Ace Combat speaks for itself, with your main pilot shooting down hundreds of foes and destroying even more ground targets by the end of the game all on his own. You can be any type you want, depending on your plane and loadout. And in almost every game, you will have to face another top ace as the Final Boss.
Ace Combat Zero: Cipher (player) VS every enemy ace of the game and later, Pixy. The Belkan War introduced its own ace style classification based on a simple Karma Meter: the Knight Ace only kills the targets he is ordered to kill, sparing the neutral ones (civilian facilities, damaged enemy planes, etc.), even though that brings him little in terms of cash; the Mercenary Ace kills everything he can get his sights locked on if he'll get paid for it, combatant or not; and the Soldier Ace finds a compromise between his conscience and material needs. Gameplay-wise, the Mercenary gets to buy better planes early on but has to face tougher enemy aces, while the Knight fights less aggressive enemies and is praised by both his allies and his enemies and the Soldier is inbetween. Some prime examples of Snipers would be Schnee Squadron, whose main tactics include electronic jamming and long-range Phoenix missiles. The Final Boss forces you to steamroll via Air Jousting because his plane's only weak points are the front air intakes. In a case of Mergingthe Branches, later lore implies that Cipher shot down ALL boss squadrons, the varying ones at the same time.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Trigger (player) VS Mihaly Shilage. In an interesting take on the situation, while this is non-canon since the player can do what they want, Trigger mentally fits the steamroller archetype as subtle narration clues imply that he is rather gung-ho and eager to fight. Mihaly has both the skills and the plane to fit whatever archetype he needs to counter his current foe.
In Ace Online (A.K.A. Air Rivals), players with enough PvP kills earn ranks and titles, one of which is "ace." All of the listed piloting styles exist in this game in some shape or form, although every player must utilize each of them for different situations and types of enemies.
CO Eagle from the Advance Wars series, who commands strong air units that burn less fuel per day than those of other COs. This is at the expense of his comparatively weak grasp of naval combat, though his friend and colleague CO Drake can usually pick up his slack on that front.
Days of Ruin gave us two: the revenge-driven, offense-oriented Tasha, and the Smug Snake Waylon.
Jonathan. Played with, in that he also gets good land units, at the cost of poor naval units and infantry.
Robyn. Taken to extremes in that she loves staring at the sky, and hates pollution. (Small irony then that jets are frankly awful for the environment. They don't run on captured sunbeams.)
COD 2 Spanish Civil War Mod: Joaquín García Morato, the top-scoring Nationalist fighter ace, makes a brief appearance during one of the Nationalist missions when he shoots down an enemy fighter.
You play as one in Cloud Cutter, with your titular vehicle being a state-of-the-art jet fighter equipped with a dazzling array of weapons, and you pilot it alone to take on hordes of enemies each stage.
In Company of Heroes, Tiger ace Hauptmann Josef Schultz is a clear expy of Michael Wittman. In a later expansion, the player can take charge of Schultz's tank to do battle with the British 7th Armoured Division in the real-life Battle of Villiers Bocage.
Crimson Skies had the main character Nathan Zachary, and his crew of Ace Air Pirates.
Nathan Zachary: When you hit the ground, tell'em Nathan Zachary sent ya!
In each of the Elite games from the original to Dangerous, the player is expected to become one by getting enough kills to reach the eponymous rank of Elite (and in Dangerous' case, doing it in exploration and trading as well).
The Fuel Rats, a player group devoted to refueling stranded players in Dangerous, has a reputation for being composed of skilled pilots capable of rescuing players extraordinarily quickly, even across the galaxy. This has come to a point that Frontier Developments has named the dominant player faction in the Fuelum system after them, as well as peppering the in-game advertising with ads for the Fuel Rats.
Since Elite: Dangerous has quite the physics system, some players have become hyper-specialized pilots of specific models of spacecraft. One of the most infamous members of this segment of the community is a fellow named CrimsonGamer99, who has made a habit out of flying the normally mundane Adder light freighter in manner more befitting a misfired bottle rocket thanks to his disabling of the flight assist controls that would normally produce smooth, logical flightt paths. His specialty is flying in and out of station entrances in the most reckless and nausea-inducing ways possible while not crashing the small and fragile vessel, to the point that other players have learned to give a wide berth to Adder 745, AKA "Vomit Comet."
Far Cry 5 has both the player character and Nick Rye, who can provide you with support from the air using his modified crop duster Carmina
Freelancer is crawling with them. Trent (your character), unsurprisingly is one of the best, out of everybody in the game. Literally, considering the premise of this game.
Project Sylpheed, Freespace, various Star Wars games, face it, you WILL be playing as an ace pilot in any space shooter. In Freespace, you're not awarded an [[ce medal until you've scored sixty kills: if it were five, you could be an Ace after your first flight. Double- and Triple-Ace medals also exist for reaching 150 and 350 kills.
