fatman17
PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
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The crown of the best fighter pilot ever shall remain with the Erich Hartmann. Perhaps till the top 20, there are only german pilots. There may be many legendary leaders, inspirers and courageous pilots but still the crown goes to one with maximum kills simply because the primary job of a fighter pilot is to destroy enemy aircraft, even leadership and motivation are secondary. Now there may be many capable pilots who never got the chance to prove their skills but unfortunately without proof nothing can be claimed.
As some other memeber also pointed out, we can still talk of best jet fighter pilot or best pilots in specific wars. The top scorer in jet age is Goira Esptein of IDF/AF with 17 kills, more than being a triple ace.
Here I am presenting some of the few famous names in the categories of leaders, inspirers and shooters from Pakistan, as I think. Everyone is important in its place. Without the permission of leaders, potential shooters cant prove their skills. I have done a quick classification according to my limited knowledge and I may have missed many great names. There may be many unsung heroes who never came to the limelight.
Shooters
M M Alam, Saif-ul-Azam, Fl Offr Shams of No.14 squadron who shot three IAF fighters (1971), Khalid Mahmood, Hamid Qadri (both kills by guns). There is no kill like a gun kill and among fighter pilots,a gun kill is highly respected.
Leaders
Masroor Hussain,M Z Masood,Fawad S Hussain,Hakimullah, Sarfarz Rafiqui
Inspirers
Fl Lt Shams who flew wartime missions in B-57 with kidneys stones (1965), Pilot Offr Rashid Minhas, MHK Dotani, Alauddin Butch. Also a ground officer of No.14 Sqn who was not GDP but flew air combat mission and embraced shadat (I forgot his name).
Alam and Saif were not tall and thus could better tolerate gs than others having more height. Douglas Badder flew with artificial legs and even it was said that he could pull more gs (hence tight turns) because of absence of legs. Normally blood goes down from head towards the legs during pulling positive gs.
Pilots are lucky as compared to submarine, ship or tank commanders because they take the credit of kills all alone. The risk levels are almost the same for everyone.
Despite all the stories of courage and valour, Pakistan is lacking aces with just one in the history. India seems to be worse than Pakistan by not having a single ace. At least I dont know any Indian ace and I would like to know if there is someone. During Vietnam war, the USAF was under immense pressure to produce ace as the US Navy had produced several aces already and there was a race towards maximum aces.
The word "ace" is also used for the tank commander if he has destroyed the required number of tanks but it has been never used (as I know) for submarine skipper or ship captain. Perhaps destroying five subs or five ships looks extremely difficult. But at the same time, there were many german U-boat commanders who destroyed too many ships during Atlantic convoy war.
give them time they will make one up!