Just one more thought before I go to bed. Rotorfossil made a point about a small number of pilots making most of the kills in WW2, presumably due to some inbuilt SA in their psyche.
Anyone seen Top Gun?
The whole point of the US Naval Fighter Weapons School (TopGun) and the European equivalent, the Tactical Leadership Programme, is to train fighter pilots how to survive (and preferably win) their first few engagements in air combat. The school was set up following hard won experience in Vietnam which demonstrated that superior technology didn't necessarily equate to superior kill ratios. Is there any parallel here with the recent NTSB report that concludes that glass panel flight displays don't necessarily equate to improves flight safety?
http://www.avweb.com/pdf/ntsb_glass-...lsa_report.pdf
The USN and European NATO air forces could be wrong, but they seem to think that one can train and develop "good SA" in their fighter pilots.
BJ