Mercifully short. Hell Arndt!

Most of all, taught to fly by his own mother :-)

True Susanna. And to think, his father wanted him to be a doctor following family tradition! It might amaze you to know that famed female test pilot Hanna Reitsch wanted to be a flying missionary doctor before she took up gliding and set numerous records during her life. Hartmann was Ace of Aces, but Reitsch was the superior pilot. Only she could have rescued Hitler from the bunker. Even Bauer, Hitler's personal pilot, couldn't do that! The Soviets frantically tried to shoot her down when piloting the Fi-156 Storch into Berlin and the Ar-96 out of Berlin with von Greim. They failed. Hartmann got his glider license at age 14 and was qualified HJ glider instructor by age 15.

Juutilainen was the highest non-German ace with 94 confirmed kills flying the Fokker D.XXI, Brewster B239 (yes, the Buffalo!), and Me Bf 108G-2. He also never lost a wingman and was Finland's first radar-guided fighter pilot.

Typo on comment above. Should read Bf 109G-2.

F-104 Starfighter had a bad reputation in the Bundesluftwaffe. It had not-so-flattering nicknames such as "Fliegender Sarg" (flying coffin), "Witwenmacher" (widowmaker), "Selbstmordrohr" (suicide tube) and "Erdnagel" (tent peg, or more literally "ground nail"). Apparently there was some shuffling between Lockheed and the West German government, as Hartmann and his fellow officers didn't want the Starfighter as the main fighter of the Bundesluftwaffe - they rather wanted Phantom. Hartmann suffered the whistleblower's fate; he fas forced on early retirement.

Susanna, the English equivalent for German Starfighter was "Lawn Dart!" And they had that ridiculous F-104 ZELL (ZEro Launch Length) version too! However, Germany had the baddest version of the F-4, the ICE Phantom :)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/F-104G_ZLL_at_Luftwaffenmuseum_Berlin_Gatow.jpg/440px-F-104G_ZLL_at_Luftwaffenmuseum_Berlin_Gatow.jpg

When I was growing up in the 1960's, my brother and I would keep track in the newspapers of the increasing numbers of F-104G's being lost. Greg later told me he heard that some old timer in the factory in California looked at the specs for some critical component, decided the designer didn't know what he was doing, and installed the parts his way instead. Ever hear that tale? I used to have a plastic model kit of a Fokker DXXI with Netherlands markings. Saw a photo of a T-6 Texan modified to look like one for the movie "Soldier of Orange". Didn't Hartmann spend a lot of years in a Soviet prison camp after the war?

Patrick, the F-104 was plagued by so many problems that Lockheed bribed various nations like W Germany to order them. Hartmann was 100% right about safety. The plane had too small razor sharp wings which caused aerodynamic problems that the full blown flaps and T-tail couldn't compensate for so they often just fell out of the sky or crashed due to extremely high landing speeds. To make matters worse, early models had down ejection seats because the seats couldn't clear the tail! In combat, it had too small a radar and lack of missiles to be a true interceptor and it sucked at ground support too. Only 3 kills over entire career! One got downed by a Chinese MiG-19 and the two others looking for it ran into each other while searching for it. It was difficult to handle compared to other US fighters. Nothing corrected that. As for Hartmann, he was sentenced to 25 years in the USSR, but only served 10 due to his wife, mother, and the first Chancellor of W Germany constantly writing for release of him. Hartmann spoke German, English, Chinese, and Russian. He had been to China and Russia in the '20s during a trip as his father was a physician who traveled. Btw, the greatest interceptor of the time period of the Starfighter was the phenomenal, cancelled Avro CF-105 Arrow of Canada. Conspiracy theorists claim the US pressured the Canadian Govt. to drop it and then there's the mystery of a single airframe that was flown out to the US. Canada says no, but observers that were dismantling the prototypes say yes. Did the US salvage one to look at the tech? Unknown... I definitely should write about that!!!

Finland received 97 Fokker D.XXIs from the Netherlands. Had that nation held out longer Finland might have gotten the better Fokker D.XXIII pusher fighter! The Germans gave the Finns many captured aircraft from the West. Finns used VL aircraft made indigenously...

A specially modified NF-104 with rocket motor reached 131,230 ft and was used in astronaut training. The stripped F-104s set speed and altitude records. First to 1400 mph and over 91,000 ft for a fighter!