Yes, you are definitely right if you want to keep the scale as close as possible to the official rules. I kind of strayed off topic, and probably should have posted this over in the House Rules section. I’ll have to do some playtesting to get it right.
I’ve done something similar before, but on the Xeno map, which has fewer territories than AA40. I converted the World in Flames starting forces to Axis and Allies with a Dec. 1941 start date. It worked pretty well, but I figured out I needed to cut the number of aircraft in half. The Lufwaffe sank the bulk of the Royal Navy, which was sitting in the English Channel, on turn one, which pretty much crippled Britain for the rest of the game :| The problem is that fighters in A&A are more powerful than their counterparts in WiF. In WiF aircraft can heavily influence the outcome of a land or sea battle, but they generally can’t win it outright all by themselves.