Which country has the best fighter pilots?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Modern Warfare
Forum Discription: Military history and miltary science from the ''Cold War'' era onward.
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18390
Printed Date: 12-May-2024 at 16:17
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Topic: Which country has the best fighter pilots?
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Which country has the best fighter pilots?
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 05:39
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I have seen some good pilots in many different Air Forces from around the world. With varying techniques incorporated into the training of these pilots, in your opinion, who has the best pilots?
Note: this is not judging the size of a particular country's Air Force nor its technological capabilities
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Replies:
Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 06:11
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Russian females are the best apparently, in terms of raw natural skill.
Something about them possessing a more natural grasp of three
dimensional concepts is what I read. They certainly performed well in
WWII. With training taking into consideration, I have no idea. ------------- |
Posted By: Gundamor
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 11:21
This alone makes your question impossible. Avionics and the overall performance of the aircraft are what set air forces apart. You can not compare a F-22A pilot with a Mig 29 pilot. The Mig 29 pilot may have better flying skills or can do whatever but his aircraft will lose almost every time to a F-22A. Also the larger Air forces tend to have a larger budget which means more flying hours more simulator time etc. which in turn usually produce better skilled pilots. The top ten pilots of alot of air forces might be equal but its the next 10 and the 10 after that and so on that separate Air forces. ------------- "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind" |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 11:26
 Topic: Which country has the best fighter pilots?Countries that spend more on training & equipment will eventually produce better pilots. USA, Russia, etc.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 12:32
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Not Russia. There airforce is grounded for lack of spares half the time.
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 12:54
Do you have any sources to this? From what I know, women can just sustain more Gs than men, this does not equate to more skill, just tolerance. ------------- |
Posted By: Cezar
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 13:04
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Overall: USNAF, USAF and RAF
Experience: IAF
Skill: I don't know, but I'd rather go for VVO.
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Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 15:57
The receipe for producing an excellent pilot seems to be
A. Individual with a technical education
B Alot of money for very expensive flight time and other training
C. A very expensive airforce infrastructure that matches training with developed doctrines.
Many western nations have recesources for all three points and have chosen developed all three points. Of these nations, I dont think it is possible to say that one pilot is better than that of another nation. (witht he exception of USN Carrier pilots) Thus USAF, IAF, RAF, French, German and Japanese Airforces etc. are all roughly equal.
It is more itneresting to look at the skill of the pilots of nations that do not have as much money to develop points A,B,C yet still produce very good pilots. Of these nations, Turkey, Greece and Pakistan are good examples of "producing alot with less".
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 16:07
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Which countries actually have pilots and/or instructors who have come up against an equally matched enemy?
Bombing undefended buildings is no better than a training exercise.
In 1988 an Iranian Phantom evaded two sparrow missiles from a US F-14 - that's experience. ------------- |
Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 17:09
A point well taken. There have been very few equally matched pilot on pilot encounters since WWII. The only ones that I can think of are....
1. Israel verse Arabs in 1956, 1967, 1973
2. Pakistan verse India encouters
3. USA verse North Vietnamese (very Arguable but North Vietnamese did have access to USSR training system).
Any others?
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 17:17
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Iran V Iraq
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iran-Iraq-War-Air-1980-1988-Cooper/dp/0764316699 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iran-Iraq-War-Air-1980-1988-Cooper/dp/0764316699
^ Good book on the air war.
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Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 17:44
No, I'm afriad I don't have a single source. So feel free to dismiss it. One must admit that the performance of Soviet women, equipped with vastly inferior aircraft to their German enemies, was very good. ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 17:53
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No I won't dismiss it, I just wanted to know if it was backed up, it is possible. I believe that any piece of equipment, military in particular (where it's often a matter of life and death), is only as good as s/he who operates it. ------------- |
Posted By: akritas
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 18:01
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In order to say who is good Pilot must consider the follow facts...... -Mission
-Training
-Disposition
-Experience
As about in which AF is the best in my opinion are the ....
-Leadership
-Training
-Tactics
-Experience
-Support
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2007 at 23:37
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The Iran-Iraq air war showed the Iranians to be pretty poor at aircombat. The reason was most likley that many of the pilots were nice and inexperienced. Ayatollah had shot most of the good ones beforehand. ------------- |
Posted By: malizai_
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2007 at 18:07
I think for #1 and 2 it would be a case of better planning and strategy. I think it is very hard to make the case for best pilots, when equipment disparity and the inability to provide resources for training are considered.
