Many believe that the US Navy has the second largest air force in the world, after the US
Air Force. Which makes you wonder, what’s the purpose of having the Air Force as a branch,
if the Navy has such a massive fleet to begin with? In fact, all branches of the US military,
with the exception of the Space Force, operate a fleet of aircraft. Now the short answer is that
different branches use different aircraft, and for different types of missions, which is true,
but why all branches of the US Military have one aircraft in common, why the air force used
to be part of the US Army, and what caused it to become an independent branch, and why
the US Air Force is the only service branch with military horses, is Not What You Think!
The US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard,
and Air Force, all operate aircraft. In fact, there is one aircraft that’s in
service with all those branches. It’s a helicopter from the “Hawk” family.
It started with the US Army in 1979, with the UH-60 Black Hawk entering service to replace its
aging fleet of UH-1 Huey utility helicopters, mainly used for transportation of troops.
Having proven successful with the Army, its naval variant, SH-60 Sea Hawk entered
service with the US Navy in 1984. The Sea Hawk is primarily used for anti-submarine
warfare and vertical replenishment. The most significant modifications were the
folding main rotor blades and a hinged tail to reduce its footprint aboard ships.
Then in 1987, the MH-60 Pave Hawk entered service with the US Air
Force. This variant has the primary mission of insertion and recovery of
special operations personnel, as well as search and rescue.
A couple of years later, in 1990, the Coast Guard brought in the HH-60 Jayhawk
to help them with search and rescue, law enforcement and even military operations.
And let’s not forget the VH-60 Whitehawk, operated by the US Marine Corps, which is
used to transport the President, under the call sign ”Marine One”.
As you can see, once a branch starts operating an airframe, the others may follow suit. That said,
they cannot operate any type of aircraft that they want,
and this limitation has its roots in the history of the Air Force.
Today, aerial drones used by both sides in the Russo-Ukrainian war, highlight the importance of
aerial observation. Similarly, prior to 1947, when the Air Force was part of the US Army,
the primary mission of airplanes was auxiliary support for the ground forces. Airplanes played
a key role in the effectiveness of artillery fire, by observing where the shells were landing
and then reporting back information that was vital to the adjustment of artillery fire.
But during WWII, it became obvious that airplanes could do much more than just
supporting ground troops. So in 1947, the US Air Force was once and for all established
as a separate branch of the US Armed Forces, with focus on independent air operations and
strategic air attacks. This meant that the Army’s air assets had to be redistributed.
It was the Key West Agreement that was drafted by James Forrestal and signed by president Truman in
1948, that outlined the division of air assets between the Army, Navy, and the newly created
Air Force, giving all strategic air assets to the Air Force, while allowing the Navy full
control over its naval aviation. The Army was left with very little in the way of aviation assets.
Lucky for the US Army, a new type of platform entered the picture,
which met the majority of their needs even better than fixed-wing aircraft. This is
partly why today, close to 90% of the US Army aviation is made up of helicopters.
Now the Army also procured a variety of fixed-wing aircraft, but in 1966, under the Johnson-McConnell
agreement, the Army agreed to limit its fixed-wing aviation role to administrative mission support,
which resulted in giving up its DHC-4 Caribou tactical airlifter to the US Air Force.
Today, all branches of the US military have an understanding of the type of aircraft that
they can or cannot operate. For example, all branches possess some fixed-wing aircraft in
order to transport personnel and cargo. The Army has the C-27J Spartans that can deploy
paratroopers or even airdrop cargo, and the Navy has the C-2 Greyhound which provides critical
logistics support to carrier strike groups. But the only branch that operates strategic
airlifters like the C-5M Super Galaxy and the C-17 Globemaster, is the US Air Force.
It’s true that the US Air Force is incharge of the intercontinental ballistic missile wings,
as well as the strategic bomber force made up of B-52s and other airplanes,
but they are also in charge of Rapid Global Mobility. Basically transporting whatever
all the other branches of the military need, to wherever they need them to be.
