Top 10 jet fighters ranked by claimed kills

Judged on the number of aerial victories, the shooting down of crewed aircraft, what are the top 10 jet fighters? This question is often avoided as the research involved is seemingly impossible, but we’re willing to have a go. As you’d imagine, there’s a bucketload of provisos (see below) but the top 10 is almost definitely correct in terms of the aircraft types featured, the top five even more so. Of course, claims are often dubious and prone to propaganda deformations and genuine mistaken assessments. This is to be expected, and should not stop us carrying out this interesting survey. The figures, like war itself, are sometimes dirty and cannot be regarded as 100% accurate. Regarding the veracity of the claims, I’ve made the best possible efforts with the numbers, but I’d be delighted to be correctedâ€”but only with corrections that come with reliable sources, please. Notably, there is a large cluster of jet fighters with a kill number in the twenties including the Sea Harrier (likely the highest British entry), the Mirage F1, MiG-23 and F-105.

Away from the coldness of figures alone, we must also take a minute to consider the human lives lost in air combat.

Let us take a look at the ten most (proven) effective fighter aircraft in history:

10. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17