The best American fighter plane of World War II was the North American P-51 Mustang. Not because it was the fastest or the toughest, but because it was the only Allied fighter that could escort a bomber to Berlin and fight when it got there.
That is the measure used here: combat record and production scale, not top speed alone. A fighter earns its place by what it did, how much of it there was, and whether the air war would have gone differently without it.
By that standard the American list is unusual. The United States built nine fighters worth ranking, and no other nation fielded more than three or four.
This article ranks the fighters. America also built the war’s most important bombers and transports, and those are covered separately in our guide to American bombers of WW2.
The Best American Fighter Planes of WW2, Ranked
| Rank | Aircraft | Built | Top speed | Main role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North American P-51 Mustang | ~15,000 | 440 mph (708 km/h) | Long-range escort |
| 2 | Grumman F6F Hellcat | 12,275 | 380 mph (612 km/h) | Carrier fighter |
| 3 | Republic P-47 Thunderbolt | 15,636 | 433 mph (697 km/h) | Escort and fighter-bomber |
| 4 | Lockheed P-38 Lightning | 10,037 | 414 mph (666 km/h) | Long-range fighter |
| 5 | Vought F4U Corsair | 12,571 | 446 mph (718 km/h) | Marine and carrier fighter |
| 6 | Grumman F4F Wildcat | 7,885 | 331 mph (533 km/h) | Carrier fighter |
| 7 | Curtiss P-40 Warhawk | 13,738 | 360 mph (579 km/h) | Fighter and ground attack |
| 8 | Northrop P-61 Black Widow | 706 | 366 mph (589 km/h) | Radar night fighter |
| 9 | Bell P-39 Airacobra | 9,588 | 376 mph (605 km/h) | Low-altitude fighter |
How this ranking was made
Aircraft are ranked on combat record and production scale: confirmed victories and loss ratios where they exist, the missions the type made possible, and how many were built. Speed matters only where it changed an outcome. Ranked by top speed alone the order would be almost reversed, which is why the measure has to be stated.
1. North American P-51 Mustang
The Mustang is first because it solved the problem that was losing the air war in Europe. In late 1943 American daylight bombing over Germany was failing, and it was failing for a reason that had nothing to do with the bombers.
Escort fighters ran out of fuel around the German border and turned for home. The Luftwaffe simply waited for them to leave, then attacked the unescorted bombers. Losses on some raids ran high enough to make the campaign unsustainable.
The P-51 could go the whole way and back. It could reach Berlin, hold its own against a Bf 109 or Fw 190 at altitude, and still return to England.
The aircraft only became that fighter because of an engine swap. Early Allison-powered Mustangs performed poorly at high altitude, so in late 1942 the airframe was fitted with the British Rolls-Royce Merlin.
Power went from roughly 1,200 hp to about 1,620 hp, and top speed rose from around 390 mph (628 km/h) to well over 400 mph (644 km/h). By late 1944 the Mustang equipped 14 of the 15 fighter squadrons in the US Eighth Air Force.
The P-51 did not out-fly the Luftwaffe so much as out-range it
German fighters were not beaten by a better dogfighter. They were beaten by a fighter that could still be over Berlin after the escorts were supposed to have gone home, which turned every bomber raid into a battle the Luftwaffe had to fight and could not afford.
Mustangs were credited with destroying nearly 5,000 enemy aircraft. Roughly 15,000 were built, and the type stayed in service as a fighter-bomber through the Korean War and with some air forces into the 1980s.
2. Grumman F6F Hellcat
If the Mustang won the air war over Europe, the Hellcat won it over the Pacific. It has the best combat record of any American fighter of the war, and it is not close.
Hellcats were credited with 5,223 enemy aircraft destroyed in US Navy, Marine Corps and Royal Navy service, more than any other Allied naval fighter. The commonly cited kill ratio is about 19 to 1.
Those wartime claims were almost certainly generous, as claims were in every air force. Even discounted heavily, the Hellcat’s record stands alone.
The aircraft was designed around what US Navy pilots had learned fighting the Mitsubishi A6M Zero in Wildcats: it needed more power, more armor, and enough structure to absorb damage. It got all three.
The Hellcat entered combat in 1943 and produced more aces than any other aircraft of the war. The Navy’s leading ace, David McCampbell, scored all 34 of his victories in one.
A total of 12,275 were built. It was also cheap and easy to fly, which mattered when the Navy was training pilots at wartime speed.
3. Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
The Thunderbolt was the most-produced American fighter of the war, with 15,636 built. Pilots called it the Jug, and it was enormous for a single-engine fighter.
It carried eight .50 caliber machine guns and could absorb punishment that would have destroyed any other fighter in this list. Stories of P-47s returning with cylinders shot off the engine are common enough to be unremarkable.
