Vote. For me, it's a toss up between the Mustang and the FW 190.

Best at what?

Overall, I'd have to agree with you and say the P-51.  Speed, manuverability, altitude, range, it had it all.  Next up, the F6F Hellcat.

The FW-190 was outstanding, but lacked range.

none of the above?

Damn, I thought there were 10 choices in the poll instead of 5.

The other planes were:

Hawker Hurricane
Supermarine Spitfire
ME 262 - First jet
P-47 Thunderbolt

P-47 - best ground attack.  It's not a secret why they [i]officially[/i] named the A-10 "warthog" the Thunderbolt II.

ME-262 - best [i]interceptor[/i].  It was designed to intercept and knock down bombers, and it was perfect for that.  But it had a very limited range and wasn't all that maneuverable.  (Given its speed advantage, it didn't really need to be, though.)

The Spitfire was a beautiful bird, but as someone once said, the P-51 did everthing the Spit could, but it did it for 8 hours instead of 20 minutes.

The Hurricane was, for its time, a decent interceptor, but I don't think anybody would put it at the top of the 'Best Fighter' list - even its pilots.

The Supermarine Spitfire is a great plane but it has short legs. I vote for the P-51.

ME 262

CORSAIR ?

Did the FW-190D have the same lack of range?

P51 gets my vote for overall best figher.  Although the P38 gets a close second.  

In terms of effecting the outcome of the war, P51 without a doubt.

Best fighter period Me262.

590 miles.  Up 50 from the FW-190A

Hard to beat the P51D.  The F8F Bearcat was similar in performance, but arrived too late in the war to have much impact.

Not that great of an increase. There is a D model at the Champlin Museum in Mesa. Champlin has an awesome collection of WWII fighters.

Aw, man!  You left the "purtiest" of them all:

The powerful F4-U Corsair,the gullwinged fighter that dominated the Pacific War!

Which would you want to be in:

In a dog fight?

While escorting bombers?

While attacking a formation of Bombers?

While doing ground attack?

While doing long range air interdiction?

While performing as a 'night fighter'?

The Corsair was a beauty, but the Hellcat was a better plane IMHO, didn't the Hellcat have a better kill ratio? (one of the best in the war if memory serves).

Hurricane? Way outdated (the damned thing was half wooden!)

The prettiest fighter has got to be the Spitfire, just looks sweet!

There were some many good fighters that filled particular niches and did well in certain theaters that it is hard to pick just one ! Overall one US fghter that performed wherever it flew was the P51. The P38 did very well in the pacific but not well in europe.
The British liked to use our fighters enough said !
For the Germans, the ME262 was the best but the late FW190's were the real workhorses..
Japs ? N1K2 Shiden " George " was the best but to little too good too late ! I remember reading that the best aces flew them and one took on 8-9 F6F's by himself and shot down 6 hellcats in one fight !

 i 2nd this one.  why wasnt this on the poll!?

FW 190 D-9 Dora

Stang

I only had five slots. Way too low for any kind of a decent poll.

F4 Corsair.  Look at all them Zeros they shot down on Baa Baa Black Sheep.  [:)]

Reverse gull wing.....

Sorry the A&P in me had to come out and nit pick...

corsair gets my vote too! [:D]

Sea Fury! I really like the YAK9's too.

Supermarine Spitfire Mk V, elegant beautiful fighter planes ever produced.

I'll chimne in here.

The P-51 was the best allrounder, although the Russian Yak-7 wasn't too shoddy either. Here's a kicker for you though. Although the P-51 was designed in the USA, it was originally designed for the British. UK aircraft factories were flat out building their own designs but couldn't keep up with demand, so the UK Govt approached US aircraft companies to build aircraft to make up the shortfall in British aircraft production.

In April of 1940, Kindelberger (of North American Aviation) was summoned by the British Air Purchasing Commission and asked to manufacture the Curtiss Hawk 87 (P-40D) under license for the RAF. Kindelberger countered that NAA could do better than that airplane and that they could design a real fighter in the same time that it would take to put the P-40 into production. The British commission felt that they could take Kindelberger at his word and on April 10, 1940 they accepted his proposal on the condition that the first prototype be ready in 120 days. The design was assigned the company project name of Model NA-73.

