Ace Pilot

"I heard a rumor that Vader had his TIE prototype made to stop this guy from vaping him in simulator battles."

"Rudel flew 2,530 combat missions claiming a total of 2,000 targets destroyed; including 800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery pieces, 70 landing craft, nine aircraft, four armored trains, several bridges, a destroyer, a cruiser, and severely damaging the Soviet battleship Marat."

— Wikipedia, on Hans-Ulrich Rudel, aka The Eagle of the Eastern Front

In Real Life, an ace is technically a fighter pilot with five or more kills. This is harder than it sounds; even in conflicts like the World Wars, where aerial combat occurred on a vast scale, the average pilot had zero confirmed kills from the day he got his wings to the day he bought his farm. In WWI, where the concept of a "flying ace" was first invented, it was mainly for morale-boosting propaganda— air combat at the time was in large formations where individual skill mattered less than teamwork and numbers. In WWII, only about 5% of pilots made ace, and they were responsible for 50% of all air-to-air kills. The term is most commonly associated with aircraft pilots, but other types, such as tank aces, also exist.

Ace pilots are common in fiction, most prominently in mecha shows and any Space Opera featuring space fighter planes. They tend to be more prominent in Real Robot shows, where the mecha themselves are fairly equal and the pilot's skills are more important, than in Super Robot shows, which place more emphasis on the power of the mecha while the pilot's main asset is Heroic Spirit.

An ace pilot will likely display all sorts of Improbable Piloting Skills, such as the High-Speed Missile Dodge. They may or may not come with wingmates. They will often have Machine Empathy, allowing them to sense problems from subtle differences in how their craft moves/feels/sounds, especially if flying their Ace Custom. Depending on the time period, may wear an Adventurer Outfit. An Ace who excels even beyond other aces is known as an Ace of Aces, a title typically granted only to a nation's highest scoring ace.

An ace pilot is not necessarily The Ace in terms of personality, although they can be. Famous aces may be given a cool-sounding nickname like, oh, say, the Red Baron. They also may only be Graceful in Their Element, and are (though not The Klutz) plodding on land.

As well as anyone has been able to determine, aces are born, not trained.^note Indeed, most Air Force combat training is in how to avoid getting shot down. But Improbable Piloting Skills or Improbable Aiming Skills do not guarantee one to become an ace. The most important factor is luck; that is, to actually meet enemies and face them in the air. In WWII, only 50% of American fighter pilots ever met Axis airplanes in the air. On the other hand, in a target-rich environment, such as that which the RAF faced at Malta, any pilot will eventually become an ace if he survives long enough. The second important factor is rank: it must not be too low nor too high. Most kills are scored by flight and squadron leaders, who essentially control when and how their formation engages. Ranks below First Lieutenant usually serve as wingmen, whereas Lieutenant Colonel and higher ranks are usually preoccupied with desk jobs. Many pilots have actually refused promotion in order to be able to fly and score victories.

Note that wingmen also may themselves be aces, especially if they fly in a target-rich environment. Sometimes aces prefer to fly together as each others' wingmen. This is known as Fat Cat Flight.

Piloting Styles Preferred By Aces

• Steamrollers are aggressive types who favor in-your-face frontal assaults, raining fire or blows on their enemy to keep them off-balance. Experienced pilots can almost always dodge a frontal attack, but if you keep pressing the attack, sooner or later they might slip up and take a hit. Because this tactic results in exciting, close-ranged fights with a lot of interplay between the two combatants, this is a particularly popular variant for protagonist aces in fiction.
• Bushwhackers are cunning, devious pilots who eschew easy-to-evade frontal attacks in favor of taking potshots from the rear or other blind spots. When engaged in a duel, they try to wriggle out of it and drop out of the enemy's field of view so they can come in from another direction and catch the foe off-guard. Frequently, bushwhackers will sacrifice spare weapons as decoys, distracting the enemy so they can ambush them from behind (e.g, the Picard Maneuver). Most real world aces are Bushwhackers, as are most Real Robot protagonists due to the nature of the genre.
• Snipers are similar to bushwhackers, but rather than using skill to escape a duel, have the accuracy and firepower to end each duel the moment it begins. They hide behind asteroids, colonies, or cloud cover, popping up to take potshots at their targets, and try to avoid close combat and running battles at all costs.
• Pluggers — for want of a better term — are defensive players, who manage to stay calm and collected even under continuing attacks from bushwhackers or steamrollers. By continually dodging and deflecting enemy attacks, they can tie up otherwise dangerous foes in time-wasting sparring matches, and may even be able to sneak in the occasional counterattack. In fiction, this style is typically the province of secondary characters, but there are occasional leads who fit the profile (such as Mobile Suit Victory Gundam hero Uso Evin).

Note that fights against other veterans are usually a better indicator of an ace's style than battles against Mooks, who are generally taken out with little effort.

