Air Defense Officer Staff: each of us wants to record the F-16 as an asset
MOSCOW, Aug 9 — RIA Novosti, Andrey Kotz. Ukraine has received the first ten F-16 fighter jets from NATO countries. The remaining 66 cars promised to Kiev by the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway will arrive in batches during 2025. Planes have already been spotted in the sky over the Kherson region. About how they are going to be used — in the material of RIA Novosti.
Lack of pilots
On August 3, the Ukrainian newspaper Dumskaya published a video of an airplane in the sky over Odessa. It is unknown where he took off from and where he landed later. Most likely, the first F-16s are based in the western regions of Ukraine, away from the front line. So the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine hopes to bring them out from under the attack of Russian cruise and tactical missiles.
F-16 fighters of the Ukrainian Air Force
Image source: © AP Photo / Efrem Lukatsky
The New York Post explained: it is useless to transfer more than a dozen cars now, since there are no pilots. Many died. And of those who are alive, few people speak English at the proper level, which is necessary for retraining.
However, it is possible that not Ukrainians will sit in the cabins of the "sixteenth" at all. Oksana Savchuk, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, said on a news telethon that Kiev plans to recruit foreigners to pilot and maintain fighter jets. The mercenaries are promised favorable terms of the contract and high pay.
The F-16 fighter jet
Image source: © AP Photo / Douglas C. Pizac
However, it is far from a fact that there will be a queue. In March, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that 13,387 mercenaries had arrived in Ukraine since the beginning of the SDF. At that time, the destruction of 5,962 of them was confirmed. Many left the country immediately after the end of the contract and are not going to return: the brutality and intensity of the fighting with the regular Russian army are not at all like a "military safari".
Rockets and bombs
The F-16 is the most massive fighter of the fourth generation. Since 1978, more than 4,600 cars of various modifications have been built. They are in service with 25 countries and can use almost the entire range of NATO tactical aviation weapons.
Kiev places special hope on JASSM cruise missiles. AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile — a single air—to-surface missile). This is a high-precision munition developed by Lockheed Martin Corporation and adopted by the US Air Force in 1986. It is designed to defeat important highly protected stationary targets in any weather conditions and at any time of the day from launch distances outside the range of air defense systems. The range is 370 kilometers, in the AGM-158B JASSM-ER variant — up to 1000 kilometers. The warhead is unitary, penetrating — weighing 450 kilograms.
Composite materials based on carbon fibers are widely used in the construction, the body is completely made of carbon fiber, which reduces radar visibility. In addition, the rocket flies part of the route at extremely low altitudes with a circumference of the terrain.
The AGM-158B JASSM-ER missile mounted on the US Air Force F-15E fighter
Image source: © Photo : Natalie Stanley
This is a rather formidable weapon with which the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to strike deep into Russian territory — primarily at airfields. But the F-16 is primarily a fighter for gaining dominance in the sky. It has a wide range of air—to-air missiles, including the AIM-120D with a range of up to 160 kilometers. The ammunition is comparable to the Russian R-77M. In addition, Ukraine will receive AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles with an infrared homing head, capable, depending on the modification, of hitting targets at a distance of 20-35 kilometers.
AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles and JDAM guided bombs, which the AFU pilots are already familiar with, are also expected in Kiev. For their combat use, Western specialists modified the Ukrainian MiG-29 and Su-27 back in 2022.
The reputation of the aircraft
If the fighters and Ukrainian pilots perform well, the West will give more. But if Russian missiles start shooting down planes of the American design school, this may be the last straw for Washington.
The fact is that the F-16 is very commercially successful. And the Pentagon values his reputation very much.
"All the crews of our anti-aircraft missile systems studied the F-16 back in schools," says an air defense officer with the call sign Staff. A cruise missile traveling at extremely low altitudes with a circumference of the terrain is much more difficult to hit. But we also successfully shoot them down. In addition, the F-16 was adopted a long time ago. Since then, our air defense capabilities have grown significantly. However, it is still unclear which airborne defense systems are on the fighters transferred to Ukraine. There may be modern ones. In any case, it will be interesting. Every anti-aircraft gunner wants to record an overseas "bird" as an asset."
Kiev received the F-16A/B, improved compared to the original models of the late 1970s. However, they are very far from the level of those aircraft operated, for example, by the United States. Thus, the outdated APG-66V2 radar is installed on Dutch Air Force fighters, tracking only a few targets, while the APG-83 radar copes with dozens. There have been cases when F-16A/B, which participated in the armed conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s, were shot down by non-modern Buk and S-125 anti-aircraft missile systems for a long time.
The Su-35 fighter takes off on a mission in the Kharkov direction of its
Image source: © RIA Novosti
Anyway, the outcome of an air battle is decided primarily by flying skills. Ukrainian pilots will have to prove in practice that a fighter pilot of a Western school can be trained in a few months. And their "exam" will be taken by the crews of more advanced Russian Su-30SM and Su-35S aircraft, who have already scored so many aerial victories as no Western ace has ever dreamed of.