On average, the US Air Force transport aircraft depart for a mission every 90 seconds,
24 hours a day, every day of the year. When the Army needed to transport Apache helicopters to
the other side of the globe in Qatar, they called their Air Force friends. And when the Marine Corps
needed to get M1 Abrams tanks to Afghanistan, it was the Air Force’s C-17 that made the delivery.
That said, the Air Force’s strategic airlifters could become a bottleneck during times of high
demand, and that can negatively impact certain operations within other branches. In fact,
this is partly why the US Marine Corps decommissioned all its tank battalions in 2021,
because the only airplanes that could fly them around were operated by the Air Force. As part
of a major restructuring called Force Design 2030, the Marine Corps has been
divesting itself of larger, armor formations in order to create more expeditionary formations.
Back to the second largest air force in the world, the US Army. Yes, not the Navy, but the Army.
Despite a variety of online sources crowning the US Navy as having the second largest air force,
the US Army has over 4000 aircraft, which is about 500 or so more than what the Navy has.
It’s kinda funny to think that the US Army has the second largest air force in the world,
but it’s only the third largest Army, after China and India. Let that sink in!
Now it’s true that the vast majority of the US Army’s air fleet is made up of helicopters,
but I wouldn’t be so quick to discount the lethality of attack helicopters vs. fighter jets.
In fact, in 1978, the US Air Force and Army experimented air combat compatibility between
jet fighters and attack helicopters. The program was called J-CATCH, short for Joint Countering
Attack Helicopter, and the results surprised everyone. When fighting at close range with guns,
helicopters proved extremely dangerous to the fighters, racking up a 5-to-1 kill ratio over
the fighters. Given these surprising results, the main lesson learned was that helicopters
should only be engaged by fighter jets at long range, and not within line of sight.
Although, to be fair, helicopters do have some limitations.
Generally speaking, they are much slower, have a shorter combat range, and cannot operate at higher
altitudes when compared to fixed wing aircraft, and this limits what you can do with them.
But even if we want to exclude helicopters from the “air force” equation,
I should remind you that the US Navy also operates a massive fleet of helicopters,
with over 500 units of MH-60 Seahawks making up the lion’s share. Without helicopters,
the second largest air force would be Russia or China, not the US Navy.
That said, there is a way to jerry-rig the Navy into second place, and that’s
by getting help from the Swiss Army knife of the US Military, the Marines Corps.
As the nation's crisis response service, Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Units are
equipped to fight a small war, so they have a little bit of everything: boots on the ground,
amphibious craft on the water, and airplanes in the sky, which include hundreds of F/A-18s. In
case you are unfamiliar with military aircraft designations, the F stands for fighter aircraft,
which is mostly concerned with air-to-air combat. The A, on the other hand, is for attack aircraft,
which is mostly used for close air support and naval air-to-surface missions. It is the
latter capability that is often leveraged by F/A-18s that support Marines’ missions
on land. Since the Marines Corps falls under the Department of the Navy, by excluding helicopters
and including the Marines Corps, the US Navy could be the second largest air force in the world!
The Coast Guard air fleet is mainly concerned with patrolling the waters
for the purpose of law enforcement as well as search and rescue.
Even though it falls under the Department of Homeland Security, during war time,
if ordered by the President or Congress, the Coast Guard will report to the US Navy.
When it comes to its air fleet, the coast guard employs variations of C-130 Hercules
for long-range missions, the MH-60 Jayhawk for medium-range missions
and the MH-65 Dolphin helicopters, which is their workhorse for short-range operations.
Speaking of horses, the US Air Force is the only branch that has military working horses.
Other branches do have horses, but they are strictly used for ceremonies and parades.
The Air Force horses, on the other hand, are used for patrolling remote
and inaccessible areas. Currently, the only remaining Military Working Horse patrol unit
is assigned to the 30th Security Force Squadron, at Vandenberg AFB, California.
In 2017, when an RQ-4 unmanned aircraft crashed in the mountains of Inyo National
Forest, California, it was these very horses that helped find the remains!