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Intelligence, Of A Sort
Dec. 20th, 2011 12:59 amHey.
Last week, I got a link to Flightglobal's survey of the World's Air Forces for 2012 in .PDF form from being a "subscriber" of their online newsletters. (I'd post that link, but you'd still have to subscribe to Flightglobal anyway for it to work.) Anyway:
* The U.S. has the largest military in the sky, with nearly four times the deployed aircraft of the Number 2 nation (the Russian Federation). The Lion's Share of American airpower is in rotorcraft, though--U.S. Army Aviation is the biggest operator of helicopters in the World. Between the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps, America currently has just over 2800 combat planes--18% of the world total, and double the numbers deployed by Russia and the People's Republic of (Mainland) China. (One of America's problems, tho', is the fact that the force is aging and becoming obsolete. If a large-scale conventional war broke out, could America soak up losses and rebuild quickly enough to stay strong?)
* Of the Top 10 combat aircraft in the world's arsenals, the designs are evenly split between American and Soviet/Russian types with no other nations represented. It's odd that the F-5 Tiger series has had more staying power than the Mirage. And that the F-4 Phantom is still a force to be reckoned with!
* The H-60 Blackhawk is the dominant helicopter type in the world. That makes sense, as it is about the same size in terms of capacity as the old Douglas DC-3, which everybody said was so useful it would never be replaced! The Blackhawk does everything the DC-3 used to do, plus can land on a dime!
MORE TO COME.
Last week, I got a link to Flightglobal's survey of the World's Air Forces for 2012 in .PDF form from being a "subscriber" of their online newsletters. (I'd post that link, but you'd still have to subscribe to Flightglobal anyway for it to work.) Anyway:
* The U.S. has the largest military in the sky, with nearly four times the deployed aircraft of the Number 2 nation (the Russian Federation). The Lion's Share of American airpower is in rotorcraft, though--U.S. Army Aviation is the biggest operator of helicopters in the World. Between the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps, America currently has just over 2800 combat planes--18% of the world total, and double the numbers deployed by Russia and the People's Republic of (Mainland) China. (One of America's problems, tho', is the fact that the force is aging and becoming obsolete. If a large-scale conventional war broke out, could America soak up losses and rebuild quickly enough to stay strong?)
* Of the Top 10 combat aircraft in the world's arsenals, the designs are evenly split between American and Soviet/Russian types with no other nations represented. It's odd that the F-5 Tiger series has had more staying power than the Mirage. And that the F-4 Phantom is still a force to be reckoned with!
* The H-60 Blackhawk is the dominant helicopter type in the world. That makes sense, as it is about the same size in terms of capacity as the old Douglas DC-3, which everybody said was so useful it would never be replaced! The Blackhawk does everything the DC-3 used to do, plus can land on a dime!
MORE TO COME.
