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Far too little and far too late – the first twelve Ukrainian pilots will soon be able to take part in air combat. Politicians doubt the point.
Kiev – Pat Ryder was skeptical. The brigadier general is a spokesman for the US Department of Defense and had welcomed pilots from Ukraine to the Tucson Air Force Base in Arizona. That was more than eight months ago. Now they have completed their training and are ready to take to the skies in their F-16 jets against Vladimir Putin to help turn the tide in the Ukraine war. The magazine Politico – “a crucial step in bringing modern American-built fighter jets into the Ukrainian skies,” said Erin Hannigan. The spokeswoman for the Air National Guard has Politico but refused to provide information about the completion date and the number of pilots trained – for security reasons.
The magazine Air Force reported in February of a first batch of eight pilots – referring to the Air National Guard. Four more pilots are to be trained this year. Newsweek reports in parallel on a report by the British Ministry of Defence, according to which ten Ukrainians had already completed a British military flight school in March and would then be further trained by the French Air Force – only then would they climb into the cockpit of an F-16.
Ukraine’s hopes rest on young and inexperienced pilots
Pat Ryder had already warned against having too high hopes at the beginning of the training plans. The British Guardian spoke of statements by US military officials that years of training are necessary to be able to use F-16s effectively in combat. This limits the influence of these aircraft on the defense of Ukraine in the near future: “It is about long-term support of Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesman Ryder told the Guardian. “It’s not about the counter-offensive they are currently conducting.”
“According to the US Air Force, the US is expected to graduate only 12 pilots from F-16 training by the end of 2024. Training 12 Ukrainian pilots is simply not enough. Ukraine is at war and slots for Ukraine must take priority over other countries.”
Other voices had also indicated the possibly limited value of the pilots: It will take up to five years for an F-16 pilot to be operational, said James B. Hecker last October. The commander of the US Air Forces in Europe told the Flight Review also expressed concerns that “the first candidates from Ukraine are reportedly very young and therefore do not yet have great flying knowledge,” as the Flight Review writes about Hecker’s assessment.
The Bundeswehr needs five years to train a jet pilot
The pilots had undergone a relatively standardized training program, such as Air Force reported, but with a special tailoring to their needs. The pilots are to have finally completed their training in August 2024 – the western instructors had hoped for a shorter period than around ten months. “We have to provide a fully operational fighter pilot,” Michael A. Loh told the media. “We are thinking more long-term, so some of the requirements for them have changed, which requires a slightly longer time frame,” said the lieutenant general and director of the Air National Guard in Air ForceAccording to him, the training went “great”.
To master a Eurofighter, such as the armed forces uses, flight students need five to six years – the training costs around five million euros, as the Business Insider reported. According to the report, it includes initial flight training in Germany and basic jet pilot training at the NATO training camp in the USA. Only then does the 35-week specialization in the Eurofighter follow, back in Germany. For experienced pilots, training for the F-16 may take around five months, Ryder said, according to the Guardian: “Courses covering the fundamentals could include not only flying the aircraft but also formation flying, weapons handling, aerial combat and air defense suppression.”
US politicians believe that a dozen trained pilots are far too few
At the end of their training, the pilots are trained on one, on “their” aircraft. The changeover in turn requires training. This is also time-consuming, as the German wave using the example of former German army pilot Joachim Vergin: “When Vergin switched from the Phantom fighter jet to the Tornado, the training took seven months.” In addition to the flying tricks, the pilots also learn how to master a complex weapon system. And that too under high pressure. “There are differences between military and civil aviation, in terms of the way you learn. Everything happens much faster and then you have to get it right,” says Gabriel. The young Bavarian, born in Augsburg, whose last name she does not disclose, is presented by the armed forces on their homepage to make military aviation more attractive to applicants.
“‘As a child I wanted to be an astronaut or a jet pilot. One of my great-uncles was with the 32nd Fighter Bomber Squadron in Lagerlechfeld, another was a private pilot,'” the armed forces. “Films like ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Apollo 13’ were among his favorite films.” According to Air Force However, the training of the young Ukrainians is unlikely to have a Hollywood-worthy outcome: “Some US lawmakers doubt that the training program is appropriate,” writes the magazine, citing an open letter that reached the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in mid-May.
In it, politicians from both political camps expressed doubts about the usefulness of the dozen half-finished pilots. The signatories include Michael Turner, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Jim Himes, the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, among other representatives. The signatories praise the “encouraging step” – but wonder what it will ultimately achieve: “According to the US Air Force, the US is expected to release only twelve pilots from F-16 training by the end of 2024. Training twelve Ukrainian pilots is simply not enough. Ukraine is at war and places for Ukraine must have priority over other countries.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj is also now taking a heavy caliber approach to his criticism. “The Russians are deploying 300 aircraft on Ukrainian territory. We need at least 120, 130 F-16 aircraft to offer resistance in the skies,” he said in a recent interview with the news agency Reuters. According to the daily News Ukraine is to receive 61 F-16s from Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, the timing of their arrival is uncertain. The Lithuanian Minister of Defence Arvydas Anušauskas quoted Newsweek that, in his estimation, the first shipment of F-16s would arrive in Ukraine sometime in June. Newsweek also reports statements by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and his Minister of Defense Ludivine Dedonder, for example, that their country’s promised jets would arrive in Kyiv by the end of the year.
Depressing news for Selenskyj, as he Reuters He makes it clear to the audience: “Every decision that we and then all of us come to together is delayed by about a year.” He believes that a change in thinking in the West is particularly important – with regard to the delivery of ready-to-use weapons or trained forces: “But it is what it is: a big step forward, but two steps back beforehand. So we need to change the paradigm a little.” (Karsten Hinzmann)
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