Erich Hartmann, with 352 official kills the highest scoring fighter pilot of all time. In World War II many air forces adopted the British practice of crediting fractional shares of aerial victories, resulting in fractions or decimal scores, such as 111/2 or 26.83.

The record for the most confirmed air-to-air kills in history belongs to the German Luftwaffe pilot Erich Hartmann, nicknamed "Bubi" (The Kid). During World War II, Hartmann achieved a staggering 352 confirmed aerial victories over the course of 1,404 combat missions. He flew the Messerschmitt Bf 109 exclusively and achieved almost all of his kills on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union's Air Force. His success was attributed to his "stalking" tactic: he would close in to extremely short ranges (sometimes within 20 meters) before firing to ensure a hit and minimize wasted ammunition. Remarkably, despite being forced to crash-land 16 times due to mechanical failure or debris from his targets, he was never shot down by an enemy pilot or captured during combat. Following the war, he spent ten years in Soviet prison camps before returning to Germany to serve in the West German Air Force. To this day, his record of 352 kills remains unsurpassed and is considered one of the most extraordinary—and unlikely to ever be broken—feats in the history of military aviation.