Another classification, coming from the Finnish Air Force, is differentiating pilots who fly with their "brains" versus pilots who fly with their "muscles". Those who fly with their brains usually have superb mathematical and 3D skills, being able to manage the situation like a computer and form a clearer view of the chaotic scene of battle. They are excellent shots and do not take unnecessary risks but rather attempt to attack the enemy from his blind spots and break off ASAP. Those who fly with their "muscles" are superb pilots, extremely aggressive, prefer dogfights and maneuvers, and are good with aerobatics but not necessarily crack shots. Either can become aces. "Bushwackers" and "snipers" are "brain" pilots whereas "steamrollers" and "pluggers" are "muscle" pilots. The difference is best illustrated by the von Richthofen brothers: Manfred (the original Red Baron with 80 kills) was a "brain" pilot, whereas his little brother Lothar (with 40 kills) was a "muscle" pilot.

Civilian examples exist as well, and not just for aircraft. Although civilian pilots obviously don't meet the military definition because they're not killing people unless they horribly fail, some civilians have saved lives and property with overwhelming skill and capability, overcoming multiple engine failures, hydraulic failures, or many other incidents which would fall under No One Could Survive That!

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Example subpages:

• Gundam
• Live-Action Films
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Real Life

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• Eren Yeager and the other Titan Shifters from Attack on Titan. You thought piloting a 15 meter tall giant wasn't possible? Think again! This show at its core is a Humongous Mecha Anime.
• The various versions of Area 88 feature many aces among the mercenary pilots, including protagonist Shin Kazama, his friend Mickey Simon, and base commander Saki Vashtal. There are others, but they tended to die shortly after being introduced.
• Code Geass has two main examples, Suzaku Kururugi for Britannia, and Kallen Stadtfeld/Kozuki for the Black Knights. Several others can be considered above average such as some of the Knights of the Round, and some of the Black Knights, but none of them hold a candle to the above two.
  • Kallen is a definite steamroller, which is required because her Guren MKII's most useful weapon is close-range, which means that she has to be aggressive in order to survive. Even when she gets long-range attacks, she sticks to this in most cases. Suzaku himself has noted that even with Lelouch's Geass command to "live" placed on him, he cannot beat Kallen, implying that she is arguably the best pilot in the Code Geass universe.
  • In an odd case of "Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object", Suzaku Kururugi uses the same strategy, even though his Lancelot is a well-rounded machine not nearly as suited to it as hers is. But Suzaku, being Suzaku, simply fails to capitalize on this in areas that his opponents lack... unless he's on a mission. This is particularly telling with any battle where he and Kallen clash, save when emotions get in the way.
  • While not exactly an exceptionally skilled pilot, Lelouch vi Britannia is a definite Sniper: while the Burai he used at the beginning is a mook with some cosmetic modifications, his later Knightmares — the Gawain and the Shinkiro — have brutal long-range firepower to make up for the lack of close-range fighting capability.
  • Oldrin Zevon from Oz the Reflection is an ace, but it is never clear which piloting style she prefers.
• The main characters of Cowboy Bebop all take turns acting as ace pilots with their own personal space fighters when their bounty has a spacecraft of their own or when air power is called for with Spike being the most skilled. In the movie, the Big Bad is preparing to release his nerve gas WMD and the government scrambles fighters to stop Spike, who is trying to stop the Big Bad, since they would rather cover up the problem rather than fix it. Despite the fact that the government pilots are elite special forces flying the most advanced planes in existence, Spike easily defeats them all using his fighter which is more like the The Alleged Car.
• Pete Pumps from Ginban Kaleidoscope was this before he died in Episode 1.
• Girls und Panzer has several Aces, but in tanks instead of planes or giant robots:
  • Ooarai: Anglerfish and Hippo team are both bushwackers, Turtle Team is a Sniper (but only when Anzu is on the gun), and the rest are Pluggers
  • St. Gloriana: Darjeeling is a plugger, Rosehip is a Steamroller
  • Saunders: Kay is a Steamroller, Alice is a Bushwacker, and Naomi is a sniper.
  • Anzio: Anchovy is a bushwacker by necessity
  • Pravda: Katyusha is a steamroller, Nonna is a sniper, and Klara is a plugger.
  • Kuromoromine: Maho is a steamroller, with the rest following in her style.
  • Jatkosota High School: Mika is a bushwacker, and Jouko is very much a sniper.
  • Chi-ha-tan: Kinuyo and most of her team is a steamroller through and through, but Fukuda prefers a bushwhacker style instead.
  • University Team: Alice is a bushwhacker.
  • BC Freedom: Marie and Oshida are bushwhackers, Andou is a steamroller.
• Noriko Takaya evolves into one nearer the end of the series. Kazumi Amano and Jung Frued are introduced that way.
• Heavy Metal L-Gaim: Daba, Leccee, Gablet... most of the main characters, really.
• The Macross franchise has a bunch, and an interesting tradition of the best pilot in each show not being the main character:
  • Max Jenius in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and Milia Fallyna on the other side, until the two fell in love and she defected. Max takes this to such an extent that Word of God has confirmed him to be the best pilot in the franchise, bar none. Even when in his fifties and with somewhat "rusty" piloting skills in Macross 7, he still outperforms every other Ace in the series combined when he hops in a fighter.
    • While not the absolute best, protagonist Hikaru Ichijo was an extremely skilled pilot as well, as was his squad leader, Roy Focker.
  • Sylvie Gina and Nexx Gilbert in Macross II (The main character, Hibiki Kanzaki, is an Ace Reporter flying unarmed civilian craft instead).
  • The only reason why Isamu Dyson of Macross Plus hasn't been dishonorably discharged yet is because of his incredible piloting skills. He's still alive and active during the events Macross Frontier, and is mentioned in supplementary notes as having kicked Ozma's ass in training matches while piloting an outdated plane. His rival/former friend Guld Bowman is at least equally capable.
