Why sixty aircraft is a useful medium-power carrier benchmark

What air-group size gives a medium naval power useful carrier flexibility?

Roughly sixty aircraft, comparable to a theoretical Queen Elizabeth-class maximum of thirty-six F-35s and twenty-four Merlin-sized helicopters.

A viewer proposes forty aircraft as a bare minimum, sixty as flexible, and eighty as offering diminishing returns. About sixty is accepted as a useful figure for a medium naval power. That benchmark is compared with the Queen Elizabeth class's theoretical maximum mix of thirty-six F-35s and twenty-four Merlin-sized helicopters when heavy deck parking is used. The figure is a force-planning estimate rather than a fixed peacetime embarkation, and it complements the earlier explanation that mission mix determines the actual air group.