Combat Aviation: Flight Path 1968-2018

Combat aircraft, a powerful component of military strength, define the battle space today. In the last five decades, world combat aircraft inventory, after peaking in 1988, gradually declined owing to changes in the geopolitical landscape, altering character of war, evolving technology and emerging alternatives. Today, there are 106 countries in the world that own and operate around 80 types of approximately 18,000 combat aircraft. But, there are only 19 countries that have more than 200 combat aircraft in their inventories. In this book, the available data of the world's combat aircraft inventory is analysed for the trends and probable reasons for changes in the holdings, before predicting the future trajectory of manned combat aircraft. Additionally, the role of combat aircraft and their interplay with various tenets of Indian air power capability and the likely future is discussed.

Combat aircraft, a powerful component of military strength, need a large resource investment in procurement and operations. The world had around 18,000 combat aircraft in 1968 and fifty years later the combat aircraft inventory is again almost at that level today. In five decades, the combat aircraft inventory peaked to near 38,000 in 1988. Changes in the geopolitical landscape, altering character of war, evolving technology and emerging alternatives led to its gradual decline thereafter. Today, there are 106 countries in the world that own and operate around 80 types of approximately 18,000 combat aircraft. But, there are only 19 countries that have

more than 200 combat aircraft in their inventories. In this book, the available data of the combat aircraft inventory of the world is analysed for the trends and probable reasons for changes in the holdings before predicting the future trajectory of manned combat aircraft. Additionally, the role of combat aircraft and its interplay with various tenets of Indian air power capability and likely future is discussed.

Group Captain Kishore Kumar Khera VM is an independent analyst. He served as a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force for 33 years. He was a pioneer member of the Composite Battle Response and Analysis (COBRA) Group and headed the Operational Planning and Analysis Group at Air Headquarters. He was awarded Vayu Sena Medal in 2005. He was a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi from 2017 to 2019.