The Complete Fighter Ace: All the World's Fighter Aces, 1914-2000

by Spick, Mike

• ISBN13: 9781853673740
• ISBN10: 1853673749
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl

Summary

This comprehensive guide to all the fighter aces from World War I to the jet age, describes the combat techniques and tactics of the most outstanding pilots of this century.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	7	(2)
List of tables	9	(2)
Preface	15	(14)
Prologue
Fighter Pilots
Fire and Movement
Air Fighting Development
Scores of the Aces
Record-Keeping
The Ace Legacy
First Steps	25	(50)
Towards a Method
First Fighter
The Turn of the Tide
The Pendulum Swings
Performance versus Manoeuvrability
Performance Fighters, 1916-18
Manoeuvre Fighters
Methods of the Aces
Qualities of the Aces
French Aces: Jean Marie Dominique Navarre; Charles Eugene Jules Marie Nungesser; Rene Paul Fonck
British Empire Aces: Albert Ball; James Thomas Byford McCudden; Andrew Edward McKeever
German Aces: Oswald Boelcke; Ernst Udet; Theo Osterkamp
American Aces: Edward Vernon Rickenbacker; William C. Lambert
A Belgian Ace: Willy Coppens de Houthulst
Other Fronts: Piero Ruggiero Piccio; Frank Linke-Crawford; Alexandr Alexandrovitch Kazakov
Aces and their Scores
Countdown to World War II	75	(22)
Technical Advances
The Spanish Civil War, 1936--39
Spanish Civil War Aces
The Spanish Ace of Aces: Garcia Morato
The Sino-Japanese Conflict
Aces of the Sino-Japanese War
The Winter War
World War II	97	(78)
War in Western Europe, 1939--43
The Mediterranean and North Africa, 1940--43
Battle over the Reich, 1943--45
The Western Front, 1943--45
The Night Air War
The Russian Front, 1941--45
The Normandie-Niemen Regiment
German Allies
The Far East
Summary
British and Commonwealth Aces: James Harry `Ginger' Lacey; James Ghillies (Ben) Benson
Evan Dall `Rosie' Mackie
American Aces: George S. `Ratsy' Preddy; Robert W. Hanson; A Czech Ace: Karel `Old Kut' Kuttelwascher
A Finnish Ace: Nils Katajainen
A French Ace: Marcel Albert
German and Austrian Aces: Edmund `Paule' Rossmann; Gordon Mc Gollob; Ludwig Becker
A Hungarian Ace: Gyorgy Debrody
An Italian Ace: Adriano Visconti
Japanese Aces: Yasuhiko Kuroe; Saburo Sakai
A Polish Ace: Boleslaw `Mike' Gladych
Soviet Aces: Boris Safonov; Alexandr Pokryshkin
Leading Aces and Their Scores
Higher and Faster	175	(22)
Battle in the Stratosphere
The MiG-15
Swept-Wing Combat
American Aces: James `Jabby' Jabara; Joe McConnell; Robinson `Robbie' Risner
Russian Aces: Eugeny Pepelyaev; Sergei Kramarenko
Aces and Their Scores
Mach 2 and Missiles	197	(26)
Homing Missiles
Limited Wars, 1953--73
India versus Pakistan
Middle East Wars
The Six-Day War
The War of Attrition
The October War, 1973
Israeli Aces: Giora Epstein; Asher Snir
North Vietnam, 1965--73: Robin Olds
American Aces, Vietnam: Richard `Steve' Ritchie; Randall `Duke' Cunningham
North Vietnamese Aces: Nguyen Duc Soat
Dichotomy	223	(16)
Fighters: The Next Generation
Red Star
BVR versus Close Combat
The Ace Makers
The `Silver Bullet' Solution
Small Wars
The First Gulf War
The Second Gulf War
Bosnia
Epilogue
Summary	239	(10)
Bibliography	249	(2)
Index	251