  • Gamlin Kizaki in Macross 7. Nekki Basara is arguably an even better pilot, but he's an Actual Pacifist.
  • In prequel Macross Zero, the aforementioned Roy Focker is the best pilot in the UN Spacy. His protege Shin Kudo is an excellent pilot as well, being able to even initially hold his own against a Variable Fighter... while piloting a regular F-14. Their main rivals DD Ivanov and Nora Polyansky are no slouches either, DD especially having trained Roy, and clearly a superior fighter.
  • Ozma Lee in Macross Frontier is SMS's best pilot, and possibly in the entire Frontier fleet; even near the end of the show, he is still able to out-duel main hero Alto Saotome by a couple of points due to his much greater experience and Alto being quite conflicted at the time. Michel, meanwhile, was the company's ace sniper. However, the show's best pilot is probably Brera Sterne, thanks in large part to him being a Cyborg.
  • Messer Ihlefeld in Macross Delta is Delta Squadron's ace, and easily shows the difference between honed skill and inexperienced raw talent whenever he effortlessly shows up protagonist Hayate Immelman's piloting. He frequently gets in duels with the Aerial Knights' own ace, Keith Windermere.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS has Nanoha in a high-ranking position in an alien air-force, the lack of planes not being an issue when you can fly without them. In fact, her official in-show nickname is "Ace of Aces". Her combat style is steamroller. It is worth noting that mages in Nanoha have strong shields, and mentally-guided projectiles help with aiming, so it's more a matter of "breaking through their shields with brute force" than "hoping they'll slip up and take a hit". The one ace Nanoha has never beaten in a square fight is Signum. She's the ultimate plugger, wearing down her enemies with a strong defense before unleashing her own Wave Motion Sword.
• In Magic Knight Rayearth, Eagle Vision is able to defeat all three Magic Knights / Mashin in his first sortie against them, due in part to his analysis of their weaknesses.
• The Magnificent Kotobuki features a whole squadron of Ace Pilots, with over 200 kills between them all, in inferior planes.
• Both Klaus and his mother of Maiden Rose are flying aces, Klaus having at least 10 confirmed kills marked on his plane's tail in one flashback.
• Akito Tenkawa of Martian Successor Nadesico, as well as his mentor Gai, do this, though the former is also known to use Bushwhacker-style tricks when the situation calls for it. Akatsuki & Ryoko are probably the best Aestivalis pilots in the series, though.
• In the Mazinger series, Kouji Kabuto and Duke Fleed grow into the role (specially Kouji. In the first chapters it was painfully obvious than he had no idea of how to pilot a war vehicle, and the consequences of it were just so painful to him. Nevertheless, through training and battles he became a true ace). However Tetsuya Tsurugi not only was trained into it before the series but also he is the Trope Codifier — and a deconstruction — of Hot-Blooded ace pilots in Humongous Mecha anime.
• Similar to the Lyrical Nanoha example above, My-Otome has plenty of aces among the Otome. The two top combat aces, Haruka and Shizuru, are textbook examples of the Steamroller and Bushwhacker respectively.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion gives us professional kid pilot Asuka to contrast Shinji, the epitome of Ordinary High-School Student spineless protagonists. Unfortunately all the piloting skill in the world won't save you. It will make you look like a Hot-Blooded badass in The Movie, though.
• Overman King Gainer has three main ace pilots Gainer Sanga, Gain Bijou, and Cynthia Lane.
• Noa Izumi from Patlabor. She's not really amazingly good, though, so much as always reliable, and in the ultimate Real Robot Genre series, that counts for a lot more. In one episode, her "forward" points out that her reaction time is worse than Ohta's, but her motions are more efficient (Ohta will start moving first, but Izumi will complete the action first).
• Porco Rosso: Porco was called the "Ace of the Adriatic" and Curtis is also known for his prowess in combat flying.
• Even Robotech follows Macross's tradition of the best pilot not being the main character (aside from Max and Miriya), with Maia Sterling in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles
  • Rook Bartley from the Third Robotech War/Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. Also Lancer, for that matter.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman AKA Battle of the Planets AKA G-Force AKA Eagle Riders gives us two in Ken The Eagle (who is named Ace in G-Force) and the man known as Red Impulse.
• Shirobako has a production in its second half 3rd Aerial Girls Squadron, about a team of Ace Pilots flying outdated 1960s craft to fight an alien invasion.
• Lt. Fukai Rei from Sentou Yousei Yukikaze is an ace on his own right but his close relationship with his plane's AI makes him even more effective.
• Strike Witches features various historical World War II aces... re-imagined as teenage girls. With animal ears. And no pants. In terms of tactics, most of them appear to be Bushwhackers or Steamrollers, while Sanya and Lynette are Snipers.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Simon the Digger. For that matter, Kamina, Viral, Lordgenome... One could make a case for almost any main character who gets in a Gunmen.
• Shun Kuroeda in Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kidou Kyuukyuu Keisatsu. Specializing in sniping, he's a super-prodigy who can pilot a Drive Head despite not being "chosen" by the Drive Gear. And his skills are above-average, too.
• Lux Arcadia from Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle is one of the best pilots in the series thanks to his skill with nothing more than just a quack job Drag-Ride that easily wants to get shot down. His fighting style is a Plugger as he usually just turtles until the opponent gets tired out but that's because he's just using the fight as nothing more than a training exercise.
• In The Vision of Escaflowne, the heroes are both Steamrollers by default. Warrior Prince Van and Knight In Shining Armour Allan both pilot Lightning Bruiser Guymelefs armed only with swords, forcing them to quickly close with the enemy and overwhelm them with skillful swordplay. Interesting, The Dragon Dilandua and his henchmen are clearly Bushwackers and Snipers, using stealth technology and advanced ranged weaponry to try to overwhelm the heroes rather than going toe to toe with them. Given the themes of honour and chivalry in the show, this contrast is more than a little thematically appropriate.

