January 11, 2022
Colloquium Topic: A Day in the Life of a PLA Air Force and Naval Aviation Unit
This briefing is organized into three parts: 1) Organizational Structure; 2) Aviator Recruitment, Education, and Training; and 3) Unit Training.
It is not just a snapshot of today. It examines the changes that have occurred since the early 2000s, to include the major organizational changes that began in 2016. It also discusses how units (corps, division, brigade, regiment, battalion, and company level) are organized and how aircraft and pilots are assigned to them. It discusses aircraft maintenance, which is the foundation for how many hours each aircraft and pilot is allowed to fly each year. The second part discusses how male and female pilots are recruited, educated, and trained and how they move up their career paths, and the third part discusses the daily flight training for all pilots to include tactics, combat methods, weather, altitude, time of day, over water, and how the PLAAF participates in key annual exercises and competitions, such as the Golden Helmet Competition.
The briefing does NOT discuss strategy, doctrine, or weapon systems; however, my book entitled 70 Years of the PLA Air Force has a full chapter on Strategy which was written by my co-author, Cristina Garafola from RAND. See https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/CASI/Display/Article/2564684/70-years-of-the-peoples-liberation-army-air-force/.
My primary goals are to tell the audience something they don't already know and to have them examine the PLA Air Force and Naval Aviation through a PLA lens, not through a US military lens.
Colloquium Speaker: Ken Allen and Brendan Mulvaney
In November 2019, Ken Allen (USAF Major – ret) retired as the Research Director for the US Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI). He assumed the position in May 2017. For the past 25 years, his primary focus has been on China’s military organizational structure, personnel, education, training, and foreign relations with particular emphasis on the PLA Air Force. He previously worked for the US-Taiwan Business Council, the Henry L. Stimson Center, Litton TASC, the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), Defense Group Inc. (DGI), and the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG). During 21 years in the U.S. Air Force (1971-1992), he served as an enlisted Chinese and Russian linguist and intelligence officer with tours in Taiwan (Shulinkou Air Station and special project at the U.S. Embassy Defense Attaché Office), Berlin, Japan (5th Air Force), PACAF Headquarters, China, and Washington DC (Instructor in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Joint Military Attaché School). From 1987-1989, he served as the Assistant Air Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he received the individual Exceptional Collector of the Year Award for 1988 and the Unit Exceptional Collector of the Year Award for 1989 (Tiananmen). He was inducted into DIA’s Defense Attaché Hall of Fame in 1997. He has B.A. degrees from the University of California at Davis and the University of Maryland and an M.A. degree from Boston University. He has written four books, including his latest book entitled 70 Years of the PLA Air Force, as well as multiple monographs, book chapters, journal articles, and online articles on the PLA.
Dr. Brendan Mulvaney is currently the Director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute at National Defense University. He is a Marine who served for a quarter of a century, where he flew more than 2000 hours as a AH-1W Cobra pilot, and was an Olmsted Scholar in Shanghai, China.
He enlisted in 1991 and was commissioned in 1993 after graduating from UC San Diego. He earned his Master’s in Leadership from the University of San Diego in 2002, and was selected as one of three Marine Olmsted Scholars for 2003. He studied at Fudan University in Shanghai, China from 2003-2005 where he earned his Ph.D. in International Relations.
He served several tours in California, Iraq, Japan, and the Western Pacific. He served as the first Director of the Commandant’s Red Team, and supervised the implementation of Red Teaming in the Marine Corps. In 2013 he transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was the Associate Chair for the Languages and Cultures Department, and taught Mandarin Chinese, Chinese culture, and cross- cultural literacy.
He and his wife, Samantha, have twin fourteen-year old boys, Sean and Ryan, and live in Alexandria, VA.