Who are the best fighter pilots in the world?

Answer 1

Skills in pilots are often measured by their safety record. But that can be misleading.

Great pilots are those who use their superior skills to avoid situations where they might have to apply those very skills to exit from that situation. Skills are developed as a result of experience and training. Situational awareness, analytical ability and decision making processes all contribute to the overall effectiveness of a pilot.

Many military pilots have highly tuned skills like those mentioned above. Of course many civilian pilots do also, however, their exposure to difficult situations are often far less likely to occur than military fliers. It's the name of the game. Therefor, I would say that military pilots, especially those flying high performance jet aircraft are amongst the best in the world.

And if combat victories are an indication of skills, then the best pilot that ever lived must have been Baron von Richthoven aka "the Red Baron", the highest scoring ace of all time who many times has been accredited as the creator of modern day aerial combat.

Answer 2

The Best Fighter PilotsGenerally speaking, all the world's top militaries have high-quality training programs, which produce pilots with excellent skills.

For the most part, all these countries consistently produce excellent fighter pilots:

France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Australia, Israel, Canada, and the United States.

While the overall quality of the following nations, is not as good, these countries still produce many world-class pilots: Russia, Italy, Brazil, Finland, South Korea, Austria, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, India, Pakistan.

However, the final arbiter of quality is combat experience (i.e. those who are sent on missions, succeed and survive).

Right now, those air forces with the highest concentration of fighter pilots with combat experience are those of the U.S.A., the U.K., and Israel.

I would say that those countries have the best fighter pilots in the world as of now (2011).

Individual Rankings:

• For the US, the greatest fighter pilot in WW2 was US Army Air Corps MAJ. Richard Bong (highest ranking US ACE with 40 aerial victories);
• in WW1 it was CPT. Eddie Rickenbacker;
• in Vietnam it was CPT Steve Ritchie (USAF) and LT Randy Cunningham (USN); both of these men were America's last ACE's for the 20th Century.

In addition:The RAF probably have some of the best pilots in the world. Although it's somewhat hard to quantify pilot quality, the skill needed to fly both the Eurofighter Typhoon and the BAe Harrier GR9 means that RAF pilots have to be amongst the best. The RAF display team 'The Red Arrows' (RAFAT) is widely regarded as one of the best aerobatic display teams in the world and rotates its pilots on a staggered 3-year cycle (3 pilots switched each year), selecting from some of the best RAF jet pilots.

NOTE- It is only natural that the person that answers your question will naturally state his country's fighter pilots are the best in the world.

See the related question link below for perhaps a more nuanced answer.

Answer 3

South African Air Force

Answer 4

The Americans.

Answer 5

The UK