The heroes of the Gradius series are experienced Gradius pilots who tackle Bacterian forces with the Vic Viper series, such as James Burton and his descendant, David Burton, who pilots the Vixen series instead in Nemesis III. The Salamander OVA has a trio of Gradius military pilots named Dan, Eddie Evans, and Stephanie McBain that aid Latis' battle against the Salamander forces. Even Latis' prince, Lord British, is also this trope himself, as he also helps the heroes take on the Bacterians with his own fighter.
Trevor Philips of Grand Theft Auto V is the team's designated pilot, and he's really good at. Even being an amoral, insane drug addict in the present hasn't diminished his flying skills. He was actually on his way to being a military pilot before he flunked the psych exam.
Noble Six of Halo: Reach is implied to be one even by Spartan standards, since the very reason s/he was transferred to NOBLE Team in the first place was because of his/her impressive piloting exploits during a counter-insurgency op on Mamore. The player gets to put those skills to use in the space dogfight section of the level "Long Night of Solace".
Henry Stickmin Series: Charles, for all his bumbling, is a god when he's in the cockpit. In the Triple Threat plotline of Completing The Mission, he's able to stop his chopper mid-flight so the rotor blades don't chop up Henry and Ellie as they leave the sabotaged rocket and so they don't hit the inside of the chopper at terminal velocity. This is an incredibly difficult maneuver to pull off, requiring precise timing and exact calculations of the trajectory and speed of all involved parties. And he pulls it off without a hitch.
In Infinite Space, you'll find a few recruitables with ace piloting skills, and you'll notice how they can turn the tide of a battle when used right. Most notable of these come in Act 2 (Namely Mihhaelo Luka and Volo Naturo), since in Act 1, only Gadina has the skill while Johano Sceptro and Brava Soneto only have some close stats.
In Into the Breach, each unique mech pilot has a special skill to help them in gameplay. In addition, every pilot can level up to unlock two generic skills that increase the capabilities of their mechs.
Jak from Jak and Daxter has vehicle skills that are top notch, and have been a core aspect of his character since [The Precursor Legacy.
Kerbal Space Program, though most decidedly of the non-military variety, does give us Jebediah and Valentina Kerman. Both of them, as well as any other Kerbalnaut with a "Pilot" profession, are highly-trained masters of guiding spacecraft throughout the cosmos. Jeb and Val in particular have a hidden "BadS" flag set to true, meaning they never lose their cool, even when the craft is barrel rolling sideways into a cliff face at 300 miles an hour.
Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, although the player is almost never exposed to his competition. In the first game, he dives from orbit to drop an armoured vehicle on a landing strip 30 metres long and then pull up to escape back into orbit, while under continuous heavy fire, one one motion. The Normandy is not damaged. Oh, and the very minimum 'safe' landing zone to make a drop in, according to Alliance regulations? 100 metres. Joker is quite literally the best pilot in the Alliance. Notable in that his craft isn't a fighter like is common for the trope, but a 100+ meter frigate. And he still makes it do tricks that one would expect more from a fighter craft.
Joker: It takes skill to bank in a vacuum. Don't think it doesn't.
Mass Effect 3 adds shuttle pilot Steve Cortez (who previously served as a fighter pilot in the Alliance Navy), who claims the UT-47A Kodiak flies like a brick, yet he still wins dogfights with Cerberus gunships flying one. In the Citadel DLC, a rogue mercenary gang steals the Normandy SR-2. While Shepard infiltrates the ship, Cortez has to prevent it from jumping to FTL by literally blocking it; repeatedly flying within a 30-degree cone of its line of travel will trip the jump safeties and keep the mercenaries from fleeing. It also exposes Cortez to the SR-2's formidable main weapons, so he has to continuously duck in and out of the line of fire, keeping up with the frigate's course changes and dodging skyscrapers. Cortez accomplishes this feat in a taxi.
In Mass Effect: Andromeda, turian Pathfinder and former Spectre Avitus Rix is a skilled fighter pilot which he demonstrates by dog-fighting kett forces during the final battle.
If you want to get to the center of the Galaxy in No Man's Sky, you are expected to become one of these due to the enemies you fight becoming harder and harder to take down as you get closer to it.
Red Alert 3: Although they don't do any piloting in-game, Commanders Giles Price and Vera Belova (and Zhanna Agonskaya before her) are noted to be aces who primarily use aircraft (but hardly limit themselves to that).
Becoming one is your goal in Red Baron. Along the way, you may encounter other historical aces from World War I, including the Red Baron himself.
The main protagonists from Sigma Star Saga are both Ace Pilots.
Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog. Depending on continuity, he either built or upgraded the Tornado, but no matter what after Sonic meets him he becomes its designated pilot, outflying robots and aces decades his senior through sheer skill.
The entire Star Fox Team, of course... except maybe Slippy and Krystal.
Especially Falco. That's his thing. He's even slightly more competent in the actual gameplay.
The character Atton Rand seems to be the token "ace pilot" character, particularly in terms of personality. However, under his control, the ships you travel in during the game seem to crash an uncanny number of times... Kreia and Bao-dur both comment on this as the game goes on. According to Atton, the only reason the lot of you are still standing is because he is a good enough pilot to land a half-exploded shuttle instead of slamming it nose-first into a hill.