As a rule of thumb however the better trained will be better pilots, but an outcome of a particular campaign may not neccesarily reflect that. ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2007 at 19:58
What's your source? Iranian air to air kills were 5 for every 1 loss and Iran carried out one of the most daring air raids in modern warfare when a squadron of Phantoms flew to Iraq's Jordanian border (where Saddam thought, they'd be safe) and destroyed 40 grounded aircraft, it involved low altitude flight and refuelling at 1000ft. Poor? I think not.
The Iranian airforce was instrumental in repulsing the invasion.
And actually a lot of pilots were purged, but more were in prisons, they were released after begging to be let out to defend their country. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 00:30
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A daring raid or two is not the point. The point is that Iran had superior planes and despite that failed to make its mark on the Iraqis ( the basra campaign being one example), indeed the Iraqis had air superiority for most of the war. The fact that IIAF were unable to make any headway on the ground war is even worse considering the 5:1 kill ration claim, the job of an airforce is the support the ground war. Where the hell were they?
Look I am not some Persianphobe. But the fact is that in the Iran Iraq war, Iran only came out of it due to Iraqi exhaustion and the fighting determination of Iranian volunteers. Armour, air or artillery were not used well.
As for sources
Most reliable is this
ACIG
Persian Cats (IIAF Tomcats in action)
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_212.shtml - http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_212.shtml
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/cat_index_15.shtml - http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/cat_index_15.shtml ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 05:48
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The Iranian airforce was mothballed after the revolution and all of Iran's Tomcats were sabotaged by the Americans before they left. Iran's 5:1 shoot down rate does not indicate Iraqi air superiority,far from it, because their losses were so high they resorted to bombing soft civilian targets.
I think you should watch this, because your take on the Iran-Iraq war seems to be tainted by the usual nonsense in the media, such as Iran won with human wave attacks. Everyone forgets Iran had two armies.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8979584909588245820&q=modern+warfare+iran - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8979584909588245820&q=modern+warfare+iran
Iraqis they had no air cover when they invaded according to this documentary and Iran carried out 150 sorties per day! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8979584909588245820&q=modern+warfare+iran -
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Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 08:39
Good point about the Iranian volunteers. The reason why Iranian why armour, air and artillery were not used well was due to lack of supply rather than fundamental misunderstandings by Iranian regular military officers.
The Ayatollah's rages against the "twin great satans of The West and Soviet bloc" left China and North Korea as Iran's sole supplier of weapons. Chinese weapons of the 1980s were only crude copies of early Soviet models.
That seems like a conspiracy theory. The USA just quit providing spare parts (very understandable). Tomcats, even by U.S. standards, are very complex, high maintenance aircraft that need precison parts. With 20/20 hindsight, it would have been better if Iran had bought more F-5 Freedom Fighters. These planes were designed for easy maintenance, spares could be bought from Asian countries and were far easier to manufacture in Iran.
For everyone victory like the Faw Penninsula that skillfully used conventional light infantry tactics with great improvisations to compensate for lack of SAMS etc, there were several Mullah inspired or Mullah led human wave attacks such as the operation "Karbala" offensives. (I think that was the name used)
In regards to the Arab-Israeli wars, there was not an equipment disparity in 1956,1967,1973. (Especially the first two wars). Israel was often flying basic French models with an irregular supply of spares due to changing French policies. In 1973, Soviet equipment was still roughly equal to U.S. equipment. The clear Israeli technical advantage did not come until Lebanon in 1982. Even still, it took alot of pilot skill for Israel to obtain the incredibly lopsided kill ratio of Syrian verse Israeli air encounters. (80-1?)
Likewise, Israel and the Arabs has the same equivelant recesources. USSR supplied hundreds of advisors to Arab states where the west did not provide any advisors to Israel. Israelis had to develop air tactics and skills on their own.