Asian Animation

• In Guardian Fairy Michel, Kim can pilot Honeybee in any situation and uses all of its modes to their finest capabilities.

Comic Books

• Arrowsmith is about the title character's gradual growth into one in a fantasy version of World War One.
• In Athena Voltaire, Athena is an aviatrix by profession, having been part of an air circus (which she got involved with thanks to her father, who knew people in the world of travelling entertainment thanks to being a stage magician). She then became a pilot for hire, which is behind most of her adventures. She's good enough to take out attacking fighters more than once without needing to shoot back.
• The Blackhawks
• In Chassis, anyone who competes in the Aero-run has to be an ace pilot by definition. This includes Chassis McBain.
• Combat Kelly and his Deadly Dozen: In later issues, the Dozen acquired their own ace pilot in the form of Jack 'Mad Dog' Martin, the so-called 'scourge of the airways' until he supposedly lost his nerve.
• Examples from DC Comics war features:
  • Johnny Cloud, aka "The Navajo Ace" (a literal WWII ace)
  • Hans Von Hammer in Enemy Ace.
  • Steve Savage, the Balloon Buster in WWI.
  • In Hunter's Hellcats, Snake Oil worked for a time as a barnstormer in carnivals before the war. He is in charge of flying the planes the Hellcats frequently steal when escaping enemy territory.
• Deff Skwadron:
  • Kommanda Uzgob has flown 52 missions by the end of the comic, leading to 14 dogfight victories, 89 assorted other kills and only two lost airplanes. By orkish standards, he's probably one of the best there ever was.
  • Killboy is the official Deff Skwadron ace, having flown 34 missions, scoring 10 dogfight victories and 60 other assorted kills. He's lost 36 airplanes, mostly thanks to his unorthodox flying style^note he twice managed to hijack an enemy airplane, get back into the air, and then ram that one into an enemy as well.
• Lord Richard Quackett from the Disney Ducks Comic Universe is implied to be one, having flown in World War I — as a balloon buster (see below in the Real Life section) and lived to tell.
• The Marvel version of G.I. Joe had several ace pilots on both sides. Ace (Definite steamroller, going straight at Wild Weasel's nose at the end of their first match, and winning by detonating weapons dangerously close to him in their most recent match), Slipstream, Wild Bill (For helicopters instead of fighter planes), and Maverick come to mind for the Joes. Wild Weasel (Bushwhacker/plugger, likely only a plugger due to the toughness of the Cobra Rattler) was one for Cobra.
• Jack Fury (the father of MARVEL badass Nick Fury) was a pilot in the war.
• Marvel had The Phantom Eagle, a pilot who fought for the USA in World War I. Because he had relatives in Germany, he had to fly as a masked mystery man.
• French 1960s (and onward) Tanguy Et Laverdure had Michel Tanguy and Ernest Laverdure.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Wonder Woman herself is usually an excellent pilot, she does have an invisible plane after all which is usually some kind of Amazonian fighter.
  • Steve Trevor is almost always an excellent pilot regardless of continuity. It's evidently an inherited trait as his mother was one as well, as a flight trainer and one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots during WWII.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): One of the galactic slaves who aids in Diana's slave revolt and joins the revolution used to be a pilot and quickly jumps back into the role. She's able to skillfully pilot all sorts of captured Sangtee Empire vessels. While neither she nor her race are ever named she resembles Green Lantern Xrill-Vrex
  • In addition to making Steve strictly an excelent pilot instead of him also being a spy The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) adds another great pilot to the supporting cast; Lt. Lawrence Stone, one of the Tuskeegee Airmen.
• Baron Eric von Emmelman was World War One German flying ace who was hot down over a Polish swamp in 1918. After rising as The Heap some 24 years later, some later stories had him take to the skies again despite being a near-mindless Muck Monster: the long buried instincts of Eric allowing him to fly fighter planes against Axis flyers.

