America’s air dominance is slipping, a former US Air Force pilot and airpower expert said recently, echoing some concerns raised by senior officers.
US military officials have long been concerned about the US Air Force’s aging and shrinking fleet, especially as China’s air force not only grows in size but also in combat capability and readiness.
When comparing both fleets, especially in terms of capacity, capability, and readiness, “we fall short, woefully short,” retired Air Force Col. John Venable, a former F-16 pilot, said last month.
The US Air Force has a total of more than 2,000 fighters, but its combat-capable, mission-oriented ones represent just a fraction of that. The Pentagon expects its total fleet size of fighters, cargo planes, bombers, tankers, and other aircraft to drop below 5,000 and continue falling as older airframes are retired and the procurement of new planes continues at a slower pace. And for those left, planes constantly fall short of expected mission-capable rates.
Air Force officials have said that while the size of the fleet may continue to shrink, new capabilities will preserve desired overmatch. The service has been pursuing a “divest to invest” strategy aimed at freeing up funding and priorities to field advanced capabilities needed for a higher-end fight.
Many modernization programs, however, have been delayed, truncated, or canceled, as Venable and analyst Joshua Baker noted in a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies report earlier this year. And if the past is any indication, some capabilities may show up in far fewer numbers than planned, as was the case with the B-2 Spirit bomber and F-22 Raptor.
China “has refit their entire front-line fleet with fourth- and fifth-generation fighters,” Venable said at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space, Cyber Conference in September.
“They have 1,100 that can sortie over Taiwan without refueling,” he added. The US would have to fly longer sorties, or combat missions, in a fight over Taiwan given the distance from American air bases to the potential battlespace.
The US still holds broad advantages in stealth, logistics, experience, and alliances, but China’s geography, defenses, and growing mass are narrowing the margin, especially when talking about a fight over Taiwan.
China’s also pumping out aircraft at a rapid rate compared to the US. Earlier this year, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress that China was making fighters at a rate of 1.2 to 1 over the US. In its 2026 fiscal year budget, the Air Force plans to buy just 24 F-35s — half the original target.
While the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter and other US aircraft are combat-proven and still considered by US military leaders to have the edge on the assessed capabilities of China’s fleet, Beijing’s air forces represent a growing challenge.
China also appears to be training pilots with more flight hours than the US, Venable said. “We’re approaching 110 a pilot right now, while the Chinese pilots are flying 200 hours on average a year.”
It all adds up to a concerning comparison for Washington. “Capacity, they’ve got it,” Venable said. “Capability, they’re competitive. Readiness, it is no longer a wash, ladies and gentlemen, and that was our big edge during the Cold War.”
Venable and others have previously noted that budget decreases after the Cold War led to cuts to the Air Force fleet, which has spurred a “capacity death spiral.” The US Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, has also said continuous deployments over the last two decades have notably taken a toll on Air Force readiness, personnel, equipment, and aircraft.
The problems facing the Air Force have been underscored by a larger shift across the Pentagon from decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fights to preparations for great-power competition, confrontation, and possible conflict.
“As we come out of counterinsurgency warfare and look to pivot towards peer competition or peer conflict with a very different adversary,” Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs for the Air Force said last year, “we have not 4,000 fighters but 2,000. They average not 8 years old but 28 years old. Our pilots are flying not 18 to 20 hours a month but six to eight hours a month.”
“We’re ready not for great power competition,” the general said, “but for counterinsurgency warfare.”
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