hannin

That is an excellent list, and I'd pretty much agree with all the selections, but I always like to insert a little of my own dramatically motivated statistics where my childhood heroes are concerned. As such, I've always felt (with absolutely no evidence) that when Hikaru thought Misa had been injured or killed by the blast from Quamzin's ship in the final episode of Macross, his anger/emotions momentarily made him untouchable. While always a great pilot, no one, not even Maximilian, could have bested Hikaru in those few minutes. (I like to apply the same "logic" to Luke's final lightsaber duel with Vader at the end of ROTJ even though we've seen better choreographed duels since 1983.) Of course it would be silly, if not impossible, to try to quantify a "best pilot" list with such opinions thrown in.