Early Thunderbolts flew escort until the Mustang took that job. The P-47 then became the Allies’ primary fighter-bomber in Europe, attacking trains, tanks, bridges and airfields ahead of the advancing armies.
That second career is why it ranks this high. Ground attack was dangerous, unglamorous work, and the Thunderbolt’s ability to take hits and keep flying made it the aircraft for it.
4. Lockheed P-38 Lightning
The twin-boom P-38 was the most distinctive-looking fighter of the war and the only American fighter in large-scale production for the whole of US involvement, from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day. A total of 10,037 were built.
Two engines and a central crew pod gave it long range and heavy nose-mounted firepower: one 20 mm cannon and four .50 caliber machine guns, all firing straight ahead rather than converging.
Range is what made its most famous mission possible. On 18 April 1943, P-38s flew about 600 miles (966 km) to intercept and shoot down the aircraft carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor.
German pilots reportedly called it the fork-tailed devil. It was expensive, costing roughly twice what a single-engine fighter cost, which limited how many could be built.
America’s two top-scoring aces of the war, Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire, both flew Lightnings in the Pacific.
5. Vought F4U Corsair
The Corsair was the fastest American fighter of the war at 446 mph (718 km/h) in its later variants, and its inverted gull wing makes it the most recognizable. It scored about 2,100 victories for 189 losses, a ratio of better than 11 to 1.
It ranks below the Hellcat because for most of the war it could not do the job it was designed for. The US Navy judged it unsuitable for carrier operations and kept it off American decks until 1944.
The long nose blocked the pilot’s view on approach, and the aircraft had a habit of bouncing on landing and stalling without warning at low speed. Taxiing on a crowded flight deck was close to impossible.
The Corsair was not the Navy's carrier fighter, and most lists get this backwards
The usual telling has the Corsair flying from carriers in 1942 and being replaced by the Hellcat. The opposite happened. The Corsair failed its carrier trials and was handed to the Marines to fly from island airstrips, where it made its name. The Wildcat carried the carrier war through 1942, the Hellcat took over in 1943, and the Corsair was not cleared for routine US carrier duty until 1944.
Sent ashore, it thrived. Marine squadrons took it into combat over Guadalcanal in February 1943, where it was faster than the Zero at every altitude and could out-climb it.
Japanese pilots are said to have called it Whistling Death, after the sound air made through its wing-root intakes in a dive. A total of 12,571 were built, with production running until 1953.
6. Grumman F4F Wildcat
The Wildcat is the most underrated aircraft on this list, and it is missing from most of them. It was slower than the Zero, less maneuverable, and it fought anyway during the year when losing would have mattered most.
Marine Wildcats defended Wake Island in December 1941. Navy Wildcats were the fleet’s main fighter at Coral Sea and Midway, and land-based Wildcats carried much of the Guadalcanal campaign through 1942 and into 1943.
Its pilots beat a better aircraft with tactics. The Thach Weave, devised by Navy pilot John Thach, paired two Wildcats so that a fighter being chased could turn into its partner and hand the pursuer a head-on shot.
It worked. The Wildcat finished 1942 with a kill-to-loss ratio of about 5.9 to 1, and about 6.9 to 1 across the war, in an aircraft that was outclassed on paper.
Around 7,885 were built by Grumman and by General Motors, which took over production as the FM series. Small, tough and forgiving, it also kept flying from escort carriers long after the Hellcat replaced it on the fleet decks.
7. Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
The P-40 was not a great fighter. It was an available one, which in 1941 and 1942 was worth more.
It was one of the few American fighters flown in combat by American pilots before the United States formally entered the war, with the Flying Tigers in China fighting the Japanese fighters of the period.
Its weakness was altitude. Underpowered against the best German fighters higher up, it won by diving, hitting hard and leaving rather than by turning and climbing.
So it was used where that mattered less: North Africa, China, the Pacific and the Eastern Front. Roughly 13,738 were built in Buffalo, New York before production ended in 1944.
8. Northrop P-61 Black Widow
Only 706 Black Widows were built, and it earns its place for being first rather than numerous. It was the first American aircraft designed from scratch as a radar-equipped night fighter.
Every other fighter here hunted by eye. The P-61 carried a three-man crew including a dedicated radar operator, which meant putting a set of radar into an aircraft that might be shot down over enemy territory.
It was large, expensive at around $190,000 apiece, and late, entering service in 1944. A P-61 is generally credited with the last Allied aerial victory before the Japanese surrender, though the claim is disputed.
9. Bell P-39 Airacobra
The P-39 is the strangest entry on any American list. American pilots disliked it, and it is usually left out entirely. It was also one of the deadliest fighters of the Eastern Front.
