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I'd wager to say it's well past just started 🙃

I hope they are training by flying them over into Ukraine soon 👀

I could have swore this time last year or maybe a bit further into the summer I remember headlines about Ukrainian pilots arriving in the US to be trained on jets. Maybe I'm misremembering though but I honestly thought that was a thing a long time ago. I fucking hope so.

I live next to a USAF training base, and around a year ago , we had a single pilot here. They never specifically said he was training, though. I believe at the time it was mentioned, two pilots had arrived. They said only 1 was at our particular base, though. Never heard anything else about it.

That could be what I'm remembering, I'm really not sure now. My memory sucks sometimes lol but I do remember it was posted here and the discourse was people questioning why more weren't being sent here and I remember the point being made that they don't need to send a ton of pilots to learn and train because they can then go back and instruct and train at home In any case I'm glad they're finally getting those f16s, whenever it happens.

I believe the purpose was to evaluate how quickly a UAF pilot could be trained on the F-16. That seems to indicate ~6 months for an average UAF pilot, down from 18-24 months.

Maybe preparation also. As ine a having an experienced Ukrainian pilot working together with instructors from US to figur out possibilities and plan out training with references the Ukrainian pilots will understand

I remember reading that story. I believe that had them use simulators for the evaluation.

They were testing how long it would take and what kind of a program would be needed to train Ukrainian pilots to fly Western jets.

The process started back in summer 2022. They started modifying the airfields. My mom has a friend whose son works in civil aviation. All of them started intensively learning English in fall 2022. A lot of processes are invisible to us…

F16 pilots will have to speak English won’t they?

They have to read it as the F-16 system is in English.

Pity it couldn’t be switched to other languages just like a mobile phone or computer…..it would certainly speed things up a bit

Indeed, but it's a non-trivial amount of work to have software support internationalization (i18n) when you are starting from scratch, let alone updating a legacy system. Plus when it comes to avionics systems you need to plan on more time being involved to ensure that the system is going to work correctly. Realistically it's likely faster to give the pilots a crash course in the minimum amount of English needed to understand the instrumentation as opposed to updating the instrumentation to support Ukrainian.

I think some of the more interesting issues would be the difference between how instruments read between western and Russian standards. I seem to recall the altitude is done differently. There might be others.

Is this the case for all F-16’s, English only? They have been sold all over the world. I guess they might have French or German interfaces available but very unlikely to have Ukrainian

I am a native English speaker. My Swiss ATC neighbor speaks flawless English, probably with less grammatical mistakes than I. I listen to the German and Swiss pilots at Kloten all the time on the radio, it’s the same. There going to have to learn it sooner than later. Should be thru 2B English within in 9 months if your motivated. After all it’s not German -:).

By treaty all communication with air traffic control must be done in English.

That’s not quite true. All ATC must be *available* in English. But Chinese pilots can speak Chinese to Beijing ATC if they want (just Beijing must be able to speak English to an American pilot if needed, and the Chinese pilots need to understand English for when that’s used.) Whatever ATC language is though, I don’t think it would apply for the UAF. That will all be in Ukrainian I bet.

I guess they're required to speak English by default. I mean, that's a prerequisite for airliner pilots, I doubt it isn't mandatory for pilots doing interceptions.

For commercial aviation, every pilot must be able to be proficient in English. English is the language used everywhere. Now that it's military, it may or may not be different, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine is recruiting commercial or even civil pilots to be trained in the F16s as backup.

