How many aircraft does the U.S. Army have?

How many aircraft does the U.S. Army have?

Here some answers by Nitizen

By @Jacob Allison

There's a truism that, 'The Army has more boats than the Navy, the Navy has more planes than the Air Force, and the Air Force has more M-16's than the Army."

None of it's true, so far as I've ever been able to determine. The aircraft and equipment inventory of the United States Department of Defense is, for the most part, a matter of public record. Much of the information is even published on the services respective sites.

However, Wikipedia has a useful (and mostly up-to-date) tabulation of the current aircraft inventory, so let's take a look: List of active United States military aircraft

Some quick number punching gets me the following numbers:
USAF: 5,005 fixed & rotary wing airframes
US Army: 4,193 fixed & rotary wing.
USN & USMC: 3,286 fixed & rotary wing.

Now -- if we just looked at just fixed wing aircraft, it'd be USAF, then USN, then US Army.

If you want to get more in depth, the services have their current 'strengths' listed as estimates on their official pages, or you can look up congressional budget records. This doesn't include experimental or classified operational airframes.

By @Kasey Warner

I defer to Jacob Allison's previous answer and his citation to the Wikipedia article, which is probably as close to being correct as any.

Like many questions, the answer depends on semantics and constant change: Eg, What is an aircraft? Just fixed wing and helicopters? Should we now include drones? Are we talking what aircraft are in the active duty inventory, or should we include Guard and Reserve (which are part of the US Army)? While DoD lists aircraft as a matter of public record, you may not be incorrect if you assumde there may be classified aircraft not listed.

Also, the numbers change regularly as old airframes are "retired" and new ones come into the inventory. Do we count museum aircraft? How about ones in production? Finally, should we include civilian aircraft which may be under contract to the Army or other military services, or waiting in mothballs, for use by the Army if and when needed?

Bottom line: Jacob's citation of Wikipedia's 4193 count is probably as close as you are going to get (at least until our Commander-in-Chief cuts our force again or Congress forces us to take on more planes manufactured in certain members' districts than we really need).