It was built around a 37 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub, with the engine mounted behind the pilot. It had no turbocharger in production form, so its performance fell away badly at high altitude.
In the Pacific and over Europe, where fighting happened high, that was disqualifying. On the Eastern Front, where air combat was fought low over the battlefield, it was irrelevant.
America's least-loved fighter made the Allies' second-highest-scoring ace
Of the 9,588 P-39s built, 4,773 went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. Aleksandr Pokryshkin, the second-highest-scoring Allied ace of the war with 59 victories, scored 48 of them flying an American fighter his own country had given up on.
The P-39 is a useful reminder that “best” depends on where and how an aircraft was used. Judged only by USAAF experience it looks like a failure, and by the record of the war it is not.
Did America Have Fighter Jets in WW2?
Yes. America built and flew two jet fighters during World War II, and neither one ever fought.
The Bell P-59 Airacomet first flew on 1 October 1942, when a high-speed taxi test lifted off a dry lakebed. It was America’s first jet aircraft, and it was disappointing: underpowered, and slower than the piston fighters it was supposed to replace.
The USAAF concluded by 1944 that it was unfit for combat. All 66 built were used to train pilots and ground crews for the jet age instead.
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the real thing. Four pre-production YP-80As reached Europe before the war ended, two to England and two to Lesina in Italy in early 1945.
The pair in Italy flew a small number of sorties with the 1st Fighter Group, recorded as non-combat. Production delays meant the P-80 never engaged an enemy aircraft, and it went on to serve in Korea instead.
Germany was the nation that fought a jet war, fielding the Me 262 in combat from 1944. Our guide to German jet aircraft of WW2 covers what America was racing against.
Which American Fighters Did Not Make the List
Brewster F2A Buffalo
The Buffalo was the US Navy’s first monoplane fighter and is widely considered the worst American fighter of the war. Boxy and slow, it was outclassed by the Zero, and Marine pilots at Midway suffered badly in it.
It has one genuinely strange footnote. Finland bought Buffaloes and used them against the Soviet Air Force with considerable success, which is to say the aircraft was used effectively against one of America’s eventual allies.
Fewer than 510 were built in total. It appears in our roundup of the worst fighter planes of WW2 rather than here.
Curtiss P-36 Hawk
The P-36 was already being retired when the war reached America, and only 215 were bought for US service. It is left off the ranking on volume, not on merit.
It has a real claim to history. P-36s got airborne from Wheeler Field during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and scored some of the first American aerial victories of the war.
Exported widely, it also flew for France during the Battle of France, where it performed better against the Luftwaffe than its reputation suggests.
How Many Planes Did America Have in WW2?
American industry built nearly 300,000 military aircraft between January 1940 and VJ Day in August 1945, along with more than 800,000 aircraft engines.
Roughly 50,000 of those were fighters and about 35,000 were four-engine bombers, with the rest medium bombers, transports and trainers.
The growth is the striking part. Fewer than 6,000 aircraft a year were being produced in 1939, and by March 1944 more than 9,000 were coming off American assembly lines in a single month.
That is the real explanation for this list. The United States did not simply build better fighters than its enemies, it built more of almost every type, which is a theme our look at the most produced aircraft in WW2 follows across all combatants.
How American Fighters Compared to the Rest of the War
No American fighter was the fastest piston aircraft of the war, and none was the most maneuverable. Ranked purely on speed the picture changes, as our list of the fastest planes of WW2 shows.
What American fighters had was range, ruggedness, numbers and the industrial base to replace losses faster than any opponent could inflict them.
The natural comparisons are the British fighter planes of WW2, built for short-range defense of home airspace, and the Russian WW2 fighter planes, built for low-altitude fighting over the front.
Each nation built the fighter its war required. America’s war required crossing oceans and continents, so it built fighters with range, and that is why the P-51 is first.
FAQ
Sources and references used for research and fact-checking.
- The National WWII Museum, The North American P-51 Mustang: A "Little Friend" with a Big Impact
- Naval Encyclopedia, Grumman F6F Hellcat
- The Aviation Geek Club, Here's how the Royal Navy fixed the F4U shortcomings for which the US Navy deemed the Corsair unsuitable for aircraft carrier operations
- Vintage Aviation News, Bell P-59 Airacomet
- Defense Media Network, Project Extraversion: P-80 Shooting Stars in World War II
- World War II Database, US Aircraft Production Statistics, Jul 1940 to Aug 1945
- Wikipedia, Bell P-39 Airacobra
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Articles credited to the AeroCorner Editorial Team are created or maintained by multiple aviation contributors working under a shared editorial framework. Content is researched using authoritative aviation sources and reviewed to ensure clarity, technical accuracy, and consistency across AeroCorner.