Who is the GOAT?

[TonyC]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned America's Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker.




"Eddie exemplifies those qualities which made America great: courage, integrity, intelligence, humanity, spirituality and patriotism; together with the ability to plan ahead and then a willingness to work hard-and sacrifice-to achieve and prevail." General Jimmy Doolittle


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[AA717driver]

Adolf Galland. Also, anyone who became an ace flying F4F's in 1942.

I don't agree with anyone who went up in the early space capsules. Big balls but doesn't highlight their flying abilities. Maybe some qualify for their exploits prior to becoming astronauts. JMO.TC

 

[VNugget]

I guess I agree with you, and I shoulda qualified them into the "balls" category.

How about this for balls? Wan Hu, a minor official of the Ming dynasty around 1500. Straddling a chair equipped with 47 black powder rockets, he bravely ventured to go where no man had gone before. Unfortunately, his contraption went "bang" instead of "whoosh" and he was turned into salsa, legends of his becoming the "first astronaut" notwithstanding.

 

[BD King]

Adolf Galland. Also, anyone who became an ace flying F4F's in 1942.

I don't agree with anyone who went up in the early space capsules. Big balls but doesn't highlight their flying abilities. Maybe some qualify for their exploits prior to becoming astronauts. JMO.TC

Goering once asked Galland what he needed. Galland replied,"A squadron of Spitfires."

As for the early astronauts, all were smart, and good sticks. It's the smart part that kept Yeager atmosphere bound.

 

[Tackleberry]

All around has to go to Bob Hoover.
But lets not forget about the guys up north such as Punch Dickens, Max Ward et al who pioneered the bush.
They did some pretty amazing feats with nothing more than a surplus Fox/tigermoth.
Today we don't go anywhere without a GPS and a Hermon Nelson. These guys had nothing, and still did it.
That has to go in the giant gnads coloumn.

cheers
tacks

 

[Fly BI]

Braniff International

To be able to travel back in time and fly for Braniff International would be the cat's ass! Click here to see why: http://www.braniffinternational.org/

For my money, these guys were the greatest american airline of all time.

~99

 

[CatYaaak]

Doolitle, Hoover, Galland...all fine...Yeager, good PR but he was no Erich Hartmann or Werner Voss. Any WW1 pilot wins the "biggest ba11s" category for me. But the greatest of all time?....

Hanna Reitsch..Chief Test Pilot for the Luftwaffe

That old (young then) Nazi broad test-piloted and set records in everything from gliders (which the Germans were very good at) and the first helicopter, to ME-163 Komets and even a cockpit-configured V1 Buzz bomb. As his personal pilot, she was in Hitlers bunker as the Red Army advanced in Berlin, and flew out at the last minute with Russian AAA all around.

Yeager?....he couldn't hold her jock-strap.

 

[pilot_guy]

Yeah...didn't think about her.

She was good, even great. You really think she was better than Hartmann though? I know she wasn't a fighter pilot, but still. The man was (actually, still is) the best of the best. More aerial victories than anyone, ever...got shot down six times, walked away from them all, and he survived the war, plus ten years in a Russian prison.

Gotta give it to Hanna though, anyone who would climb into the Komet must be fanatical...just a big bomb waiting to go off.

I just can't see her better than Hartmann though.

 

[CatYaaak]

She was good, even great. You really think she was better than Hartmann though? I know she wasn't a fighter pilot, but still. The man was (actually, still is) the best of the best. More aerial victories than anyone, ever...got shot down six times, walked away from them all, and he survived the war, plus ten years in a Russian prison.

Gotta give it to Hanna though, anyone who would climb into the Komet must be fanatical...just a big bomb waiting to go off.

I just can't see her better than Hartmann though.

Hey, she crashed a Komet once and broke her back in the process, and that's gotta be worth at least 3 Hartmann ME-109 shot-downs.

Your right though, Hartmann is by far the greatest in terms of numbers....352 victories I think. There was another German who had over 300 as well, can't remember his name though (nobody remembers the runner-up, even though he had about 260 more victories that America's all-time leader, Richard Bong with 40).

But I give the nod to Hanna because of her stick-and-rudder versatility and test pilot status (when they were REALLY testing stuff). Glider record setter flying helicopters when there was no helicopter knowledge to draw on, flew virtually all the Nazi aircraft like the Komet when the Nazis were at the head of the pack in leading-edge technology. And how many people can actually claim they rode/flew a bomb in a surreal Dr. Strangelove moment, like she did with the V-1?

And back then, for a test pilot, she actually wasn't bad-looking either

 

[pilot_guy]

runner up.

I think Barkhorn was the second best in terms of numbers?

When she crashed that Komet, wasn't she burned from the fuel too?

I'll concede it, she has to be the greatest of all time, but Hartmann's still the greatest fighter pilot.

 

[CatYaaak]

, but Hartmann's still the greatest fighter pilot.

absolutely!