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 10:28
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The fact that they were sabotaged is a fact, by whom is not exactly clear, but my bet would be the departing US technicians since they had expert knowledge of the systems and used that knowledge to sabotage specific components and I highl doubt Iranian peronnel would just sabotage off their own back because of some loyalty to America and revolutionaries have nothing to fear from air to air missiles and would have trashed the planes rather than strategically sabotage them.
http://www.airtoaircombat.com/background.asp?id=14&bg=5 - http://www.airtoaircombat.com/background.asp?id=14&bg=5
Your second point addressed to me: Yes, the regular army were a proper and professional army whereas the Basij didn't care about their own lives, without their advances Iran would have fared no worse in its offensives, though thtey were crucial in holding the initial invasion. ------------- |
Posted By: SearchAndDestroy
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 11:38
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I would definitly say that the US had a part in the sabotage. I think it was mentioned on the History channel.
Best fighter pilots, I'd say US. Not because of avionics, but the amount of training, scenarios and theory, plus they probably clock the most flight times as the US has the money to do so. Though that last part is speculation. ------------- "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." E.Abbey 
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 12:33
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Sabaotage? The planes are still flying! If the technicians wanted to sabotage the planes all they had to do was take an axe to the fuselage and the planes would never fly again. It would take all of 30 seconds.
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Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 20:57
I am with Spartacus. There was no sabotage conspiracy. Instead what happened was...
- Both Tomcats and Phoenix missiles are very complex and notoriously difficult to maintain.
- Only a small number of Iranians were skilled in these areas. Most are pretty westernized and none are religous fundamentalists.
Then...
-Revolution happens. Scores of the technicians flee Iran. Others are imprisoned by Ayatollah's followers because they are "contaminated".
-Planes and missiles sit idle for months. Ayatollah's followers (and Iran) then desperatly needs the planes.
-Technicians are freed, but most of the maintanance work was done by Grumman. There are also no spares.
So.... Technicians claim planes and missiles were "sabotaged". This is far safer than admitting that they are incapable making the systems work due to both their marginal experience and bad decisions by the fundamentalists.
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 10-Mar-2007 at 22:19
After they were fixed of course, they were not involved in combat until some time after the war had started. I will take the word of Iranian Airforce experts such as Tom cooper any day over the opinings on this forum. If they had taken an axe to the fuselage, they would have been detained and tried. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2007 at 00:35
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Tom Cooper dose not say that sabotage occured, he only relates the story that it did. Bit of a difference.
Cryptic has hit the nail on then head. We don't know what happened, but we can make an educated guess, and the lack of trained technicians, pilots and WSO's for what is an extremely complex beast was the main reason the IIAF did not use the Tomcats for a while.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2007 at 09:47
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I did not say the Iranians couldn't operate them, obviously they can since they are still in service. However the Iranians were clearly unable to perform the maintainence of the Tomcats and its associated weapon systems without the support of the Americans (which is why they had "operated them without problems for several years"), which of course explians why the Tomcats were made flight worthy by cannibalising half the fleet.
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2007 at 10:18
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He doesn't specifically say it, other sources do, but he refers to them having to be "made operational", why would they have to be made operational? If what you say is true wouldn't he have said that the Iranian ground crews/pilots "learned to operate them"? They should have been pretty much combat ready. Most sources agree that they were sabotaged, you don't - you simply say that the Iranians couldn't operate them when they had had these aircraft for several years already without any problems. ------------- |
Posted By: Batu
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2007 at 14:26
Greek and Turkish pilots have too much experience in dogfighting,right Hellios
------------- A wizard is never late,nor he is early he arrives exactly when he means to :) ( Gandalf the White in the Third Age of History Empire Of Istari ) |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 11-Mar-2007 at 20:34
Lol, many mock dogfights.
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Posted By: Kerimoglu
Date Posted: 12-Mar-2007 at 15:16
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Dude, when u sit in F 22, no need of skills, just basic ones are enough. Also, those comiecaze guys hitting the World Trade Center are the best as far ------------- History is a farm. Nations are farmers. What they planted before will show what is going to grow tomorrow! |
Posted By: SearchAndDestroy
Date Posted: 12-Mar-2007 at 17:09
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Yeah, now imagine what those skilled pilots can do in a F-22? They are taught alot of different skills, and are trained well. With the F-22, seems like they are almost unbeatable. I say seems, because there hasn't been a true fight with them, though they have done alot of training against other Interceptors, like the F-15.
