The United States is reorienting the training of Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilots to younger cadets rather than experienced military personnel. This decision may delay the moment when Ukraine will receive a full squadron of F-16s ready for combat, Babel writes.
The Wall Street Journal reports.
The reason for this decision is that there are few experienced Ukrainian pilots with knowledge of English. The US also believes that young military personnel will be more open to the Western style of training.
During the year, the US and other partners trained a small number of Ukrainian pilots. About a dozen pilots took the courses, and 11 of them are now flying F-16s in Ukraine. However, Ukraine is unlikely to have a full F-16 squadron – 20 aircraft and 40 pilots – until next spring or summer.
Currently, only eight experienced fighter pilots are completing their F-16 training in Arizona and will arrive in Ukraine in early 2025.
The newcomers will have to spend a year without skipping basic flight training, learning to fly at bases in the UK and France, before moving on to the F-16 course in Arizona (US) and Romania. At the same time, it is worth noting that experienced pilots who went to the training skipped basic flight training.
For US Air Force pilots, training takes about two years from start to finish. They spend about a year in basic flight training, then four to six months flying their chosen aircraft and another four to six months learning the procedures of their operational unit. And then American pilots spend a lot more time training before going on combat missions. But as for the Ukrainian pilots, they went straight into air combat from short training sessions.
U.S. officials say that Ukrainian pilots have problems with the English language curriculum. Another problem was that the experienced pilots from Ukraine actually had much more combat experience than their Western instructors.
However, it was the younger pilots who had experience flying Soviet jet fighters and had been in combat zones that were more receptive to American training methods.
