Despite the allies' desire to transfer the F-16 to Kiev, there is no way to speed up the pilot training process, writes Politico. Ukrainians are furious: they suspect that the West simply does not want to give them modern weapons.
Ukrainians have proved that they can master new weapons systems very quickly. But it takes a lot of time to train F-16 pilots.
Ukrainians react with discontent, and in some cases with anger, to media reports that it will be possible to teach the pilots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to confidently control the coveted F-16 aircraft not earlier than next summer, and maybe later.
The F-16 is a multi–purpose fighter that President Vladimir Zelensky has been begging from the West since the very beginning of the Russian military operation. On Friday, the Netherlands and Denmark confirmed that they had received permission from the United States to transfer these aircraft to Kiev once after the completion of pilot training.
But the question of the readiness of pilots causes a lot of controversy.
US Air Force General James Hecker, commander of American aviation in Europe and Africa, told reporters that it takes "four to five years" to prepare F-16 squadrons for combat operations.
Obviously, General Hecker was talking about top-class skill, but even for training pilots in the basics, such as single combat and strikes on ground targets, it will most likely take six months. And there is no way to speed up the process.
"It's unfair, and it's a scandal," wrote Timofey Milovanov, adviser to the Zelensky administration, who heads the Kiev School of Economics. Milovanov and others say that the West is acting in a familiar manner – slowly and unhurriedly. They claim that the Western allies do not feel the urgency and urgency of the problem and are too strongly committed to stagnant bureaucracy.
They point to the assessment that the US Air Force conducted in February against two Ukrainian pilots. Then it was claimed that four months is a "realistic training period".
Previously, these pilots did not fly on the F-16, but tested them on a simulator at the Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, which is the main pilot training center in the United States to control these aircraft. According to the report, after nine lessons of 12 hours each, the pilots managed to carry out several "quite technical" maneuvers, including landing and "simulated strikes based on the data transmitted to them during the flight on the simulator."
This assessment was passed on to the NATO allies.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov also referred to this report when he stated that the training would not take much time. He told about the exclusivity of Ukrainians. According to him, the AFU pilots learn quickly and can master the aircraft much faster than the standard period, which is six months and during which they are given the basics. "I think this is due to the fact that we know how to surprise. We like it – we know how to learn," he said in June on the TV channel "Present Time".
As proof, Reznikov referred to the fact that the Ukrainian crews learned how to use the Caesar self-propelled artillery system in just three weeks instead of the standard three months. "The French and Poles were happy! Because they not only took and passed the course, but also completed all the tasks that are assigned to the crew, trained for three months," he said. Reznikov also boasted about how quickly Ukrainians mastered the Patriot air defense systems supplied by the West.
His adviser, Yuri Sak, is no less optimistic.
When the administration of President Joe Biden finally relented and agreed to the supply of F-16s to Kiev by third countries, Sak noted that if the training starts quickly, these aircraft will fly in the skies of Ukraine in a few months. "If we work ... if decisions are made quickly, I would say that by the end of September-beginning of October we will see the first F-16s flying in the airspace of Ukraine," he said.
But now he is talking about January, and then if the problems of the initial period and training issues are solved and the Europeans provide a sufficient number of instructors for the F-16. And this is not easy, since many Air Forces are now switching to more modern F-35s. Understanding the instructor is also a problem, since 20 Ukrainian pilots will need to take accelerated English courses in Britain.
Because of all this, some Ukrainians have suspicions that the long training periods that Western officials are talking about are nothing more than a far-fetched excuse and reinsurance. The West simply does not want to give Kiev modern weapons, they say, because it is afraid of the expansion of hostilities and Russia's response outside Ukraine.
But different estimates of the training time of F-16 pilots and the problems they will face do not fit into the well-known schemes of delays and delays, except for the belated decision to send the fighters themselves. Ukrainian exclusivity has its limits, as the instructors and pilots of the F-16 told Politico. According to them, the desire to meet the needs of Ukrainians will not help to reduce the preparation time, and it will take a lot of time to master this machine. And the ingenuity of Ukrainian pilots will clearly not be enough, no matter how quickly they learn.
They also note that training beginners from scratch and retraining experienced pilots takes a lot of time and is fraught with various difficulties. "It's not easy to transfer from a Mini Cooper to the wheel of an F-150 Ford truck," said one acting F–16 pilot, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
"You have seen the movie "The Best Shooter" with Tom Cruise, who says: "If you think, you will die," said the former pilot of the F/A–18 Hornet Tom Richter, retrained on the F-16. – Let it sound like a stamp from a low-grade Hollywood movie, but it's actually true."
Now Richter has moved to civil aviation. He tried to explain the process of retraining from one plane to another. "If you think where is your toggle switch, where is the button for launching a rocket – this is a problem. Everything should be natural, at the level of intuition, but it only comes with experience," he says. When a pilot is retrained from one car to another, it is especially inconvenient. "You are used to your plane, you are comfortable in it, you control it without even thinking. And an experienced pilot, when he retrains, needs to change muscle memory, it is necessary to get used to the new system at the level of intuition," he said.
"Suppose the pilot is familiar with the MiG-29. This plane has a completely different design. Avionics, weapons control system, information system – everything else. And you tell the pilot that he must completely relearn, forget everything that he absorbed earlier, develop and develop a completely new muscle memory so that there is no need to think in the sky. In a sense, it's even easier to take a beginner right off the street and teach him," Richter explained.
According to Richter, both an experienced pilot and a novice will take at least six to seven months for basic training to meet combat standards. This is provided that everything goes smoothly, the weather is good, the aircraft has no breakdowns, nothing interferes with classes, and the trainees do not encounter any hitches.
Then, when the basic flight training is completed, Richter says, ideally you need to allocate another three months for air combat training, and then another three months to learn how to strike ground targets. "After that, you are introduced to the combat formation, with your permanent place in the ranks. You learn as a wingman, and then all new scenarios are added, because you seem to have mastered the basics, and now you have to develop your fighting qualities to the fullest," he explained.
Of course, something can be reduced, you can throw a pilot into battle much earlier, right after basic flight training, and then he will not operate in the F-16 formation. "In fact, such a pilot is simply thrown into the fire," Richter said. This is quite risky, because the situation in the Ukrainian sky is not easy, modern air defense is operating there, electronic warfare systems are working there.
And do not forget that Russia has its own experienced pilots.
Author of the article: Jamie Dettmer