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Ten men per machine, 16 hours of work for one hour of flight. The F-16 project is getting bigger and bigger, but important questions still seem to be unanswered.
Amsterdam – “F-16 pilots actually put their lives in the hands of the soldiers who maintain the aircraft. As soon as they take off, they know that they can rely on the knowledge and skills of these people and that the aircraft is in order” – the Dutch Air Force quoted what an anonymous Ukrainian soldier had said about the importance of his training at the end of May. Now the European Pravdathat the first trained F-16 crews from Denmark will be deployed to the Ukraine war.
According to the Pravda committed to training up to 100 Ukrainian personnel to maintain F-16 fighter jets. “50 of them have already completed the training and are already taking part in the training of the first aircraft in Ukraine,” writes the magazine. “More F-16s for Ukraine, however, also mean more spare parts, more training, more ammunition and more infrastructure – all of which requires additional time and valuable resources. The development and coordination of the infrastructure for complex weapon systems takes several years,” writes Colonel Kristen Thompson for the think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
US colonel warns: F-16 success in Ukraine can be measured in years rather than months
The US Air Force squadron commander sees the biggest challenge currently as building the infrastructure for the Western F-16s – and doing so in another country in the midst of a large-scale war against one of the largest armies in the world. “The impact of the Ukrainian F-16s on the war should therefore be measured over years, not months,” says Thompson.
“I hope the decision will be made when pilots and ground crew are tactically and operationally ready, and not on the basis that ‘things look bad and we need a political victory.'”
The sometimes limited influence of the pilot and the great importance of the mechanics in comparison is demonstrated by a crash from the recent past: In May 2023, an F-16 of the South Korean Air Force crashed during a training flight – without any influence of the pilot, as the magazine Air & Space Forces writes: Based on the data from the plane’s flight recorder, the “black box”, investigators determined that the F-16’s electrical power had partially failed just eleven seconds after takeoff. Within a further “less than 30 seconds”, as he writes, various systems then failed “in rapid succession”, for example the inertial navigation system, “which displays flight data such as the aircraft’s heading and its relationship to the horizon”, as the report on the crash states according to his information.
In addition to other technical failures, the report continued, this prevented the pilot from accurately determining his level flight attitude using his primary horizon indicator, recalibrating his navigation equipment, and regaining control of the aircraft by rebooting his systems. According to investigators, the exact cause of the problem will never be determined, as author Greg Hadley notes. “Given the lack of available evidence and the many possible causes of the partial power loss, which could include any electrical device or section of cable, it is not possible to determine the actual cause of the power loss,” investigators wrote, according to him.
Maintenance costs of the Ukrainian F-16: five million euros. Per machine. Per year.
It was only thanks to the pilot’s skill that he realized he could not trust the data he was seeing. A brief break in the clouds then enabled him to fly visually; predominantly bad weather then robbed him of this opportunity, Hadley explains: “Investigators stated that the pilot was largely helpless at this point, and compared the situation to ‘when you step on the gas in a car and expect the speed to increase, but then the speed decreases,'” he writes. “As the plane descended below the cloud cover, the pilot realized he was flying too low and at too steep an angle to regain control of the plane and catapulted himself out of the plane at an altitude of 216 meters above the ground. Less than three minutes after takeoff.”
According to the magazine, the accident investigation commission identified two main causes for the crash: the effects of the power failure on the F-16’s instruments and the bad weather conditions that prevented the pilot from conducting visual flights. Ensuring the operational capability of an F-16 could cost up to five million euros. Per machine. Per year. John Hoehn and William Courtney from the Californian think tank EDGE – Costs for missiles and weapons not included. The US Congressional Research Service also looked into the question of feasibility and financial viability in March last year.
The alternative of a contractual solution for repairs, as is already practiced with tanks in Lithuania, was also considered. The analysts then decided to train their own Ukrainian technicians in order to give Ukraine more autonomy: However, they warned that the training would take months, if not years – depending on the level of training required.
After all, the Ukrainian mechanics are used to the maintenance standards of the Soviet machines and their technical components. In addition, the maintenance intensity is added: every single flight hour would result in 16 hours of maintenance. Not to mention the logistics costs. Each F-16 needs about ten people to operate the aircraft, including the two pilots, said General Arnoud Stallmann a few days ago, according to the British Guardian.
Air Force Chief: “No plan yet” for repair and maintenance of F-16 in the West
The commander of the Dutch Air Force is expecting the planes to arrive over the skies of Ukraine this summer – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj reacted angrily in the Netherlands in view of the constant delays. According to the Guardian But Serhii Holubtsov has rekindled the rumors about the stationing and maintenance of the aircraft. The commander of the Ukrainian Air Force recently said that “a number of F-16 aircraft would be stationed at air bases abroad,” quoted the GuardianAnd the Dutch Air Force chief said “some maintenance work is being done on the jets in Ukraine,” adding that there is “no firm plan” yet for repairing the F-16s in the West.
After all, Ukraine seems to idolize the F-16 as a machine, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. “Initially, when we first got to know the system, it seemed incomprehensible and unrealistic to integrate it into Ukrainian reality,” Ihor told the magazine Politico“Ihor” is one of the Ukrainian technicians who, alongside the pilots, is working hard to understand the F-16 principle. “Now I understand that it makes work much easier, saves time and is worth continuing if we want to develop as a country and as an air force.”
Justin Bronk remains critical of the timing of the first deployment of the machines, as he said in a YouTube podcast. The analyst from the British Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) expects a “decision taking into account risk and time frame”, as the Guardian “I hope the decision will be made when pilots and ground crew are tactically and operationally ready, and not on the basis that ‘things look bad and we need a political victory’.”
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