lindbergh, LaVier, Welsh, Hoover, Bob White, Kurt Tank and a host of top notch others (like Earhart, Hanna Reitsch (sp?)) linger just below those two (for me). Thes were all brave and skilled pilots beyond compare as stick and rudder types - from racing to stunts to new territories in conventional craft of the day

I rank Bar, Hartmann, Rall, and more than a few others, in the greatest fighter pilot/air warrior category but here's the difference to me.

Yeager, Crossfield, Welsh, LaVier, Bob White, etc - very top Test Pilots not only flew a lot of really dangerous ships and profiles but also managed them to precise flight parameters to maximize the test results - without benefit of tribal knowledge about the 'quirks' and vicious characteristics that existed in that bird... they had to a.) find them and b.) survive them - day after day, new bird after new bird, etc - and they did it in ships that were at the very threshold of our knowledge and limits.

This is a debate that I could never win but it explains why I believe what I do about the candidates for 'best'.. Hell my father thought HE was the best!

Regards, Bill
 
lesofprimus said:
And for the mix, how bout Jimmy Doolittle and his accomplishments???
Click to expand...

Yepers!

Remember folks (and I'm sure there are a few who realize this) Just because we have a great fighter pilot in the mix here, there's more to flying than combat - some of the test pilots and aviation pioneers mentioned experienced as much (and even more) terror as a 50 mission B-17 pilot with the 100th BG just flying as a civilian.....
 
I think this debate could go on, and on, and on, and on. You have too
much of a mix here. Fighter pilot, bomber pilot, first to do this or that,
test pilots, not to mention some very hot stunt/acrobatic pilots. You
have to pick a catagory. The guys that flew at Reno were no slouches,
either. It takes a special kind of man/woman to do a specific job, and do it
so he's at the top of his class.... so that his peers think he/she is
the best. That's the guy/gal you're looking for......

Charles
 
How about Corky Meyers the Grumman test pilot...? ... One name that never gets much write ups on the fourm ...

And the group of pilots that first went in after the Japaneness ships at Midway .. I think one plane made it back of the first wave ... Big balls ..

Manfred von Richthofen ..The Red Baron ... One of the "first" bad a$$ pilot in my book

I'll put down Rickenbacker and Bishop too .. WW1 seams to be forgotten as time goes by..

The top ace from Japan in WW2 too...( forgot his name )
 
Since I started this thread, I want to reiterate that combat skills are not, to me, the major qualifier for best pilot. Let me demonstrate what I consider a great pilot with a story. Boone Guyton was the test pilot for Vought on the Corsair program. He was car qualed in the Navy and had a lot of hours. He subsequently flew the Flying Pancake and the Pirate. He was a qualified dive bomber pilot on the SB2U. Charles Lindberg was a consultant for United Aircraft of which Vought was a subsidiary. Lindberg came to fly the early Corsair, before it had been debounced and the left wing drop at stall alleviated. Guyton talked to Lindberg about the difficult landing characteristics of the Hog and told him that perhaps he should on the first landing do a wheels landing in stead of a full stall carrier landing. Lindberg with a small grin did a very thorough preflight, took off and on his first landing did a perfect full stall 3 point landing with no bounce. Guyton had never seen a better one. Lindberg had never flown the Corsair before. He flew the Atlantic solo. Set a coast to coast record in the Ryan bringing the plane to the East coast. Flew the mail in Jennies all over the mid west. Flew a Sirius all over the world mapping airline routes. Consulted on and flew the Corsair, P47, B24 and others. Went to the Pacific and flew sorties in Corsairs and P38s and delivered many bombs and shot down one Jap plane. There was what I call a natural born pilot.
 
I live in a land that owes more to aviation for it's development then any other land that I can think of ,these guys flew in areas where there were no maps the compass was useless because of the difference between true and magnetic north and hundreds of miles between settlements , flying aircraft with open cockpits no heat and no support. Pilots landing breaking the prop and carving his own . Without the bush pilot pioneering the north the Russians would have been short 5000 aircraft that transited the north west staging route.
Recently there was a American Physcian that was in dire medical straits in the Antarctic , they flew a Twin Otter from the Arctic to the Antarctic to extricate her ,(or from pole to pole at 160knots) nobody else would do it ,

These pilots were the first cadre of instructors that trained 133000 aircrew under the BCATP including Gentile, Hofer,Beeson, Blakesee, Magee(Blacksheep) I've named 2 of the more prominent bush pilots . and then there is Johnny Fauquier who was a bush pilot joined RCAF instructed for several yrs led the Pathfinders took a demotion to lead 617 sqn (dambusters)
 
Renrich - PB, agree 100%. Sometimes making that 3 point landing in a 20 knot crosswind requires just as much (if not more) skill than latching on someones 6 and blasting away.
 
Flyboy agree, the thing about Lindberg that awes me(I don't have the biography I read to research these comments) is that he started flying in the 20s and flew jennies in all kinds of weather and no nav aids delivering mail, flew the Atlantic with all dead reckoning, flew the Sirius(a seaplane) with open cockpits all over the world, flew single engine high performance fighters in their developmental stage, flew twin engine fighters, flew 4 engine bombers, flew combat and taught pilots how to extend range and lift huge loads. In his prime was there any aircraft in the world that he could not fly and fly well and better than any other man in the world?
 
I think Lindbergh also emphasised using a checklist as well as understanding how important leaning was to get the most range out of an engine.
 
If by Japan's "finest" ace you mean the top scorer, I don't think it was Sakai. He was the top survivor of the war, but I believe Hiroyoshi Nishizawa was actually considered the top scoring ace of Japan. He was killed in '44.

Best pilot? Hmmm. A really tough call. I guess it all depends on how you look at it, and most of us all have a certain degree of national bias. It's in our nature. Bush pilots, fighter pilots, aviation pioneers...Tough one.
 
BTW - Speaking of Scott Crossfield...

NTSB RELEASES FINAL REPORT ON CROSSFIELD CRASH
The NTSB has blamed Scott Crossfield's death on his own failure to obtain updated en route weather information, and on air traffic controllers for not giving him adverse weather avoidance assistance. The former civilian test pilot took off in his Cessna 210A on April 19, 2006, from Prattville/Grouby Field Airport in Prattville, Ala., and was en route to Manassas, Va., on an IFR flight plan. Crossfield encountered severe embedded thunderstorms and received a clearance to deviate, but it was too late. The airplane disappeared from radar 30 seconds after he initiated the turn. The wreckage was found in the mountains near Ludville, Georgia.
 
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