Comic Strips

• Snoopy from Peanuts flies his doghouse with the best of them as World War I Flying Ace, arch-rival to the Red Baron.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) fanfiction, Lauren Griffin gets to demonstrate her pilot skills again when she makes a particularly sharp turn with her Osprey to Outrun the Fireball.
• A Crown of Stars: Although she was very broken when the story starts out, Asuka was her squad's best pilot, with the greater number of kills. During a scene Ching praises her performance during the battle of the Geofront and when she and Shinji used a barely-moving prototype mecha in Germany to fight and defeat several fully-functional MP-Evas. Later she has a new Transforming Mecha and kicks butts with it.
• Advice and Trust: Asuka is the best Humongous Mecha pilot in the base, having trained since she was four and devoting her life to it. As they bond, Shinji and Rei also improve their performance with their war machines.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction A Kingdom Divided, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust are those, of a bushwhacker kind. Flitter and Cloudchaser, on the other hand, employ a tactics of steamrolling an airship with 20 mm automatic cannons.
• The Child of Love: Among the main characters, Asuka is the best Humongous Mecha pilot. She even fought and killed an Eldritch Abomination while pregnant. She fought that battle so hard her teammates were amazed.
• Children of an Elder God: Shinji, Asuka and Rei are more skillful and more competent than their canon selves. In their first engagement, Shinji and Rei managed to kill an humongous spider-alike Eldritch Abomination had turned the whole city into a giant cobweb infested with billions of spiders. In her first engagement Asuka tore a Sea Monster to bloodied pieces when it got her angry. And every time they killed a new Eldritch Abomination they became more powerful.
• Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: Kallen arguably the best pilot of the team, rivaled only by Suzaku. As all of the Paladins pilot Empathic Weapons, though, what type they are is up for debate.
• Doing It Right This Time: Asuka travels to Tokyo-3 early to help with Shinji and Rei's training. When Shinji asks if she is right with them getting kills while she remains benched, Asuka replies she is rationalizing that it will be thanks to her training. Shinji replies it is not a rationalization because she was the best pilot and he was just lucky.
• Inthe Shadowof Gods: Joker gets to show of his skills by catching Shepard and the Chief in one of the Normandy's side doors as the pair flies through space.
• Evangelion 303: The Children and their wingmen are young but accomplished pilots. The best in the base are Asuka — a steamroller — and Shinji — a bushwhacker — (and possibly Kaworu).
• HERZ: Shinji, Asuka and Rei are all excellent Humongous Mecha pilots with more than one decade of experience, although Shinji is the only one still has a functional Eva, and he seldom sorties.
• Last Child of Krypton: Asuka had prepared her whole life to pilot war mechas and fight giant alien monsters, spending twelve years of hard training and rigorous preparation. She was the best pilot in the base, but every time she sortied and her skill seemed to be insufficient, her fragile self-esteem deteriorated, which in turn made piloting her mecha harder. By the end she had become unable to pilot... but since she had gained super-powers for that point, she did not mind much.
• Once More with Feeling: After returning to the past, Shinji's performance with his giant robot gets his co-workers impressed and shocked, since they did not expect he was so good. However he considers that Asuka is better pilot and fighter than he could never be, and when he meets for first time —again — he takes care of praising her skill, knowing her confidence is very fragile.
• The One I Love Is...: Asuka trained very hard since she was three to be the best mecha pilot ever. However, her frequent defeats eroded her fragile confidence progressively until her mind snapped. However she still got to show how good she was when she ripped the MP-Evas apart.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Asuka was the best and most rigorously trained pilot in the squad, and she got a good number of kills under her belt. However, as the story progressed and her powers surfaced she got to choose between remaining a pilot or being a super-heroine full-time.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide, Asuka was her squad's best pilot, even although she was constantly defeated. When another alien monster attacked the base in chapter 6, she was the only one capable of defeating it.
• In Thousand Shinji, Asuka is not only her squad's best mecha pilot but also her world's master of physical combat. Her final battle against the MP-Evas is described in-story as "a hive mind of nine killing machines versus the perfect single warrior."
• Landing Day: Veen and Garasso, who are part of Harbinger 2-6's striker force. Both easily outpace their fellow Strikers and take out several of the human fighters.
• The Discworld of A.A. Pessimal sees the evolution of the Air Watch, from its beginnings in a couple of Feegle mounted on tamed birds, to incorporate Lancre-trained Witches with a passion for flight. Olga and Irena become the first two Air Witches in the Watch. As the need for pilots expands, and the Watch acquires a brace of Pegasus flying horses, more skills are learnt and with a greater number of Witches graduating from training in Lancre looking for jobs, the very best witch-pilots are recruited to what becomes, by degrees, an Air Force. Olga Romanoff finds herself being regarded as the best flying Witch in the world; at the latest point in the evolution of Ankh-Morpork's Air Force, she finds herself commanding the best part of sixty fliers and proficient in a bewildering variety of flying Devices. Part of her backstory involves fighting in the air over Lancre, during the Elven invasion described in The Shepherd's Crown, and leading her pilots in knocking down quite a lot of air-capable Elves on yarrow stalks, thus qualifying herself — and several other witch-pilots — as combat Aces. This tale is here. Olga boasts all four types in her command:
  • The Steamroller: Hanna von Strafenburg
  • The Bushwhacker: Tatiana Grigorenko
  • The Sniper: Kiiki Pekkissalen
  • The Plugger: Olga Romanoff herself.
• Strikers 89: Lt. Frank "Warhound" Bishop is an almost textbook example of a Steamroller, flying his aircraft incredibly aggressively.
• Strikers 2016: Lt. Morgan Laroux-Bishop is a hybrid Bushwhacker/Sniper, relying on opening a fight with very large volleys of long-range air to air missiles, followed by exploiting the resulting confusion and panic to eliminate any surviving enemy aircraft.
• Batman 1939: Captain Steve Trevor calls himself the best flyboy America has, and a captive Body Snatcher is unworried by their plane being fired on because she's seen his memories and knows he really is that good.

