Within the last week, a semi-formal coalition of European countries has emerged. It’s geared toward enabling Ukraine to operate U.S.-built F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters, each by training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s and—eventually—supplying the aircraft.
Prime ministers Rishi Sunak of the UK and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands announced the formation of the coalition on May 16. Nonetheless, Paris, Belgium, Denmark and Poland had already previously indicated that they could contribute to training Ukrainian pilots and even possibly supplying F-16 aircraft.
The coalition is peculiar, admittedly. Initially, its two largest countries—the UK and France—had themselves never operated F-16s. And america, which builds F-16s, had ruled out providing them to Ukraine.
However the coalition appears to have achieved its political goals stunningly fast. This Friday, U.S. officials told the Recent York Times that the U.S. would also take part in training Ukrainian pilots for F-16s and “collectively determine” with its European allies how those aircraft may be supplied. Reportedly, the foremost advocate for the change of policy was U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who convinced Joe Biden, despite the president’s concerns that F-16s may be used for strikes on Russia.
That is promising for Kyiv’s efforts to amass a more modern fighter capability, as its Soviet-era MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters remain outclassed by Russia’s newer Su-35 fighters and MiG-31BM interceptors that may detect and shoot at Ukrainian aircraft from beyond range of retaliation. The F-16 might not be a super-fighter 45 years after the initial models entered service, however it’s agile, reasonably priced and upgradeable and will give Ukrainian pilots the tools needed to fight back.
By preparing the human component needed for F-16 operations—something which normally takes many months—these aircraft could turn out to be operational way more rapidly if and once they are donated to Ukraine. A recently leaked U.S. Air Force report assessed Ukrainian pilots could turn out to be minimally proficient with F-16s with just 4 months of coaching.
And now that the training program has U.S. buy-in, it looks increasingly inevitable that Ukraine will likely be getting the F-16 jets it has lobbied very hard for—from one source or one other.
How It Could Work
Quite than training Ukraine’s veteran fighter pilots, removing them from frontline duties, the coalition’s plan is to coach recent cohorts of Ukrainian pilots on general operation of Western aircraft. In that respect, each France and the UK could play a task preparing trainees on jet trainers.
But eventually, Ukrainian pilots would graduate to conversion training, and would wish to coach on F-16 simulators and fly actual F-16s, even in the event that they don’t get to take them back home in Ukraine. Here, two other coalition partners could help. One is Belgium, which has ruled out aircraft donations but is willing to coach Ukrainian pilots using a few of its 44 single-seat F-16AMs and eight two-seat F-16BMs. The opposite is the Netherlands, which has 24 F-16As and Bs.
Training fighter pilots to fly a selected fighter normally requires many months, with a Basic F-16 course ordinarily requiring 9 months: one month of classroom instruction, followed by simulator sessions and around 60 training flights. An accelerated wartime schedule of 6 months is anticipated to use to Ukrainian trainees.
Overall, training pilots before the planes themselves are guaranteed has a certain logic since the pilots are a ‘long-lead’ time element. And jet training on Royal Air Force BAe Hawk T2s and French Mirage 2000Bs (which have characteristics much like the F-16’s) may prepare pilots for faster conversion training to F-16s afterward.
Leaked documents from March 2023—following a U.S. Air Force evaluation of two Ukrainian pilots that spent 11.5-hours of coaching on a simulator—suggest that 4 months (ie. 13 weeks) of coaching may very well be “realistic” for skilled Ukrainian pilots to turn out to be proficient in “minimal required task,” including proficiency in a radar and infrared-guided missile type (likely AIM-120 and AIM-9 Sidewinder). The pilots performed above average on many parameters, despite some concerns over language aptitude.
That said, any training time that surpasses the minimal obligatory will higher prepare trainees for the extremely high-threat environment facing Ukraine, contending with sophisticated Russian S-400 long-range surface-to-air missiles and Su-35S fighters.
Nonetheless, training expert ground crew and maintainers also requires loads of time—likely greater than conversion-training pilots—and thus merits its own program. Fortunately, neighboring Poland and Romania also operate F-16s and thus have maintenance bases, which could potentially be used to assist sustain F-16s given to Ukraine.
Still, it could be absurd to undergo time-consuming efforts to coach pilots just for no F-16s to be available. Here, the coalition’s intentions are fuzzier. Nonetheless, several states claim they could consider donating F-16s.
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That features the Netherlands (which has claimed it’s “open” to the concept) and Denmark (which has 33 F-16As). It doesn’t, nevertheless, include Poland as some speculated, because the country is counting on F-16s to interchange MiG-29s it donated to Ukraine.
All three of those countries are currently adopting F-35 stealth fighters. The air forces of Denmark and the Netherlands may thus feel they’ll spare a number of the older jets. But neither has firmly committed to making a gift of useful combat aircraft.
The Dutch and Danish F-16As and Bs have received the Block 20 MLU update, bringing their avionics near the usual of the second-generation F-16C/D. This includes the APG-66(V2) doppler radar, GPS navigations, night-vision goggle-compatible multi-function cockpit displays, and—crucially—support for the AIM-120 missile.