------------- "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." E.Abbey
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Posted By: maqsad
Date Posted: 12-Mar-2007 at 19:05
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Hmm..two pages and not a squeak about the PAF even from Sparten the military buff. I
dunno about now but in the 60s, 70s and 80s the Pakistani Air force was
top notch. Mainly because of the quality of its pilots but also because
the fighter jets were among the best in the world(back then not now). In the 1965 Indo-Pak war 104 Indian Air force planes were downed while 19 PAF aircraft were lost in combat. In the 67 Arab-Israeli war PAF sent its pilots[but not its own planes] to war against Israel. They scored a 10 to 0 kill ratio. Eizer Weizman, then Chief of Israeli Air Force said once about PAF Air Marshal Noor Khan : "...He is a formidable person and I am glad that he is Pakistani and not Egyptian..." http://www.scramble.nl/pk.htm 71 Indo-pak war which was sort of a civil war too PAF downed 51 Indian aircraft versus 17 of its own. This is what US Gen Chuch Yaeger had to say about the paki air force, he himself counted all the kills they made:
Afghan war in the '80s had 8 Afghan/Soviet Aircraft shot down with a loss of one PAF F16 which was rumored to be friendly fire. 2000 Sorties were flown by Afghans and Soviets into Pakistani territory. Planes were scrambled for each incursion I presume and in most cases the Afghan/Soviet planes must have flown back after being warned by their bases to come back. Couple of tail fins from that war, kept as trophies:   |
Posted By: CHAUDRY
Date Posted: 12-Mar-2007 at 20:15
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***Pakistaan Fizayaa*** 10:0 kill ratio, against israel, dude!
About the same, against ussr/afghanistan ------------- no comment |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 00:59
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Yes PAF did very well in 65 and 71 and the Afghan wars. But, in my defence I was talking mostly about Iran.
PAF pilots are excellent. Okay heres one way to find out who is the best. Could anybody get me the averahe flying time per year for the pilots of each AF.
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Posted By: Cezar
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 12:54
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10 to nil against the IAF in 67!? How many PAF pilots were there and how many aircraft they shot down? It looks like propaganda to me. |
Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 14:07
I agree. This source lists 12 Israeli aircraft lost to all causes in 1967. That means that Pakistanis would have had to of shot down 10 out of 12 of the total Israeli aircraft lost. This does not sound right mathematically.
http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/Kills/GeneralKills.aspx?lang=EN&lobbyID=40&folderID=43&subfolderID=874 - http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/Kills/GeneralKills.aspx?lang=EN&lobbyID=40&folderID=43&subfolderID=874 http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2848/losses.htm -
I remember reading another source stating that Pakistanis who flew in combat downed 2 Israeli jets. Even with the smaller kill number, Pakistani pilots performed far better proportionaly than Syrian, Egyptian etc pilots.
I dont have details, but I remember reading somewhere that western pilots average at least 120 hours per year and that 80 hours is the minimum to keep somewhat proficient in tactics etc. . Evidently anything less is just maintaining basic flying skills
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 14:40
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PAF pilots averaged more than 350 hours back in the 1980s. Of course that was the height of the Afghan war and there were lots of CAPS. As for the PAF vs IDF
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Posted By: maqsad
Date Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 15:10
| So the 10 to 0 is propaganda most likely. Its more like 3 to 0 and that is still pretty good. I would assume that the 8 pakistani pilots that were flying for Syria in the '67 war were cream of the crop since firstly they had been on training missions before in Syria and secondly they must have clocked a lot more than the 350 hours per year PAF average which would put their skill level way up in the top 10% of the PAF. Maybe even higher. The pilots they downed were most likely just average or below average by IAF standards. |
Posted By: Cezar
Date Posted: 14-Mar-2007 at 13:30
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Well, Sparten, then the 10:0 is a joke, or what?. Two pilots, three kills. And they were fighting on the "mild" area. Good job anyway, especially for the guy who dropped the Mirage. The Vautour is way too inferior, even to the Hunter.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 13:50
Batu, TuAF intercepting HAF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNhBZeD0bzM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNhBZeD0bzM
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Posted By: Neoptolemos
Date Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 15:03
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