Films — Animation

• Hiccup from the How to Train Your Dragon series is a dragon rider example. It's notable that, unlike the other riders, Hiccup is just a much of a part of the flying processes as his dragon, Toothless, due to the prosthetic tailfin he made for him, that is controlled via left pedal.

Music

• The novelty song "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" actually has the facts correct (on the human half, anyway); Manfred von Richtofen really did rack up 80 well-documented confirmed victories (and another 20 or so suspected ones) before he was brought down.
• Iron Maiden's "Aces High" takes the viewpoint of an RAF pilot during the Battle of Britain.
• Radio Tapok: In addition to Oleg covering Sabaton's "Night Witches" in Russian before he started writing full-length albums, "Белая Лилия" ("White Lily") is about Lydia Litvyak, a Muscovite woman who became the first of only two female fighter aces in history (the other being Yekaterina Budanova, also from the Soviet Air Force) before being killed in action in the Battle of Kursk. Depending on the source you read, Litvyak is credited with five to twelve solo kills and up to 66 partial kills. The song declares her The Dreaded to the Luftwaffe and also alludes to the supernatural aspects of "Night Witches" with lines like "Приоткрывая врата преисподней, в ночь / Собирая души врагов" (roughly "Opening the gates of the underworld into the night / Collecting the souls of enemies").
• Sabaton:
  • "Night Witches" covers a regiment of female Soviet bomber pilots who became legendary for flying outdated biplanes in nightly harassment missions against the German Army, who nicknamed them the Nachthexen. The song plays them up as near-supernatural in their ability to strike silently with nearly no warning.
    From the depths of Hell in silence
    Cast their spells, explosive violence
    Russian nighttime flight perfected
    Flawless vision, undetected
  • "The Red Baron" is a biography of Manfred von Richtofen, discussing details such as the aforementioned 80 kills or how he was first enlisted in the cavalry.
    And he's flying
    HIGHER!
    The king of the sky
    He's flying too fast, and he's flying too high
    HIGHER!
    An eye for an eye
    The legend will never die!

Pinball

• The player is this In Williams Electronics' F-14 Tomcat, a lone pilot pitted against General Yagov and his seven-fighter squadron.
• The Airborne Avenger is implied to be one.

Podcasts

• The Adventure Zone: Balance has Davenport. He's spent basically his entire life preparing to be the pilot for the IPRE's mission, and come the final battle, he's once again manning the Starblaster through the Hunger's forces.
• Jet Siquliak of The Penumbra Podcast. Doubles as a pun: he's both an Ace Pilot and an "ace" pilot.

