Total air fleet · GFP 2026 · Global Firepower
The total number of military aircraft in service: combat aircraft, but also transport, training, surveillance and helicopters. The total says nothing about the generation of the airframes.
Global Firepower 2026, 145 countries. A compilation of declared inventories and open sources. These are aircraft on the books, not aircraft that can fly: a holdings figure, never a readiness one.
A large, ageing fleet is not worth a small fifth-generation one. Look also at the support aircraft — aerial tankers and airborne early warning: they decide whether an air force can operate far from its bases.
The United States fields more aircraft than the next ten countries combined, and above all most of the world's tanker fleet — a capability China is only beginning to build. Russia shows a large fleet whose real availability the war in Ukraine has called into question.