In the first game, being an excellent pilot is Carth Onasi's Informed Ability. He at least only crashed once, and it was more like a controlled emergency landing after one of the Hawk's engines is blown out by the Star Forge's defenses. Between that, and getting safely off Taris during an orbital bombardment, Carth's on-screen record is better than poor Atton's.
Several of the Sunrider’s Ryder pilots might qualify, but Asaga Oakrun is the only one explicitly referred to as an Ace Pilot in-universe. She’s the Steamroller type, piloting a Ryder that is basically nothing but guns and a pair of swords, and can easily take on anything that comes her way.
Icari Isidolde is the Bushwhacker type, as her Ryder is a Fragile Speedster that excels at taking out enemy Ryders but can’t do much against ships. She relies on her overwhelming speed and stealth capabilities to get in, cut her target to pieces, and get out before their friends can retaliate.
Sola di Ryuvia is the Sniper type, and she has an actual sniper rifle as her weapon of choice. She can only make one shot per turn, but that one shot is usually strong enough to take out most mechs and seriously damage enemy capital ships if not destroy them outright.
Kryska Stares is the Plugger type, as her primary role in battle is to provoke enemies into attacking her slow and heavily-armoured Ryder instead of the more fragile members of your team. And since said Ryder is armed with battleship-grade weapons, she can give just as good as she gets.
The Aggressors were the founders of mecha combat, and are still some of the best mecha pilots in the game. Also The Federation ran the School, an experiment in turning children into ace pilots — the only four to survive were Ouka, Seolla, Arado, and Latooni, also some of the best pilots in the game (though you only get Ouka for one level). Also anyone with a last name that ends in -stein (Branstein, Garstein). Which makes Elzam (a Branstein and an Aggressor) wicked awesome.
There's also the ATX team in which during the first game Kyosuke, Excellen and Bullet are at the same level if not surpassing the Aggressors to the point where Sanger Zonvolt (another Aggressor and arguably most badass in the OG verse so far) believes they have a better chance of beating the aliens than HE does.
In fact nearly everyone on your team is an Ace Pilot either by insane skill (ATX, Aggressors, Axel, Irm and Ring), developed Telekinesis abilities (Ryusei, Aya, Kusuha and company) or by being the only pilots capable of operating unique and extremely powerful machines (Masaki, Lune, Kouta, Folka etc). Really the reason the OG group is so unbeatable is because they have nearly every Ace in the EFA in one group.
Also, in many of the Super Robot Wars games, once a pilot racks up 50 or more kills in a playthrough, they're given the status of "Ace", which gives various advantages depending on the game and character, ranging from slightly higher starting morale (Which is necessary for unleashing their most powerful attacks) to all manner of dodge and damage bonuses. Super Robot Wars W takes this even further with W (pronounced Double) Ace status upon reaching 100 kills, and gives an even more dramatic bonus. Notably, the pilots who make Ace the most easily tend to be of the Plugger archetype, via either improbable evasion skills or the ability to soak up ridiculous amounts of damage, because players can simply send them into the thick of the enemy and let them rack up kill after kill when the enemies unwisely try to attack them.
Asemu doesn't get Soul in Super Robot Wars BX but he gets the Super Pilot ability, which gives him a 20% damage boost.
While the usual standards for grabbing the ace bonuses apply, people consider Amuro to be the greatest pilot among X-Cross in-universe for Super Robot Wars X.
Jake Logan from Tachyon: The Fringe. He's established as already being an experienced mercenary fighter pilot at the start of the game, creating a minor quandary as to how to frame the tutorial. The solution ended up being to have Logan evaluating a newly hired piloting instructor.
Titanfall and Titanfall 2: Pilots, who control the titular Titans, are deadly both in their Titans and on foot.
Strangely, Ultima I, as part of the main plot, requires the player to launch into space and kill 20 enemy ships, thereby becoming a "Space Ace."
Vector Thrust, being heavily based on Ace Combat, draws similarly from the glamour and glory of aerial combat. Its AI is also designed to closely resemble ace archetypes in Skirmish Battles.
The Wing Commander series always has you play an ace pilot, and furthermore, features a group of different aces that you will fly with during missions, each of which has different temperaments and tactics in battle. Some games even put personalized Aces on the enemy side, each of which can generally be described as conforming to one of the types above.
Player characters Leo Stenbuck from Zone of the Enders and Dingo Egret from the sequel The Second Runner. Notably, Leo is an ordinary kid who literally fell into the cockpit of the game's Super Prototype mecha Jehuty, but quickly turned out to have The Gift. Dingo, by contrast, is an embittered veteran ex-soldier forced back into action when he ends up wired into Jehuty's cockpit to survive. The two go head-to-head at one point in the second game, with a now older and more-experienced Leo proving to be almost a match for Dingo despite using a less-advanced mech than Jehuty.
In a later expansion, the player can take charge of Schultz's tank to do battle with the British 7th Armoured Division in the real-life Battle of Villiers Bocage.