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You just love to startt an argument, don't you. I have always supported the P-51 Mustang in this category.
Always been fond of both the P-51 & the Focke-Wulf 190, but for wide spread & effective use? How about the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the Vought F4U Corsair & the YAK-3. Too many good planes, put to wide use.
I like the P 40 Thunderbolt just for its awesome look
Best Fighter? The P-51 Mustang.
My Favorite? The P-47 Thunderbolt. Fast, rugged as hell, packed a hell of a punch. There are stories of Luftwaffe pilots emptying their gun magazines into P-47's only to watch the Thunderbolts continue to fly home to safety.
F4U-4 Corsair, P51D Mustang, P47N Thunderbolt…top contenders… If it had been properly utilized by the Gwermans then it'd have to be the ME262-1. Nothing else could touch it.
Sorry about that, I meant p47 Thunderbolt
What the heck do I know it's snowing here in Montana.
51D or the Spitfire MK9
I'm sorry guys I know it wasn't the best but it is too me and that is the P-38 lightning. Big guns, fast, long range. The fork-tailed devil shot down Yamamoto for heaven's sake. The fighter that made the greatest impact would be the Me-262 though, once it came out all others were obsolete.
p51 mustang or the p40 . both where ahead of their time
ME-262 hands down. Most of the 100 ME-262's lost were lost during ascent or descent because of proximity of Allied airfields to German aifields during the Allied advance. Once in the air few ME-262's were shot down in combat. However, they shot down 500 Allied aircraft. The 262's favorite prey of the ME-262 aces: The P-51 Mustang Fact.
the reason for the mustangs were because they were fitted with drop tanks that allowed them to escort bombers all the way to Germany. Later tactics used by p-51s were to escort from high altitude, Then dive down on attacking ME-262 from above which negated there speed. many more were shot down attempting to land as they guzzled too much fuel. better plane by far P-51 mustang. also the team effort affect. bombing fuel etc. Might want to ask the tuskeegee airmen but thats a whole nother story.
There are several, such as the P 51, F 4U Cosair, the P47> But, remember the old P 38 Lightning flown by Majors Blong and Mcguier. No one in WW ll had more kills than these two guys. Blong had 33 kills if I'm
not mistaken and McGuier had something like three less after he was killed in action.
We in the 15th air force out of Italy pick the P51's because of their longer range. They could stay with us on the target run where the P38's usually had to go home for lack of fuel
P-51 is the BEST!
The Wildcat? No, really. Not that it was actually the "best" fighter, (ME-262) but that it gets instantly overlooked. My father, a Navy pilot from early 1941-1948, went through flight training with Joe Foss and Marion Carl, among others. He was too tall to fit into carrier planes and ended up as a PBY pilot for VP-12, the Black Cats. Most of his classmates went to Devastators and died at Midway. Anyway, he told me that under 10,000', where most of the action happened in the Pacific, a Wildcat could out-perform any plane it flew against. Wildcat pilots held a 6-1 shoot-down advantage over the Zero, mind you, this was against the well-trained Zero pilots, almost all of whom were dead by the time the Hellcat was introduced. Granted, a good part of that success was due to superior tactics, like the Thatch Weave and the fact that the radios in Zeros were next to useless. (And that Zeros came apart almost instantly when hit by .50 cal. rounds.) Kind of hard to fight as a team when you can't talk to your wingman. Toward the end of the war, Dad spent a good deal of his time rescuing "wet, pissed-off Mustang pilots." (His words) Almost any damage to the fuselage would bring down a P-51. P-51 pilots ruefully joked that the plane could be brought down by a hat pin.
The Wildcat could accelerate faster than the Zero, as well as the much heavier Hellcat and Corsair. A Wildcat pilot could disengage by diving, something that a Zero did poorly. If a Wildcat pilot had the advantage of higher altitude, it could make a diving attack at much higher speeds than a Zero could flown. At low altitudes, a Zero was only marginally faster. In low altitude dogfights, a Wildcat, with it's greater HP could maintain higher speeds during turns. In a rare encounter with ME-109s over the Atlantic, the Wildcat proved to be decisively superior. Also overlooked is the Douglas Dauntless SBD, which could easily out maneuver a Zero and enjoyed the lowest loss rate of any carrier plane in the PTO. SBD pilots accounted for a good number of Zeros.
For me… Hmmm… I'd say it was the DH Mosquito. It was fragile but with it's 2 Rolls Royce Merlin engines and fine British craftsmanship put together with great low altitude capabilities and great ground attack capabilities. It didn't pack a great punch but jerry could never catch it. They could be produced cheaply, quiqly and in large quantities.
The Super Marine Spitfire Mk.1 packed a hell of a punch during the Battle of Britain. It did have its flaws but it could be produced 3 times faster than the ME-109.
You can't forget the Hawker Hurricain Mk.1 either. It had more kills to its name than the spitfire during the Battle of Britain.
There were several very good fighters, and fortunately the Allies had more of them: P-51, P-47, P-38, F4U, F6F, Spitfire, Tempest. Strategy and tactics allowed the Allies to use these and the Hurricane and F4F to get the job done. The Me-262 was clearly superior in it's element, but by the time it was used in numbers, its bases were subject to attack, so it had no where to hide. But range and lower fuel consumption are what made the P-51 the best; it could take the fight to the enemy, anywhere he was. Nothing but the Me-262 was faster, some could take more punishment, some hit harder with more powerful armament, but the Mustang was where ever the enemy was. Once the Mustang appeared, air superiority was assured all over the theater of operations.
p51 for great range and could mix it with the best but most pilots would go for the spitfire mk 9 and 14. at sea it would be the hellcat of course. oh and eric would say do not try to turn with a gloster gladiator
There was a saying by the airmen in the pacific, " If you want to send a picture home to your girlfriend, stand next to a Mustang, If you want to go home and kiss her, fly a wildcat "
Expect for the ME 262 it have to be the Focke Wulf 190 since i suppose we are talking about prop planes
I'm going with the P-38, as it was present for the ENTIRE War, and at the war's end, was ordered destroyed in various pacific country's rather that leaving it for the indigenous native airforces to pick up as Mustangs were. It was considered too dangerous to leave behind. Mustangs showed up effectively as of 1944. The P47 does have many story's about being hard to shoot down though.
E.Hartmann nailed 352 enemy planes flying a Bf 109..
Thats gotta mean something..
The Mosquito was probably the best fighter to be in, the lowest losses of any operational allied plane. The Spitfire served right through the war as did the Bf 109, The Fw 190 was very good, the P 51 after it got the Merlin was ok, very long range but not as fast or agile as a Spitfire at the same time, the P 51 had to be escorted to the German border by P 38 ( when they did not suffer from unreliability), P 47 and Spitfire or it did not have the range to escort bombers to the target and back. In the last year of the war range was not so important. The Tempest V probably the best fighter in the last 2 years of the war, accounting for well over 600 V 1`s and took out a number of Me 262`s inj combat too as did the Spitfire Mk IX and XIV.