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The Zero was a desperately overrated aircraft. The idea that it was some sort of superweapon has somehow made it into a lot of crappy History Channel documentaries.

The only occassions the Zero racked up high kill totals were against very badly trained Dutch, British, and Chinese pilots, flying things like Brewster Buffalos. The Japanese pilots at the beginning of the war were very, very, very, very, very good.

At no time in the entire war did Zeros have a positive kill ratio against US Navy pilots; even when they were flying F4F Wildcats; the F4F Wildcat killed more Zeros than Zeros killed Wildcats.

How tightly an aircraft can turn basically turned out to be irrelevant in World War II; Durability, Speed, ability to roll at high speeds, firepower were all more important.

Thing about the Zero was that there had been so much mythology about Japanese being nearsighted and unable to fly well, and unable to build decent machinery, that it was incredibly shocking when they turned out to have anything that was even remotely competitive.

The Zero was a desperately overrated aircraft.

Don't quite agree. The Zero was very good - when it came out. It had a range of over 1000 miles with drop tanks, 300mph performance, and outstanding low to medium speed manueverability. When it first appeared (1939) it was one of the premier fighters in the world. It's performance was so good for the time that when the US military was informed of the planes existance in early 1940 - and provided with photos and movies - it refused to accept that a plane with the reported performance could exist (documented in Martin Caiden's "Ragged Rugged Warriors")

US pilots always had better luck against the Zero than European and Asian pilots. Hell, the AVG was beating the crap out of Zeros with P-40B Tomahawks, a plane that in almost every regard was inferior to the Zero. Yet the British in Malasia, with pilots that had experianced the Battle of Britain and flying Hawker Huricanes, were literally cut to shreds by Zero pilots.

The Jap pilots were very very good (at least in 41 and 42), but so were a lot of the US pilots, and the Marine and Navy pilots in particular were extremely creative in figuring out how to get the best performance out of their aircraft. They were simply more creative than the average Jap pilot - although guys like Suboro Sakai (sp?) would have been top notch no matter what they flew.

The Zero completely outclassed anything the USA could put into the sky at the beginning of the war. That the F4F had a positive kill ration is due to tactics, such as the Thatch Weave, that were implemented to negate the Zero's superior speed an maneuverability.

Once the F6F and the F4U came along, Zeros were outclassed, but were still far more manueverable.

Even at the end of the war, pilots in the Pacific were told "Never dogfight a Zero."

Sorry, there was really nothing wrong with Allied training at the time. Allied pilots were overconfident, flying inferior aircraft, and/or using the wrong tactics. First we developed the tactics to deal with the Zero - guys in Wildcats and P-40s developed these tactics but paid a heavy price in the process. When they got Hellcats and P-38s, it became a route.

Nor Zero was not overrated. The Zero was a superb aircraft within its limitations. It was faster, could out-climb, and outmaneuver any fighter in the world at the time it was introduced.
The trade for this was a relatively flimsy airframe, unprotected fuel tanks, and a lousy armament (the 20mm's were low velocity and slow firing - not very good in a dogfight...). It also had a poor rate of roll at higher speeds.
The issue really came down to the engine - the Zero did what it did on about 900 HP (and some say it was a copy of the P&W twin Wasp!). The Japanese could never produce in large quantities a really powerful and reliable engine. Without that, they never had a chance of producing a fighter to rival or beat allied fighters. The prototype Japanese A6M Reisen (Zero) went to the airfield in an ox cart - in the US we would call this a "clue."

The Japanese also didn't believe in armor for their aircraft, or self-sealing gas tanks. This made the plane a lot lighter, faster, and more manuverable that it would have been had it been designed and built by most other countries. The downside of this is that 6 .50 machine guns on a U.S. fighter had the effect of a buzzsaw on these guys.