That's a lot of air assets! A Marine Corps KC-130 has six crew aboard. I see a USMC deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 of three flight crews, two aircraft, and 40 maintenance personnel, for what was probably planned as a six-month or one year mission overseas (it got shortened unexpectedly). The Morrow Project might save a bit of maintenance staff by not having turboshaft engines, fuel tanks, and fuel pumps; but on the other hand they have to get some specialized mechanics to work on unique fusion-electric drive aircraft. Anyway two C-130 aircraft require 18 flight crew and 40 maintenance, total 58 people, when operating "off by themselves". Presuming that the maintenance staff doesn't increase at all, and the ratio of three flight crews for two aircraft is maintained, a "large" aviation team is 76 persons for the C-130s (36 flight crew and 40 maintenance staff). Continuing with the ratio of 1.5 flight crews per aircraft: 8 Caribou total 36 flight crew, and we'll assume adds no maintenance that the 40 "fixed wing" staff can't provide. So far: 112 persons for this "largest aviation unit".
The 147th Aviation Company deployed to Vietnam in 1965, operating 18 CH-47 aircraft ... authorized strength 173 persons to operate them in Vietnam (including spare crews and some ground crews -- ordnancemen?). The 171st Intermediate Maintenance Detachment was attached to the company, with probably about 90 soldiers.
6 CH-47 total 58 crew and about 30 maintenance staff (questionably presuming that 6 Chinooks have only 1/3 the maintenance requirement of 18 Chinooks). 12 UH-1 total 54 flight crew, and again assuming that the Chinook maintenance staff can do all the maintenance for these, too. So rotary wing aircraft have 142 persons; the entire "large aviation unit" is thus 112 + 142 = 254 persons (of which 70 are maintenance staff who can deploy to support the aircraft "in the field").
This all depends on your view of Morrow advances in fusion power, electronics, propulsion, materials such as Resistweave, fabrication of aerospace-grade spares, etc.; having a maintenance staff of motivated and highly-trained college graduate aerospace engineers (instead of regular Army draftees circa 1966); having most of the flight crews also cross-trained in maintenance tasks; and the Special Regional Supply Base will presumably produce spare parts with its fabrication ability.
The amount of overlap in support functions between C-130, Caribou, CH-47 and UH-1 aircraft may increase or decrease the number of maintenance staff. Keep in mind that if you reduce the maintenance staff too much, there are two issues: not enough hands for major projects, and fewer people who have critical skills ("Bob's the only guy who is really good at balancing the rotors on the Chinooks .. and he's just had a stroke.")
Those two Marine aircraft sent to Afghanistan didn't provide their own housing, security, runway construction, etc. ... presumably various MARS, Recon, and specialty teams outside of the base system you've described will support the aircraft when they aren't at "home base."
As a comparison, the Coast Guard currently operates about 210 fixed wing aircraft of all types; the Navy and Marine Corps between them have 97 C-130 aircraft of various models as of 2018. This version of the Morrow Project is getting up there in size.
One interesting issue with having sophisticated aviation assets in Morrow bases: the Project gets the planes, converts them, stores them before the End Time ... and then a year or two later the manufacturer or FAA announces a critical "inspect and repair" order for that model. "Bruce, we need to send all of our Hueys off to have their tail rotors fixed."
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Michael B.
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