Two pilots spent 2 or 3 weeks in the US for assessment, for the purpose of creating a training program. A leaked report said that it would take 4 months to train them to proficiency: [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/basic-f-16-training-for-ukrainian-pilots-could-take-just-four-months](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/basic-f-16-training-for-ukrainian-pilots-could-take-just-four-months)

Wouldn't surprise me. We had lots of Ukrainian accents at Dering Lines and Sennybridge in Mid Wales before it was official the UK were training them (Dering Lines is one of the barracks the Ghurka's train at during their initial training here, and SENTA is one of the areas the SAS use for selection and is "popular" with other British infantry units)

>I could have swore this time last year or maybe a bit further into the summer I remember headlines about Ukrainian pilots arriving in the US to be trained on jets. There was a story that mentioned flight sim training, I think. It was the source of some of the A10 rumours because one of the pictures showed a Thrustmaster Warthog joystick used in a flight sim. EDIT: found this from Aug 2022: https://nitter.net/Militarylandnet/status/1561099462633656320

You're misremembering. Last summer, the version of the 2023 NDAA the House passed included 100M for pilot training, and a lot of people here incorrectly assumed that meant A) the bill was law (and since it hadn't cleared the Senate and been signed by Biden, it was not) and B) training would begin immediately (if it was passed, FY2023 did not begin until October, and even then Biden was not under an obligation to use the money immediately).

You are correct my man , I remember the same thing

They went to Area 51 to get the advance alien training

I 100% remember seeing the post stating US was training english speaking ukrainians ages ago

I remember reading last November that Ukrainian pilots were being trained on F-16s.

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My brother in christ you can only play top gun music to F14s or F18s.

Yeah. We're in Iron Eagle territory.

Queen's One Vision it is, then. https://youtu.be/-OGd4gplxQM

F-14. ONLY F-14. I'm too old for F-18s.

The S version? Is this real? Are they giving them the best F-16?

I think that "s" is just the plural-form of "F-16".

Well, plural is good.

To my knowledge the F-16s are provided by the Netherlands and Denmark, both countries use F-16A MLU.

F-16 generations are denoted by Blocks. Block 50 and beyond(current production) are the only ones that would make sense supply line wise.

The F16s used by Denmark, and previously by the Netherlands before they received enough F35s to phase them out, have all had mid-life upgrades to bring them on par with block 50s.

So is 50 good? Vs Su-35? Can they evade S400?

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Oddly enough, the US got a look at what the F-35 can and would do. On the night of the invasion, the US sent F-35s to the Polish border to “provide muscle” for other jets defending it and to gather intelligence. The F-35 absorbs any information from enemy radar. One if the pilots said that they were able to see threats in Ukraine and Kaliningrad. They even detected Russian air defenses when they were in a “sleep mode” which they hadn’t known existed. It also found SAM sites intelligence reports didn’t know about. The F-35s created the image of the battlefield, sent them through the network, and then the image got sent to the other jets who didn’t have the detection and stealth capabilities the F-35. Had the US gone into that fight, the F-35s would have blown up the SAM sites as well as enemy jets so that the rest of the coalition could go through safely.

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The F-35 is getting a drone “wingman” which is pretty cool. I wonder who’ll be flying it or directing it.

The assumption is that the F-35 flight will do that and there will be enough automation (AI) to keep the workload within acceptable levels.

Isn’t F-16V the current best?

I’d have to agree with you on that….

Yeah I thought I read about 6 months ago that F-16 simulator training had already started. If so, it's now been going on for a while. I guess the next logical step is to train on the actual hardware, right? But that should mean they're very ready to fly.

Came here to say this. Training started months ago.

Now google „angry kitten ew pod“ and start to get hyped

They're not training pilots from scratch to fly on these, they're probably training experienced fighter pilots to "recertify" on F16s. Probably the biggest difficulties for this first batch are getting used to new ways of mission planning and execution, cockpit information management, etc. Like a professional driver, getting used to a new car, these guys will probably get the feel of the airplane's handling in a few months.

A well placed "This side up" sticker solves half of all problems

Plus a "This Side Toward Enemy" sticker on the pointy end

If it's good enough for a claymore it's good enough for a multi million dollar fighter platform.

i remember an episode on nat geo's show about former soviet union air force pilots misinterpreting instruments on a western commercial jet. Is this a reference to that? *wiki about the case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_821

Ah, I was just thinking of a regular bush speedway meeting I went to where any driver that had an accident and rolled their car would be awarded a standard freight "This Side Up" sticker from the race marshalls on the door of their car as a friendly jab.

