An American assessment of Ukrainian fighter pilots in the US has revealed they would be ready to fly F-16 jets after fewer than six months of training.

General Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force, told The Times about this.

He reported that two of his pilots had returned to the country last week after a rigorous assessment by the US military.

“They spent three weeks there and were trained on an F-16 simulator how to fly together as two pilots using weapons. The results came out very good: Ukrainian pilots can learn to fly and operate weapons systems on the F-16 in less than six months,” he said.

In addition, Serhii Holubtsov said that the experience gained by Ukrainian pilots allows to significantly shorten the training process.

“The skills of the pilots were rated extremely highly, and these guys were just average pilots. Every pilot is unique, so there should be an individual training plan. But after this assessment, we can significantly shorten the term depending on the previous experience of Ukrainian pilots. This is great news for us,” Serhii Holubtsov said.

What is the advantage of the F-16?

The publication emphasizes that the USA currently does not give a clear answer to the question of the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine and states that this is not currently a priority in the military aid provided.

On the other hand, Poland and Slovakia have handed over their MiG-29 fighters. This decision was debated throughout the year due to fears of escalation.

Pressure on Nato to supply more modern jets is mounting. Boris Johnson has called for Britain to provide Ukraine with its Typhoons to “break the ice”. At the same time, the Ukrainian military emphasizes that Ukraine needed a large number of the same type of aircraft with a plentiful supply of spare parts, the general said.

“We are not strict about a particular model, but the technical characteristics — if there are other platforms that can hold and use the same ammunition and have the same characteristics [as F-16s], we can use that platform. We’ve focused on F-16s because we know there are more than 4,000 globally — it will be easy to replace them and obtain spare parts,” Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force said.

He also added that having different types of jets is expensive. Ukraine would like to has one or maximum two types so that maintaining them is reasonable and sustainable.

Infrastructure preparation

Serhii Holubtsov also rejected concerns that western-supplied jets would be quickly destroyed after the handover. Ukrainian pilots were flying 50 sorties a day to deter Russian aviation.

“We have dozens of different locations and airports to hide and shelter our air planes and we are receiving more western air defence systems to protect our runways all the time. We are able to deliver results and do what needs to be done with our Soviet-made jets, so why couldn’t we do the same with more modern aircraft? We will just be much more effective,” Serhii Holubtsov said.

Ukraine’s acquisition of modern jet aircraft with a longer flight range is a key component for the protection of cities.

“The Russians have much longer-range radars and munitions on newer jets. They use a missile with a 200km range to take out our S300 air defences, which have a range of 150km, then 1,500kg guided bombs to attack front line towns like Vuhledar, Bakhmut and Maryinka. If we had F-16s with AIM 120 missiles and a range of 180km, we could push the Russian planes much further back,” Holubtsov emphasized.

Ukrainian infrastructure is also ready to receive multi-role fighters. One of the runways received a positive assessment from one of the F-16 manufacturers.

“American fighter jets, F-15s and F-16s, were using typical Ukrainian military bases. They were taking off, landing easily, without any problems at our bases Myrhorod and Starokostyantyniv. The aircraft were not specially prepared for these runways and these bases are not better than any other air base in Ukraine,” the general said.

Also, the chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force noted that the shift to NATO-standard jets was inevitable. Aviation ammunition that Ukraine received cannot be effectively used from old aircraft. These are HARM-88 anti-radar missiles and JDAM guided bombs.

These weapons needed to be programmed on the ground, which reduced their effectiveness. So the Ukrainian Air Force needs modern multirole fighters.