The U.S. Air Force has praised the ability of Ukrainian pilots to master Western F-16 fighters and believes that the training program for them could be four months.
This is stated in an internal document of the US Air Force, which was obtained by the portal Yahoo News,
The document, which the United States passed on to NATO allies that operate F-16s, contains a detailed assessment of two Ukrainian pilots who were tested in late February and early March at an air base in Arizona.
One of the Ukrainian pilots had experience flying the MiG-29, the other the Su-27. Both had no previous experience with the F-16 and were tested on a simulator, where they completed nine sessions of 11.5 hours each. They were evaluated by four experienced U.S. Air Force instructors, each with thousands of hours of F-16 flight time.
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According to the assessment, the Ukrainian pilots were able to perform a number of “relatively technical” maneuvers in the simulated conditions, including landing the aircraft after a flameout – an engine shutdown due to the extinguishing of the flame in its combustion chamber. The two pilots were also able to “perform a simulated attack based on the parameters transmitted to them during the flight in the simulator.”
U.S. instructors believe that the main problem with the training was that Ukrainian pilots were not accustomed to avionics, i.e., the F-16’s electronic systems that displayed information in Ukrainian. They also pointed to a general language barrier, although they noted that both pilots had significantly improved their English in two weeks.
Nevertheless, the USAF report concludes that “given the current level of skills demonstrated by the Ukrainian Air Force pilots, four months is a realistic training timeframe.