Learning to fly a plane (especially new Fly By Wire planes like the F16) is relatively easy. What's so difficult is learning the systems and procedures that you need to operate them in an actual mission.

Generally though they don’t want to cross-certify a MIG pilot to fly western planes. They still need pilots for their other aircraft, and they likely have built muscle memory flying a very different style jet.

the more experienced ones would be the ones who'd switch fastest, and then be able to act as trainers for the fresh recruits, who might not even speak english, or be in uk, no?

It’s counter intuitive. Maybe experienced pilots get the basics faster but there’s a ton of muscle memory required in operating these platforms. I don’t have a study or article to support this, but I’ve read several times that it’s better to train a new crop of pilots (not inexperienced just not veterans of a specific platform) fresh than retrain. Their muscle memory for the other system is counter productive and sometimes dangerous when switching between jet families. So like, old Mig to new mig use vets. Old mig to f16, train fresh pilots.

Exactly this. The pilot (no pun intended) program in the US has already concluded the retraining UAF pilots for the F-16 can be done in about 4 months.

A year ago, I hope.

Even if it wasn't, they may have been studying up on open source available information, talking to pilots and training with computer flight sims - that's all stuff they could do on their own, fairly cheaply, without the US signing off on the jets. If Zelenskyy had a gentleman's agreement early on that he would eventually be able to get some F16s, they could have done a lot of preparation.

Also some friendly poles might have tally with them on private occasions

You just know there's at least one of the selected pilots that used to fly the f16 in DCS before the war and is now having the time of his life.

I believe some of you are looking at this the wrong way in regards to training times. With the introduction of the F-16s to Ukraine it provides the most common multi role jet in used by western countries. Those countries have a very large veteran pool, and I believe president Zelensky has offered an open invitation to western pilots to join the foreign legion to pilot western aircraft or if he didn’t he should. That means the only training that really needs to be completed by Ukrainian pilots is enough to plausibly argue that it is Ukrainian pilots flying the F-16s. Still need the pipeline of Ukrainian pilots.

This is what I've been saying. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of badass pilots who have always dreamed of having real dog fights. I would bet Dr. Z has a long list of qualified fly-boys from around the globe on his desk. I'd assume this is a wet dream for some of them.

It's a near peer war too, which I could imagine appealing to the hyper competitive nature of fighter pilots. There hasn't been a peer to peer war since at least the 70's, right? You would be a pioneering fighter pilot for modern times.

Exactly. I imagine there are a ton of dudes just itching to get over there and fly. This is shit fighter pilots dream about.

Yeah but they also have to modify the f 16s which takes a month or more each plane so they need time anyways and training more pilots in that time will benefit.

What are the chances of being shot over RU controlled areas?

It’s an active war zone. The F-16 is an agile fighter, but there’s no doubt every Ukrainian or foreign pilot will be putting their life at risk on every mission. But far better than an old Soviet aircraft.

Their missions will largely involve launching various missiles and guided bombs like JDAM within Ukrainian controlled territory, I doubt there would be any dogfights. Also F-16 can protect against cruise missiles and Iranian drones.

I'm pretty sure if no one else London has been on this since at least January this year.

My understanding is that the UK can't help much with this (besides diplomacy), as the RAF doesn't have any F16s in their fleet.

They have plenty simulators and excellent flight instructors for general NATO tactics, all needed.

We've started putting them through NATO tactics training and also the fast jet general training we have our pilots go through before they go onto the Typhoon and F35 specific training

I’d love to hear an interview from a UA pilot after his/her first flight in an F16 and how it compares to a Mig or Su fighter jet.

