WTF? Oh boy. I suspect they are only considering the amount of enemy they shot down, and even then.
P51
Spitfire
P47
P38
F4
All WW2 I put the 51 on top because of its range. The 47 did not have the range because it was a hell of a gas hog.
The 38 actually got near the sound barrier in its dives and pilots had real problems with it till they fixed that. Besides that, it was a plane designed by the best.
in April 1943 while the 8th AF brass were sending unescorted flights of bombers over Europe, P-38s in the Pacific flew over 400 miles one-way to intercept and shoot down the plane carrying Admiral Yamamoto. The air distance between London and Berlin is 580 miles.
By 1944, P-38s in the Pacific were flying 1,000 miles, fighting 15 minutes and returning 1,000 miles to base with fuel to spare. Remember, the distance from London to Berlin is 580 miles.
The 38 actually got near the sound barrier in its dives and pilots had real problems with it till they fixed that. Besides that, it was a plane designed by the best.
Compressibility was a problem that would be experienced by all aircraft capable of hitting the sound barrier. The P-38 just happened to be the first American aircraft capable of diving fast enough to experience compressibility. Because no one yet understood the phenomenon, the P-38 got a bad reputation for poor dive characteristics until newer American aircraft began experiencing the same problems in power dives.
I think the main problem with the P-38 from a pilot's standpoint is that it was too complicated to operate in combat. When bounced, a pilot had a longer checklist of things to be done to prepare for combat versus what had to be done in a single engine fighter. This is why I say the P-51 was the best allied fighter in the hands of the average allied pilot.