Tabletop Games

• Ace of Aces was a game which simulated combat between two World War I biplanes using only two matching books, each filled with views of the opponent, seen from the cockpit of the player's plane. The players selected their next move, exchanged numbers and ended up on a new page showing the result. If a player choose badly, this could be a shot of incoming machine-gun fire.
• BattleTech has pilot skill ratings along with gunnery skills for marksmanship. The piloting skill is used for everything from preventing your 'Mech from overheating to jumping on top of your opponent's mech and crushing it beneath you. Pay enough Battle Value and you can get a very good pilot for your most expensive 'mech.
  • In-Universe-wise the Battletech setting has had multiple Ace Pilots, with each main timeline having at least one Famed In-Story example. These include characters like Natasha "Black Widow" Kerensky, The Bounty Hunter, Kai-Allard Liao, Morgan Kell and his son Phelan Kell, Danai Liao-Centrella and Gray Noton.
• d20 Future's "Dogfighter" advanced class.
• Flying Circus is a game specifically about flying WWI-style biplanes with an extremely detailed plane creator as a mercenary company of absolute degenerates in a land of Germanic states after an apocalyptic version of WWI. The Masteries system as well lets you specialize in one of four styles of fighting that each map perfectly to one of the above styles.
  • Bushwack pilots are well, Bushwackers, sneaking up on foes to shoot them out of the air unaware
  • Dogfighters are Steamrollers, aggressively turnfighting and wearing down their opponents for the kill
  • Slipstream pilots are Pluggers, focusing on evading and defending until the enemy slips up
  • Sharpshooters are of course Snipers, focused on accurate long-range fire. The only Mastery gunners can take.
• A trait on offer to players in Rocket Age. For a more specific example look to Herr Aldritch Switzer, Nazi test pilot and scientist.
• The Star Wars d20 roleplaying game has always had some kind of Ace prestige class. The revised d20 edition had two: the Ace Pilot and the Jedi Ace. And since the Ace Pilot had 10 levels and the Jedi Ace had 5, the really dedicated Force-sensitive pilot character could max out both.
• In the Systems Malfunction tabletop game, the "Vehicle Expertise" and "Ace" perks allow characters to become ace pilots of the vehicle of their choice. In the LARP, the Pilot class allows characters to be ace pilots of Mini-Mecha and/or remote-piloted drones.
• The Warbirds RPG is focused on the player characters being mercenary fighter pilots in a setting where that role is analogous to "rock star who shoots people". Bluntly, if you're not a skilled pilot, you're probably an NPC. In the Guild, anyone with ten dogfighting kills is a "dogfight ace", while ten strafing kills is a "strafing ace"; there are certain plane upgrades you can only take if you've reached this status, and some require you to have fifty in one category (an "Elite Ace") — you get free plane upgrades as your killcount rises, although if it gets shot down you need to start over or drop a lot of money on getting your kite back up to scratch.
• Aeronautica Imperialis has pilot skill ratings used to determine the chances of a pilot pulling off an impossible maneuver (e.g. flying at '0' altitude, normally a crash for a non-ace pilot, and not dying). 'Ace' pilots (those who have scored five kills) have a better pilot skill rating (generally 3+ or 2+ instead of 4+ or 3+) and thus a better chance of not dying. And then you have the Nightwing squadron of four planes that shot down sixty six hostile fighters in one engagement. Technically impossible under the AI rules because a Nightwing has enough ammo to down only nine fighters before being forced to disengage (and you'd have to be really lucky to pull it off anyway), but possible using the Apocalypse rules.
  • In the main 40K game, you can buy Ork Dakkajet planes an ace pilot, known as a "Flyboss", who has survived more dogfights than he can count (i.e. six or more). This increases his Ballistic Skill rating when shooting at aircraft and skimmers to a princely 3, the same as the average human infantryman.
  • In the Rogue Trader RPG setting two of the options for a Voidmaster's special ability are ace pilots (either for large starships or space fighters). The Flight Marshal alternate career rank allows a Voidmaster to become even more of an Ace Pilot. Oddly enough, rules for fighter combat (as opposed to deploying entire squadrons) weren't added until much later.
  • One of countless mini-expansion articles for Inquisitor added Glavian pilots, drawing from Midas and Medea Betancore from Eisenhorn, who supplement natural piloting skill with cybernetics that add a solid +20 to piloting rolls, which is a hefty bonus even in a system where most dice rolls are percentile.
• In X-Wing Miniatures, virtually every single ship has at least one named pilot with unique or at least uncommon talents and a Pilot Skill of 7 or above — people like Luke Skywalker, Wes Janson, Corran Horn, Juno Eclipse and Boba Fett, have Pilot Skill 8. The Aces among Aces, however, are those with Pilot Skill 9. There are only nine characters with Pilot Skill 9: Darth Vader (TIE Advanced), Soontir Fel (TIE Interceptor), "Quickdraw" (TIE/SF), Han Solo (YT-1300 - and has two cards with different talents), Wedge Antilles (X-Wing), one version of Poe Dameron (T-70 X-Wing), Talonbane Cobra (Kihraxz Fighter), Dengar (Jumpmaster 5000), and Fenn Rau (Protectorate Starfighter). Amusingly enough, since Pilot Skill is used for Action Initiative, this means that unless he's up against one of the others mentioned, Han is virtually guaranteed to shoot first. In terms of the piloting styles, jouster lists lean towards Steamrollers to rip enemy ships apart as quickly as possible, arc-dodger lists favour Bushwhackers to evade enemy lines of fire and slowly wear down enemies who can't actually respond, and turret lists like big, durable Pluggers who can soak up arc-dodgers' low damage output and don't really care much about fire arcs. Most of the above aces are Steamrollers who specialise in dealing lots of damage quickly (Vader, Poe, Quickdraw, Dengar, Talonbane Cobra and Wedge); Han is a Plugger with some useful tricks first and foremost, Soontir is a Bushwhacker, and Fenn Rau can either fight like a Bushwhacker or Steamroller depending on how you fly him (although Bushwhacking with him tends to keep the pressure off his Glass Cannon ship).

Web Animation

• Four Seven Niner from Red vs. Blue is a Plugger, flying an apparently-unarmed Pelican. Has, to date on screen, done the following:
  • Hovered feet below and stood off from an oil rig-like structure.
  • Avoided fighter fire by flying through an ice canyon in one of the few justifiable examples of the latter trope.
  • Retrieved a package and two Freelancers in freefall. In a city. While the building they'd just jumped off of was collapsing next to them. UNDER FIRE.
  • Navigated an Asteroid Thicket while evading enemy fire, deploying a Freelancer team, and eventually saving the Mother of Invention from a tactical nuke while outracing the blast radius.
  • Performed a VTOL landing out of freefall from flight altitudes. In seconds. The maneuver was so delicate that she needed an AI to give her the countdown to deceleration burn with her reaction time factored in.

