30-60 planes today to become an ace? No one would ever make that! Most aviation experts doubt anyone will ever again hit five. Here's why. There are far fewer aircraft today than their were in WWI or WWII. The entire USAF ACC has somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 aircraft today. That is less than the total of just the 8th AF in WWII. What is more, barring a very large scale war (which is blessedly unlikely) a pilot is unlikely to have the time or the targets required to be an ace. I don't remember off hand but I believe the total air-to-air kills for the Gulf War were around 40 and I don't know of any individual pilot who had more than 2.