US-made F-16 multirole fighter jets likely to arrive in Ukraine latter than Ukraine’s air force wanted to get them, as Ukrainian pilots will study their training program longer than it was estimated earlier.
In particular, The Washington Post reports citing the Ukrainian government and military officials, a first group of six Ukrainian pilots is not expected to complete training on the F-16 aircraft before next summer.
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The reasons for this are not only the postponement of the study period, which was supposed to start in June, but also the level of the English language.
According to the sources, Just six pilots, about half a squadron, will go through the first round of training and two other pilots have been identified as reserve candidates, two Ukrainian officials informed.
Though the pilots are already fluent in English, they must first attend four months of English lessons to learn the terminology associated with the jets. Denmark requested to train entire pilots together with ground staff who may be less proficient in English.
The language courses, which will be held together with the ground staff, will last four months. Only after that, combat training will begin, which is expected to take six months, to January 2023.
A second group of about the same size would be ready six months after that, or roughly the end of next year.
Brigadier General Serhii Holubtsov, aviation chief for Ukraine’s Air Force, says that Ukrainian pilots have been taking English classes online for the past year. However, additional specialized training is required for the F-16 training.
It is also noted about another group of 20 pilots who do not have extensive combat experience and obviously their training will be even longer. But Ukraine simply has no choice, because sending all experienced pilots for training at the same time is equivalent to being left without airplanes at all - no one will fly on them.
But the main problem with such terms is the conceptual vision of the role of the F-16 in Ukraine and in the West. For Ukraine, these fighters are needed right now, because they have to perform a number of tasks, both to ensure air defense in the rear, and to push enemy aircraft away from the front edge, and to strike targets on the ground. But contrary, in the USA, these aircraft are considered as a long-term strengthening of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "for later".
On the part of Defense Express, we note that if we take the terms of completion of the training of only six pilots at the level of the beginning of summer 2024, then the Air Force of Ukraine can have a maximum of only six F-16 aircraft - half of the squadron. And this, of course, directly indicates that such a number of the multirole fighters simply cannot become a decisive game changer…
As Defense Express reported, The First Video of a Ukrainian Tactical Bomber With a SCALP-EG Missile Under Its Wing Has Appeared. We also wrote, that The UK Strengthened Ukraine's Air Defense with Unannounced Ground Launched AIM-132 ASRAAM Missiles.
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