In a contract approved on September 20, 1940, it was agreed that the fourth and tenth production NA-73s would be the planes diverted to the (US) Army. The designation XP-51 was to be assigned to these two planes. On September 24, 1940, the RAF increased their Mustang I order to 620 planes.

The NA-73X prototype emerged from Inglewood plant in only 102 days, thus meeting the 120-day deadline with time to spare, although the airplane rolled out of the factory without an engine, which had been delayed at the Allison factory. The engine that was eventually installed was an unsupercharged Allison V-1710-F3R rated at 1100 hp. The aircraft weighed 6278 lbs. empty, 7965-lbs. normal loaded. It was 25 mph faster than the P-40.

The newly arrived Mustang was quickly recognized as being the best fighter aircraft yet to be delivered from the USA. It was found to be superior to the Kittyhawk, Aircobra and Spitfire in both speed and maneuverability at low altitudes. Maximum speed was 382 mph at 13,000 feet. The armament of four 0.50-inch and four 0.30-inch machine guns was heavy and effective. Handling was excellent. With the passage of Lend-Lease, the US Army ordered 150 more Mustangs.

While the US Allison engine had similar performance to the UK Merlin engine at low altitude, the Merlin had a pronounced advantage at high altitude due to supercharging. Allison engines were used in the A model P-51's, all other P-51 models used the Merlin engine.

The supercharger design was the real key to the Merlin performance. A two-speed/two-stage design with tolerances measured in millionths of an inch. What the supercharger did was keep atmospheric pressure inside the induction system equal to sea level pressure. It did this so much better than the Allison design that a Merlin developed more horsepower at 26,000ft than an Allison did in full power setting for take-offs!

P-40

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/IG_LoadImage.asp?iImageUnq=477[/img]

Cause that's my grandpappy.

Weren't many but the ME 262 gets my vote.

[Aerospace Engineering Mode]
The P-51 was a great fighter aircraft.  In cruise, it could outrun ANYTHING anyone else had at the time.  It could do this because of its airfoil design.  The P-51 was the first application of laminer flow airfoils which were designed to keep the flow attached to the airfoil which would greatly reduce drag.  In theory, NACA laminer flow airfoils worked beautifly.  But, they relied on being as smooth as possible for operation in lower speed regions of the flight regime.  Even the most modern manufacturing techniques cant get them right.  But.... they found, if you can go much faster, say 550 kts (high speed), the airfoils work as advertised.  So, the P-51, which can cruise at about 550 kts, gets a tremendous drag savings = much longer range.  At engagement speeds, the P51 was just as good as any other fighter.  What made the P-51 great, was its ability to stay with our heavy bombers the entire trip, have the fuel to fight off the Jerries, and still have the fuel to fly home.[/AE Mode]
Speaking bluntly, it wasnt the machine, it was the man flying it.  We had better pilots.

Focke-Wolf TA 152

Best plane of the war, it could outfly ANY American fighter of the war.

Only a few were made, the Stabsschwarm of JG 301 were the only ones equiped with it.

One piolt, Oberfeldwebel Josef Keil, engaged 15 P-47's, shot down 1, and escaped unscathed.

He also enjaged several P-51 Mustangs, shot down 1, and escaped with no damage.

Av.

EDIT: Everyone loves American planes, but they were not the best. Germany had damn good planes, but with about 100 hours of flight time, piolt skills were lacking. Look at the data comparing German fighters to AMerican and British planes. The late war German modles were better in most repects.

Hawker Typhoon and it's successor the Hawker Tempest.

The Tempest had the same engine, weapons, 4X20mm's, as the Typhoon but a different wing. They were used heavily as ground attack, V-1 interceptors, and even managed Me-262 intercepts, and kills. Not like other Allied planes that would pounce jets on take-off or landing when the were most vulnerable.  

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0aQDiAqkigYYWB2*WbYOkWjOXMlyb02ys!Ofsi3f31z*5K4lrIEC30D8zFTLu7GNJg5Baqb6JD7tnmh5UcufFCbeBlaKvXZWQ07M5Qj8tUwvo4e*Gui1h7pLr0cGcz7x8rL3lByjeRTb4a4k2ux1UcLhXlpIxcZxN/warbirds_csg002_beach_head_strike_force1.0.jpg?dc=4675420506477746330[/img]

Two things observed on TV specials about WWII.

