[knusel]

Good evening,

I agree with Stig. Reducing ace scores on the basis of loss correlations alone is flawed. But that's what some members of the forum are doing all the time, even when this matter is not the topic of a thread at all.

In the current thread Edward specifically asked for the percentage of verified kills of Fonck. This question deserves an answer and the best French WW1 Aces expert is David Méchin. His ace biographies are highly recommendable to all and make it worthwhile to learn French.

To me the most interesting aspect of an ace is not the percentage of verified claims but the number of officially acknowledged claims in a certain aircraft type. My favourite Fonck fact is that he's the only ace who the top scorer in three (!) different aircraft types, respectively: SPAD S.XIII, SPAD S.XII and SPAD S.XVII.

Cheers,

Michael