Webcomics

• Many of the characters in Angels 2200 are the character type, if not specifically 5-enemy-pilots-killed aces.
• Broch Landry from the comic Good Ship Chronicles is perhaps the greatest pilot alive, but also dangerously unstable and prone to snap necks at the slightest provocation.
• The Hark! A Vagrant strip about Billy Bishop (see also Real Life, below).
• Eddie in Jackie Rose. Despite his skittish nature, he can fly an airplane expertly to get through narrow crevices and even shot down three planes in a dogfight. This even goes all the way into his past when he managed to pull up a plane when it was nosediving when he was no more then 11 years at that point.
• The T-Girls of the Remix Comic Jet Dream. Harmony Thunder was (pre sex-change, as Jack Thunder) a literal Korean War ace.
• Captain Anzollo in Second Empire. He successfully evacuated his Emperor and his troops from the heavily defended Skaro, and later on he became one of the titular Second Empire's best pilots, taking the fight to the massed forces over Ziragalen and blunting the offensive before it had a chance to start. Even knowing he was going to die, he used Explosive Overclocking on his own engines to successfully disable a couple of dozen pursuing ships.
• Daniel Kruger in Avania. Each pilot of the White Knights squadron could qualify, but Daniel Kruger is particularly noteworthy as his skills in the mock-duel with the Black Lanners pilots demonstrate.

Web Original

• Stol, the longtime helmsman of the Enterprise-B from To Boldly Go... A Starfleet Quest.

Western Animation

• The Deep (2015): Kaiko Nekton is the underwater equivalent of this. Will says she is greatest sub pilot alive and all the evidence supports this. In "The Dark Orca", she discovers she can roll the Aronnax: something no one thought was possible.
• Zap Monogan from Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist.
• Launchpad of DuckTales (Both the 1987 and 2017 versions) and Darkwing Duck fame is an excellent pilot capable of flying anything. Landing it, on the other hand... In the comics continuation of Darkwing Duck Launchpad even claimed he could fly the Ranger Plane in a Cutaway Gag. Gadget (not a bad pilot herself) disagreed (though she probably said it because Launchpad is too big for the Ranger Plane).
• Ellie the Ace has the title character, Ellie, and The Rival, Danny.
• Final Space: Sheryl Goodspeed calls herself the "best pilot in the universe". Hints at how good she is include her flying the Crimson Light out of Inner Space while the dimension is collapsing, and her lightfolding the ship through a Titan's skull while Gary and Quinn are on the ship's outside without them getting shredded.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): He-Man's mother, Queen Marlena, gets a chance to show off her skills in the original series episode The Rainbow Warrior.
• Glenn Quagmire from Family Guy been shown to be quite skilled as a commercial pilot, safely landing the damaged airline after it had been hijacked in the episode Passenger Fatty 7
• Captain Turanga Leela from Futurama is able to pilot the Planet Express ship through whatever wacky adventures the crew finds themselves in.
• In The Legend of Korra, both General Iroh and Asami Sato are shown to be amazing biplane pilots. Bonus points to General Iroh, who figures it out completely on the fly. Asami at least had six months to become an ace.
• Molly of Denali:
  • Molly's mom Layla is a bush pilot, and is complimented on her piloting throughout the podcast. She knows everything that’s going on in interior Alaska: what scientists are where and which ones always get into trouble, what the weather will be and if it’s dangerous to fly or not.
  • Trini's mom Joy is an Army helicopter pilot and very capably pilots a rescue mission to the top of Mount Denali in "Molly and the Great One."
• PAW Patrol:
  • The aptly named Ace Sorenson, a preteen pilot whom Skye idolizes. She is even shown teaching adults how to fly!
  • Skye herself is the Patrol's aerial rescue pup. She is among the most reliable and competent of the pups.
• Celery from Ready Jet Go!. She is great at piloting the flying saucer, avoiding asteroids and other threats with ease. In fact, Carrot mentions in "How Come the Moon Changes Shape?" that Celery has been voted the best driver (well, technically pilot, but the Bortronians tend to treat saucers like cars) in the Bortron system for three years in a row.
• Star Wars Rebels has Hera Syndulla, the captain of the Ghost. Racking up kills among TIEs is one thing, but she's also one of the very, very few people who have outflown Darth Vader. She also flew the prototype for the B-wing in both its initial test flight and its first combat mission.
• SWAT Kats:
  • T-Bone and Razor seem to favor a mix of Steamroller and Plugger styles. An example of an Ace with a back-seater — T-Bone's the pilot, Razor's the gunner/weapons officer.
  • The Red Lynx, being a Red-plica Baron, is naturally one of these. Even as a ghost piloting an old broken down biplane he is able to hold his own against the SWAT Kats and their Turbokat. The SWAT Kats only manage to shoot him down thanks to the sheer technological advantage the Turbokat has over the biplane. So when he hijacks the Enforcers' prototype fighter jet...
• Baloo from TaleSpin is a situational bushwhacker/plugger; in open sky, he bushwhacks like a mofo via ridiculous aerial acrobatics, in mountains and cities he plugs like a bastard through terrain manipulation, both supplemented by occasional usage of Abnormal Ammo — the only option available to him, as he takes on waves of fightercraft with a cargo plane. Unfortunately, he's about as business-savvy as the idiots who caused The Great Video Game Crash of 1983. Perpetual Poverty to the hilt, followed by a buy-out he wasn't even aware of until the new owner unlocked his door with her own set of keys.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender is full of characters who are excellent pilots, but special mention is given to Keith, who was a pilot prodigy and top of the class at the Garrison before being expelled due to disciplinary issues.
• Red Max, from Wacky Races, at least as an Informed Ability — his name is derived from the Red Baron and from Blue Max. By style, one can argue he's a bushwhacker.

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