 

[PNEPilot]

As an ex-pat Brit I feel obliged to put a mention in for Douglas Bader (google him), who, despite losing both legs in a flying accident in 1931, was approved to fly again in WWII and registered more than 20 kills during the Battle of Britain before crashing in France and spending the rest of the war in German POW camps, ending up in Colditz as a result of his many escape attempts.

After the war he did an enormous amount of good work for the benefit of amputees.

 

[Borat Sagdiyev]

Hans Ulrich Rudel

Speaking of German pilots, I'd nominate Hans Ulrich Rudel. He was without a doubt one of history's greatest strike pilots. Rejected his first time around from Stuka training, he became the Third Reich's most decorated soldier. Rudel flew over 2,500 combat sorties in the slow,vulnerable Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber, mostly against the Soviets. His final tally includes 519 Soviet tanks, one battleship, 70 landing craft, nine aerial victories, and thousands of Soviet vehicles and artillery pieces. Once, he was shot down behind enemy lines and made it back to his own lines after fleeing Soviet forces eager to collect a bounty. After Hitler decorated him with a grade of the Knight's Cross reserved for only twelve German soldiers, Goering grounded him at Hitler's insistence. Rudel continued to fly and all of his subsequent victories were credited to his squadron. He ended the Second World War as a full colonel flying an FW-190 with one leg amputated and the other in a cast.

His post-war career included running for a Bundestag seat with a far-right German political party. Rudel was one of the few Germans who believed that the German generals lost the war, and not Adolf Hitler's meddling and micromanagement. While few deny Rudel's ardent Nazi beliefs, he was an inspiration for Germans serving on the Eastern front during World War II. Fiel Marshall Shoerner said that "Rudel alone replaces a whole division." While fighting for an evil regime, he showed great tenacity, courage, and great skill as a pilot. Rudel died in 1982.

 

[pilot_guy]

As an ex-pat Brit I feel obliged to put a mention in for Douglas Bader (google him), who, despite losing both legs in a flying accident in 1931, was approved to fly again in WWII and registered more than 20 kills during the Battle of Britain before crashing in France and spending the rest of the war in German POW camps, ending up in Colditz as a result of his many escape attempts.

After the war he did an enormous amount of good work for the benefit of amputees.

You know while he was a POW, he was quite the trouble maker. He did manage to get a new set of prosthesis while in captivity though. (His originals were lost from the crash.) They were dropped to him because of negotiations through the Red Cross.

Remarkable man, but not the Goat.

 

[BD King]

You know while he was a POW, he was quite the trouble maker. He did manage to get a new set of prosthesis while in captivity though. (His originals were lost from the crash.) They were dropped to him because of negotiations through the Red Cross.

Remarkable man, but not the Goat.

There is a bit more to the story. The first night that he had his new legs, he tried to escape. After that, the Germans took away his legs at night.

 

[BD King]

In addition, we should remember that Hannah Reitsch approved the actions of Hitler. Disregarding her aviation expertise, she was a Nazi bitch. Nothing more, nothing less.

An interesting theme, is to look at the officers in the high command of the Third Reich that committed sucide in the early years of the war. Among them was Ernst Udet. Check him out.

 

[BD King]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned America's Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker.




"Eddie exemplifies those qualities which made America great: courage, integrity, intelligence, humanity, spirituality and patriotism; together with the ability to plan ahead and then a willingness to work hard-and sacrifice-to achieve and prevail." General Jimmy Doolittle


.

True story. C.R. Smith was the CEO of American and Hated the guts of Rickenbacker (Eastern). Rickenbacker was known as Captain Eddie.

There was a golf match of some sort for some charity and Smith and his people were waiting for the fouth person to show. Smith asked who the fourth person was and was told it was Captain Eddie.

Smith stormed off saying "If I want to play with a prick, I will play with my own."

As a publisher of aviation history, I have been approached to republish Rickenbacker's book. NO WAY. It is a crock.

 

[vetteracer]

These have all been mentioned, but they are worthy of recognition.

Erich Hartmann,
He has a great book, "The Blonde Night". He has 352 Air to Air Victories that were confirmed by at least 2 other pilots. There is around 100 more that are unconfirmed. He also endured a horrible 10-year imprisonment in the Russian Gulag.
Another great German Pilot is Hans Rudell (sp). After the war we quickly forgave him and brought him over here to teach air to ground tactics for Marine Corp pilots.

Werner Von Braun (sp). German rocket scientist that developed the first rockets in WW2, the V1 and V2. He also developed the first guided rockets. After the war, we forgave him and he developed our rocket program and was the father of the Atlas Rocket and the Saturn Rockets that took us to the moon. He was or still is the president of NASA.

A good story is the one of the amputated British fellow shot down over France. His prosthetic legs did not make it with him on his bail out and he was captured without them. The Luftwaffe airman at the prison camp knew of him and his fame and honored him with a dinner party at the camp. They also sent word to the Brits that he needed a pair of prosthetic legs. They felt that a man as dignified as he, should not have to "hobble" around. The legs were dropped for him and as mentioned he used them and attempted escapes, and they were taken from him at night. Behind the political and ideological lines there is a brother hood amongst pilots that this story seems to encapsulate.