One was a German Luftwaffe pilot admitting that the P-51 was the best in the sky at the time. "We had nothing of that effort," he said.

The other was a statement attributed to Hermann Goehring. He said he knew the war was lost when he saw Allied fighters over Berlin. The fighters he saw were P-51s.

I love that show!

Vote for the P-51 with the P-38 behind. My Mom's brother was shot down & killed over Hamburg in a P-38.

[usa]

excuse me, excuse me. but WHERE THE HELL IS THE F6F HELLCAT! it accounted for 70% of all pacific theatre kills! and had a 19:1 kill ratio, wich is even better than the Mustang. Its an anti-Grumman conspiracy!!!!

Well, I mentioned the last Grumman prop fighter, the F8F Bearcat.  I figured it must have been better than the F6F, but was introduced too late in the war to find out.

The Hellcat was indeed an excellent fighter.  It could rip another asshole in any P51 Mustang, that's fer sure. [;D]

With a hung-over pilot behind the stick.

Love that P-38.  As far as improvements over the previous top fighter, the P-38 is tough to beat.  4 x .50 cal + 20mm cannon and don't discount the value of a second engine, especially over water.  

P-51 was the best fighter, but it came pretty late in the war.  Comparing kill ratios of early war fighters with those that appeared later isn't the most fair comparison.  The Germans and Japanese were unable to replace pilot's killed earlier in the war at anywhere near the rate of the U.S.  IOW, late war Axis pilots had, on average, far less skill in 1844-45 than they had in 1940-41.  U. S. pilots were exactly the opposite - far more skilled in 45 than in 41.

Anybody see that show on Cable last week "The Lost Squadron" .Team of Explorers spends years finding a squadron of P-38's that crashed in Greenland 60 years ago. Finally found one of the P-38's under 250ft of ice.  They dig/melt their way down.  Bring up a P-38 piece by piece, ship it back to Atlanta where they spend years rebuilding the plane by hand. Finally after about 10 years or so they fly the thing.  By the end of the documentary I was holding back the tears. [>(]

Many of the highest scoring fighter pilots from every military flew their "favorite" type of plane long after "better" versions became available.

The best germans flew ME-109s, Zero's for the Japanese and many good americans flew got results in damn near anything.

Me-262 was the terror of the skies in the late war.  Miles ahead of anything anybody else had.

P47, by far.

P47s had terrific speed, diving ability, and survivability.  Remember, the PILOT is more expensive than the PLANE by the time you've finished training him.  The P47 brought our pilots home.  

Most fighting in WW2 was B&Z (Boom and Zoom) where maneuverability did not matter as much.  The reason being is that it is a safer tactic and enables superior teamwork.  The P47 was ideal for this because of its excellent control in dives and it's toughness (an enemy would have a hard time bringing down a P47 before the P47's wingmen got him.)  

The P47 was also a forerunner of modern multi-role fighters.  Its bombload was heavier than that of many dedicated bombers.  With a loadout of 1 1000lb bomb, 2 500lb bombs and 6 rockets it could lay waste to ground positions.  The Fw190 could only carry half this amount.

The P51 had many of the P47's good features, along with an increased range, but paid for it in durability.  A single hit to the exposed ventral radiator could down the plane, which caused many losses in WW2 and Korea.  See point above about the pilot versus the plane.  Even though the bombing deep within Germany was important, the P47 contributed more overall to the war effort.

In terms of flight performance it wasn't the best.  That would be the Ta152.  When Kurt Tank was testing his plane personally, he was jumped by P51s.  He simply firewalled the throttles, cut in MW50, and outran them.  That plane was a beast.

I am not considering jets because the jets and rockets of the time were just as dangerous to their pilots as they were to the enemy (witness the death of Novotny.)    

I would have to go with a list like this:
American: P-51 Mustang, Rolls Royce Merlin engine made that plane complete. All around fighter, fast and could turn like it was nobody's business.
British: Supermarine Spitfire Mk V, beautiful plane that was fast and could bring down alot of firepower when needed. Took on the German ME-109's during the blitz and kept Britian alive.
German: Focke-Wolf 190 another great German design that proved to be a classic fighter. Records weren't the best because of young, inexpeirenced pilots behind the stick.