I believe that they were generally rural people who grew up in the Great Outdoors, and who hunted for food or for sport, such as rural farmers in the USA and the aristocracy in Europe. That is, they had a grasp of leading a moving target with a rifle or shotgun, were observant of the general conditions and surroundings (situational awareness), and could make a decision to hunt to a successful conclusion or break it off without any pride issues. Usually they had great vision including great perepheral vision. Growing up self-sufficient and being successful at stalking and bagging prey for the table describes a lot of good / great pilots.
Perhaps not all. There are certainly some who learned the craft during and after pilot training, but inate good shots usually had that skill before learning to fly.
Knowing when to break off and live for another fight was at LEAST as important is knowing when to attack. Hartmann was most proud of never losing a wingman, and THAT says a lot for Herr Hartmann. He may have been a prolific scorer, but he knew when to save his wingman and come back for another go at it later.
Killer Caldwell would be an exception to this profile. Clive Robertson Caldwell DSO, DFC Bar (28 July 1910 – 5 August 1994) was the leading Australian air ace of World War II. He is officially credited with shooting down 28.5 enemy aircraft in over 300 operational sorties. Caldwell was a city kid, through and through, and had no particular aptitude at marksmanship. He was however, known for his disdain of authority, and his utter cool demeanour under fire. The man had nerves of steel....
Caldwell was born in Lewisham, a suburb of Sydney and educated at Albion Park School, Sydney Grammar School and Trinity Grammar School. He learned to fly in 1938 with the Aero Club of New South Wales. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), with the intention of becoming a fighter pilot. As he was over the age limit for fighter training, Caldwell persuaded a pharmacist friend to alter the details on his birth certificate. He was accepted by the RAAF and joined the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS; also known as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and similar names).
On 4 July 1941 Caldwell saw a German pilot shoot and kill a close friend, Pilot Officer Donald Munro, who was descending to the ground in a parachute. This was a controversial practice, but was nevertheless common among German (and later allied) pilots. It appears this particular experience hardened Caldwells attitude toward the German airmen as it may have caused Caldwell's attitude to harden significantly. Months later, press officers and journalists popularised Caldwell's nickname of "Killer", which he disliked. One reason for the nickname was that he had begun to shot enemy airmen like the germans after they parachuted out of aircraft. Caldwell commented many years later: "...there was no blood lust or anything about it like that. It was just a matter of not wanting them back to have another go at us. I never shot any who landed where they could be taken prisoner."
Caldwell showed no disinclination to engage the enemy, despite the odds. While flying to his base alone, over north west Egypt on 29 August 1941, Caldwell was attacked by two Bf 109s, in a deadly simultaneous approach at right angles. His attackers included one of Germany's most famous Experte (aces), Leutnant Werner Schröer of Jagdgeschwader 27 (JG 27), in a Bf 109E-7. Caldwell sustained three separate wounds from ammunition fragments and/or shrapnel; his Tomahawk was hit by more than 100 7.9 mm bullets and five 20 mm cannon shells, but he shot down Schröer's wingman, and heavily damaged Schröer's "Black 8", causing Schröer to disengage. On 23 November, Caldwell shot down an Experte, Hauptmann Wolfgang Lippert, gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 27, who bailed out. Lippert had struck the tailplane and following capture had his legs amputated but ten days later a gangrene infection set in and he died on 3 December. For this action Caldwell was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Caldwell claimed five Junkers Ju 87 (Stuka) dive bombers in a matter of minutes on 5 December. He was decorated with the DSO for this action
On 24 December, Caldwell was involved in an engagement which mortally wounded another Luftwaffe ace, Hpt. Erbo Graf von Kageneck (69 kills) of III./JG 27. Caldwell only claimed a "damaged" at the time, but postwar sources have attributed him with the kill.
In January 1942, Caldwell was promoted to Squadron Leader and was given command of No. 112 Squadron RAF, becoming the first EATS graduate to command a British squadron. 112 Sqn at that time included a number of Polish aviators, and this was why Caldwell was later awarded the Polish Krzyż Walecznych ("Cross of Valour").
Caldwell scored another striking victory in February 1942, while leading a formation of 11 Kittyhawks from 112 Sqn and 3 Sqn. Over Gazala, he sighted a schwarm of Bf 109Fs flying some 2,000 ft higher. Caldwell immediately nosed into a shallow dive, applied maximum power and boost, then pulled his Kittyhawk up into a vertical climb. With his P-40 "hanging from its propeller," he fired a burst at a 109 flown by Leutnant Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt of I./JG27, who was lagging behind the others. Stahlschmidt's fighter "shuddered like a carpet being whacked with a beater" before spinning out of control. Although the Kittyhawk pilots thought that the 109 had crashed inside Allied lines, Stahlschmidt was able to crash-land in friendly territory.
When Caldwell left the theatre later that year, the commander of air operations in North Africa and the Middle East, Air Vice Marshal Arthur Tedder described him as: "an excellent leader and a first class shot". Caldwell claimed 22 victories while in North Africa flying P-40s, including ten Bf 109s and two Macchi C.202s. He had flown some 550 hours in over 300 operational sorties.
