Fórum Brigadeiro Nero Moura

There was an enormous gap is the number of experienced pilots in the US and the USSR after the Second World War. And this gap remained during the Korean War as well, allowing the Soviet VVS to attain a favorable 3.3:1 kill ratio against the UN aircraft. During the Korean War the VVS pilots flew 1,872 combat sorties and downed 1,106 US-made aircraft, of which 650 were F-86 "Sabres." In air combat over Korea against the VVS, Americans lost about two "Sabres" for every downed Soviet MiG-15. ["Russian Weapons: War and Peace," by Vladimir Babych, 1997]

During the Korean War, the best American ace, Capt. MacConnel, was credited with shooting down 16 MiG-15s, while the best Soviet ace, Capt. Sutyagin, downed 23 American aircraft. ["Duel" N 20 (42) - 21(43), 1997] The gap between Soviet and American aces remained during the Korean War: there were 40 American aces who were credited with shooting down 5 or more enemy fighters, while the number of Soviet aces with 5 or more kills was 51. ["Duel" N 20 (42) - 21(43), 1997]

The number of Soviet non-combat losses was only 10 aircraft. The number of non-combat losses, officially admitted by the US, is 945 ["The United States Air Force in Korea 1950-1953" by Robert Futrell]. This enormous number non-combat losses is a testament to the "superior" training of American pilots as well as to the attempts on the part of the US government and the military to present combat losses as "accidents."