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Airplanes!

By Robert Farley

On May 17, 2016

At 11:31 am

In Robert Farley

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J-7I fighter at the Beijing Military Museum from above.jpg — “J-7I fighter at the Beijing Military Museum from above” by Max Smith – Own work (Own photo). Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.

Some thoughts on plane-counting in the Asia Pacific:

One of the more headline-grabbing takeaways of the 2016 Defense Department report on Chinese military strength involves the size of the Chinese air forces, which now approach 3,000 aircraft. This number puts China ahead of any country in the world, other than the United States and Russia. However, the numbers bear more scrutiny.
Flight Global 2016 puts overall Chinese strength at 2,942 aircraft, including the PLAAF (1977) PLA ground forces (556) and the PLAN (409). U.S. overall strength, by contrast, sits at 13,717 aircraft across the four services (including the U.S. Marine Corps). U.S. numbers are weighted less heavily towards the Air Force, as the Army and Navy (including the USMC) have nearly as many planes as the USAF.