today v yesterday

[mr fish]

Having witnessed the antics of the recent ' breitling air race' aviators, i was wondering, how would these guys(and gals!) stack up against the greats from the prop driven past..?
I understand that pilots such as Erich hartmann dispached their foes in many cases without being seen but surely they were ace 'stick and pedel men' also.?
Can anyone from the sharp end enlighten me??

[effortless]

Not sharp end but I have a little experience of aerobats old and new. That is if you mean Red Bull antics. New aerobats do it a lot more nippily and the g is more but not so sustained. I do not know how WW2 pilots were able to sustain the g they did for so long. Getting a heavy old bird like a Spit round the corner took quite a while relatively. An Extra just flips it. Pa flew Spits amongst others and he said it was all about observation. No one survived by out-flying the enemy.

[GeeRam]

I understand that pilots such as Erich hartmann dispached their foes in many cases without being seen but surely they were ace 'stick and pedel men' also.?

Hartmann was an excellent 'stick n pedal' man, and predominately achieved a high score by fearlessly getting in as close as possible before pressing the button.
He famously used his flying skill to evade being shot down in a solo combat with no less than 8 x P-51's over the Romanian oil fields, after he had exhausted his ammo and before his 109 ran out of fuel and he had to take to the silk.