"Jukka O. Kauppinen" wrote in
message ...

Associate asked interesting question.

Is there any kind of listing of "modern" jet aces? And are any of those
in service today?

I'd guess best bet are the Israelis. Elsewhere some are from Vietnam
(US, Vietnam, Russian?) and what else?

The Israelis should have the leading ace of the last 30-35 years, Giora
Epstein, with 17 confirmed kills, as well as several additional jocks with
more than 8 or 10 kills to their credit.

The leading ace of the last 24 years was (then) Maj. Jalal Zandi, IRIAF, an
F-14 pilot with 8 confirmed and three (or four) probables to his credit,
scored between 1980 and 1988 (Zandi rose to the rank of Lt.Gen., before
dying of "heart problems", two years back). Although many infos are still
missing, so far at least ten Iranian aces from the war with Iraq were
identified, most of which scored between 6 and 9 kills. A single Iraqi
(MiG-21 and MiG-25-pilot) with five confirmed and up to eight "probables"
(i.e. certainly unconfirmable) kills is known too (as well as approx a dozen
of other Iraqi pilots with everything between two and four kills), but it
appears at least one of his "kills" was actually an Algerian biz-jet.

More infos about Iranian F-14-kills will become available in the book
"Iranian F-14 Units in Combat", which is to follow in Osprey's "Combat
Aircraft" series, sometimes later this year.

Officially, the top Iranian ace of that war - Lt. Gen. Abbas Baba'ie -
however, should have "scored" up to 32 kills. The "problem" in his case is
that he never qualified as a pilot of even an F-5 but was always sitting in
the back, controlling pilots considered "disloyal" by the regime in Tehran,
and taking care these to obey Mullah's orders. Aside from this, between 1979
and 1986 he was presiding different sorts of courts responsible for
executions of over 300 Iranian officers and pilots: consequently, the
surviving IRIAF officers and pilots do not want even to hear his name, nor
to think about talking about him or crediting him for anything (except the
deaths of so many of Iranian pilots). Eventually, Baba'ie might have indeed
been there when 32 different kills were scored by (qualified) IRIAF F-14-
and F-4-pilots (after all, the IRIAF scored over 450 air-to-air kills
against Iraqis), but there are more than "few serious doubts" about his
ability to help them at all - and thus be credited for any of the kills in
question.

There was air to air fighting at Eritrean-Etiopian war but I'd dare to
guess that total losses can be counted with one hand?

Actually not: there was a total of approx a dozen of air-to-air combats,
with both sides losing planes. It was a fairly vivid air war with serious
contest for air superiority. More infos are now available in the book
"African MiGs", see he
http://www.acig.org/afmig/

Tom Cooper

Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php

Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/titl...hp/title=S6585

Arab MiG-19 & MiG-21 Units in Combat
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/titl...=S6550~ser=COM