“Muscle memory” is probably the biggest hurdle for Ukrainian pilots. What they have had drilled into them for years, they now have to put an end to – as quickly as possible.
Kiev – This is a switch “like going from a Nokia directly to an iPhone, without all these steps in between,” “Moonfish” claimed. The Ukrainian pilot had now spoken to the magazine Business Insider (BI) He and his comrades said that he and his comrades would have to drastically change the way they flew in order to cope with the transition from their Soviet planes to the Western fighter jet, which cost up to 75 million dollars. In addition to the impending threat from Vladimir Putin’s air force, the Ukrainian pilots’ biggest challenge is in their own cockpit – they are fighting against their own “muscle memory”.
“Completing basic training means that pilots are able to perform combat tasks in daylight and good weather,” Oleksiy Melnyk told the channel n-tv. The former politician was himself a jet pilot and is somewhat skeptical about the benefits of the delivery of the F-16 fighter jet model known as the “Viper” to Ukraine. Melnyk also suspects that the plane’s biggest weak point is in the cockpit, as he suggests. Sounds similar Radio Free Europe in his contribution, in which a Gulf War veteran has his say.
A matter of practice: Ukrainian F-16 pilots must be careful not to fall back into old habits
US pilot Keith Rosenkranz sees the young Ukrainian pilots as inferior to their Russian opponents – at least initially. How long this initial period will last is questionable and depends on the “muscle memory” of the individual pilot. The pilots have trained movement sequences on their Soviet aircraft over the years – these are now stored in “muscle memory” and would have to be reprogrammed. At an average cruising speed of almost 1,000 kilometers per hour, the pilots cover approximately 300 meters in one second – without combat conditions and without a three-dimensional threat scenario.
“If there is even one lesson to be learned from the war between Russia and Ukraine, it is that simply gaining air sovereignty brings a decisive advantage.”
Ukraine’s pilots could perhaps learn to fly in up to a year, says Michael Bohnert. But there would be little to gain from that alone. “Teaching them the muscle memory they need to know what to do when something goes wrong takes four or five, six, a lot more years,” he told the BI the analyst for the US think tank RAND. In the course of a crisis situation, they may quickly fall back into old habits because their muscle memory recalls its old programming.
“Muscle Memory”: Act without thinking
“Muscle memory” is the process by which a specific motor task is anchored in memory through repetition. Although muscles themselves cannot remember anything, they contain neurons that are connected to the nervous system and play a role in motor learning. Every movement requires brain activity; If even complicated movements are repeated often enough, this triggers a recognizable pattern in the brain regions responsible for motor skills. This results in a learned movement that requires less brain power in the future and can ultimately be performed with little or no conscious effort. This process reduces the need for attention and ensures maximum efficiency in the motor system and memory.
Source: Academy for Sport and Health, Radolfzell
In particular, the controls of the F-16 work differently than those of the Soviet machines. While the F-16 is controlled by fly-by-wire – i.e. digital, electronic systems that process the inputs for flight control – the MiG-29, for example, uses hydraulic controls, he said BI reported.
“When a MiG pilot pushes the control stick to the left to turn, he must release it again once the aircraft has reached the desired pitch angle, as the aircraft executes the pitch, yaw and roll inputs mechanically,” he said BI writes. An F-16 pilot has to steer differently because the rear wings are addressed via electrical signals.
Adjustment: Switching from Russia’s MIG to F-16 can lead to jerky flying
The classic control stick would therefore still be located in the middle in Soviet aircraft such as the MIG-29, while the controls on the F-16 would be more like a joystick on the right side of the cockpit. “Switching from a Soviet aircraft like the MiG to the F-16 can initially lead to jerky flying,” he said BI. The ergonomics of the aviators from the East and the West are different.
The magazine quotes Mike Torrealday: “It often happens that pilots switching from one platform to another roll to the left, then get a jolt to the right and think, ‘Whoa, whoa, what are you doing? ‘ And they just have this muscle memory that they have to take back every time they make an entry,” says to the BI the retired US Air Force colonel who trained MiG pilots from Poland and Romania.
In contrast to the Soviet machines, for example, the displays for the indicators are mounted higher, which forces pilots who switch to the other make to have a different posture right from the start, says Torrealday. US pilot Rosenkranz also flew his first combat mission after a very long time in a training aircraft and then in an F-16 Radio Free Europe had reported – after 1,200 hours of flying in a training jet and then another year without combat in his operational aircraft.
Exercise goal: Air sovereignty alone provides a decisive advantage over Putin
Analysts Christopher Koeltzow, Brent Peterson and Eric Williams suspect that it would take years for the Ukrainian Air Force to offer enough experience to carry out combat missions effectively – up to four years from student pilot to reliable wingman, and another year to learn combat tactics in the unit command. In their calculations, the analysts at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assume a time and an exercise scenario without combat conditions – according to the authors, flying on a different type of aircraft fundamentally requires a different way of thinking.
Old habits are difficult to break, wrote David Deptula and Christopher Bowie in the middle of the year. Analysts at the US think tank Mitchell Institute said the Ukrainian pilots would have to internalize the West’s rules for their own war. According to the two authors, Ukraine is in no way served by simply catching up with Russia on the ground and in the air: “If there is even one lesson to be drawn from the war between Russia and Ukraine, it is that simply gaining air sovereignty is one brings a decisive advantage,” as they write.
Assumption: So far only six pilots have been suitable for the war in Ukraine
Translated, this basically means that the Ukrainian pilots would only be able to exploit the technical possibilities of the F-16 if they flew in it as if they had already grown into its cockpit since they were recruits. “Moonfish” has now died in the F-16: Oleksiy Mes, the first victim of the F-16, offers the first proof of Ukraine’s inability to date to even begin to do justice to this weapon.
According to that Wall Street Journal So far only six pilots have been fit for the front line, so there are five pilots left after the F-16 crash. According to news agency reports Reuters At least 20 pilots should be fully trained by the end of the year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expecting a total of up to 85 aircraft from various NATO countries. The timing is uncertain; also the time when the pilots will be familiar with the technical possibilities.
Ukraine may have taken on too much of itself – at least that’s what Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mes told them last fall New York Times was still in the mood for jokes and instead of using a smartphone comparison, he used another trivialization to describe his upcoming company vehicle: “The F-16 is a Swiss army knife.”
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