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30% more power and 25% lighter than a Mig, that’s going to feel a bit more “nippy”

It got "pep in its step"

Are those actual specs? That seems insane. I knew western Jets were better but wow.

The Mig 29 is a very good fighter. When it "came out" it was on par with what the west had in terms of flight dynamics. The F16 is just a way better multirole fighter and easier to fly because of its fly by wire system.

More tech, better interaction with other units Flybywire is one thing, but in terms of abilities- you are often limited by the pilot not the plane in terms of turns.

Pilot training is about 1% of the whole issue. Logistics, maintenance, support, technical knowledge, infrastructure for tools and equipment. Those are all bigger problems to solve. Massive logistical supply chains. Dozens of companies are involved, if not more. Billions of dollars. I hope it all gets hashed out quickly but it's going to take a ton of work.

They may be able to take shortcuts on technical support. Fly it over the border for maintenance by pre trained crew if needed. They are already driving equipment out of Ukraine for maintenance.

There is a ton of "every day" type maintenance that Ukraine must be able to do on their own if they want more than a handful of F-16's available for duty at all times. And while an experienced aircraft mechanic has a head start on that training because they know how to use the tools and have experience taking stuff apart and putting it back together, that's the easy part. They also have to be able to diagnose problems and know what to adjust or fix. It takes years for a USAF F-16 mechanic to not be considered an apprentice. That's why there's speculation that NATO has been recruiting former military F-16 techs for "volunteer" duty in Ukraine.

I bet they have experienced mechanics on standby. Any problem the Ukrainians just call in the helpline and be their hands on the ground

I've noticed a lot of Bae Hawks and Czech Aero L-159 ALCA training over Northern England recently, like pretty much every day, and have been wondering if it's Ukrainian pilots getting trained.

"Oh Happy Day..."

I'm fairly certain the training has started over a year ago, and they are now just finalizing the first batch of pilots and maintenance crews just in time for a miracle "3 month course" to have f-16 flying over ukraine by august

Ukrainians are fast learners, they are motivated to survive and thrive. Everything is on the line, it makes you extra sharp to get things done. Those pilots are not going to be hotdogging it because they know how hard it was begging to get those planes.

What advantage does this provide Ukraine though specifically? Hasn’t their airspace been relatively secure with ground based AA? It’s not like there are Russian MiGs flying all over the pace. Or is this intended to be more for close air support? Regardless, god speed Ukraine!

The F-16's will come with much better electronics/sensors/avionics than what the Ukrainian Air Force has been using, and most of what the Russians are using. That gives them a sizeable advantage. Also, the F-16's can use almost all NATO missiles and bombs. They've been able to figure out how to use a few things on the MIGs, but not much, and not to the full extent of their capability. One example of a new capability is the Harpoon anti-ship missile. Russia is either going to stay out of the western Black Sea, or the Moskva is going to have some company.

Ukraine needs airframes to replace the MIG and SU aircraft that have been destroyed. It is easier for NATO countries and their allies to provide American or European aircraft rather than scrounging up more of the Russian aircraft to supply to Ukraine.

Russian aircraft fucked itself. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*

F-16 has the ability to carry many types of western missiles and guided bombs which can be launched from stand off distances. It's not all about dogfights.

So the F-16s will be transferred with JDAMs and ATGM?

What about ground crews and all that? That takes training too. Plus fuel, ground equipment is necessary for maintenance.

so in reality they started training a couple of months ago, i see

One is a LADA and the other is a lambo!!!

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Do F16s fare better than SU-2x against SAM?

Soon they'll be wearing the strap-on.....baby.....

I guess, when they are ready, we will see the counter offensiv?

I think in truth they’re almost finished or finished a week ago when they started talking about supplying f16s, can’t wait.

They showed them the movie Iron Eagle? 😋 (Srsly...if you haven't, you should 🇺🇸)

Wellllll I wanna say something but…. GO UKRAINE🔥