The U.S.’s Role
The Biden administration had previously firmly communicated that it isn’t considering giving F-16s to Ukraine, but had also explicitly stated it would not prevent other countries from doing so. Because the leaked report from March indicates, the administration has clearly studied what an F-16 transfers would entail. And as of this Friday, it has now made clear that the U.S. would directly take part in the F-16 training effort.
Early in 2022, the U.S. intervened to forestall European states from making a gift of their aging inventory of Soviet fighters to Ukraine. It was later revealed that this fulfilled the U.S.’s end of a secret take care of China which, in return, promised to make use of its influence to restrain Russia from using or threatening use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. By early 2023, though, the deal apparently had run its course, and Washington supported the transfer of diverse Soviet fighters to Ukraine.
Still, the Biden administration seemingly viewed transfers of Western-built fighters as more politically and technologically sensitive. It also argued that they weren’t one of the best bang-for-military-aid-buck option by way of impacting the bottom war in Ukraine, as jet fighters are expensive, difficult to integrate, and difficult to leverage in airspace overwatched by powerful air defenses. The U.S. may be weary of advanced technologies transferred to Ukraine—similar to later-model AIM-120 missiles or AESA radars—may very well be recovered from lost aircraft and studied by Russia and China.
Realistically, whilst a non-participant, the U.S. would need to approve transfers of F-16 to Ukraine as per end-user license agreements. And tacit acquiescence would have been required for sustainment of F-16s in Ukrainian service through maintenance, spare parts, and munitions.
With the U.S. now definitely supporting the training effort, the availability of actual aircraft is looking more likely. The U.S. is sitting on large numbers of retired F-16s, and the Air Force’s operational F-16 fleet is contracting. Long term, Washington also has the funds and access to obtain recent F-16s tailored to be used by Ukraine, much because it furnished specially modified F-16s to Iraq.
Thus essentially the most realistic endgame of the F-16 coalition will likely involve U.S. provision of some F-16s alongside its European partners, with Ukrainian pilots (and hopefully, in some unspecified time in the future, maintainers) trained and able to operate the kind soon after delivery.
Why the F-16?
The Lockheed-Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon (commonly dubbed the Viper lately) is a flexible yet reasonably priced single-engine multi-role fighter designed for short-range operations. They’ve seen loads of motion since entering service in 1978, downing by one accounting 76 combat aircraft without air-to-air losses (unless counting 2 accidental shoot downs.)
Ukraine especially needs two qualities from Western fighters. First, they must be each available and sustainable. Second, they should have the opportunity to effectively engage in beyond-visual range (BVR) combat with Russian jets.
Russian pilots have more powerful radars, have long-range R-77-1 and R-37M air-to-air missiles, and avoid closing inside visual range of Ukrainian fighters. Thus, Ukrainian pilots rarely have a likelihood to shoot back effectively, particularly as they need to fly low to mask themselves from radar detection so long as possible.
France’s recently retired Mirage 2000D fighters pass the provision test, but fail on the qualitative level, as their BVR missiles have been retired. Sweden’s JAS 39 Gripen jets, conversely, are qualitatively ideal for Ukraine. But only a couple of hundred were built, and Sweden has made little indication that it’s ready to present them away. France’s newer Rafale jets are excellent, but unlikely to be donated, and possibly too expensive for Ukraine to obtain .
Amongst these, the F-16 most convincingly passes each tests. It’s the world’s most quite a few military jet, with over 4,600 built, and stays relatively cheaper to operate, sustain and procure. And over two-dozen countries still operate F-16s, meaning there are distributed supplies of spare parts and training pipelines.
The F-16 also passes the qualitative test since it has an honest radar and might employ AIM-120C and D fire-and-forget air-to-air missiles with a variety of around 60 and 86 miles respectively. While it doesn’t necessarily out-match Russia’s best fighters (that are beefier, twin-engine designs) they’ll still challenge them, with the AIM-120C-series missile arguably out-performing the R-77-1 missile.
One other plus to operating F-16s is that the substantially improved F-16 Block 70/72 model can also be in production. This is able to give Ukraine a future pathway to eventually acquiring a more capable version through upgrades or factory-fresh procurement, much as Taiwan is expanding and upgrading its F-16C/D fleet to the F-16V model. The Block 70/72 notably introduces an AESA-type APG-83 radar with capabilities Russian radars—even longer range ones—still lack.
The one fly within the ointment could also be that the F-16’s underslung jet engine intake is particularly susceptible to sucking in debris, causing Foreign Object Damage (FOD). British air warfare analyst Justin Bronk has argued this make its unsuitable for Ukraine’s air force, which is compelled to disperse aircraft to potentially austere satellite airfields to avoid Russian attacks.
Bronk fears Ukrainian efforts to arrange select bases for F-16s (which reportedly have been already underway for months) would simply draw Russian attacks. Because of this he argues the Swedish Gripen could be a more sensible choice, because it was designed from the bottom as much as support operations from primitive, dispersed bases.
Nonetheless, a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter pilot going by callsign Juice disagreed on social media that Ukrainian airfields posed a serious FOD risk, pointing to a 2011 exercise during which F-16s deployed to Ukraine. So far as he’s concerned, the F-16 stays by far essentially the most realistic and effective option.
Should Russia’s war on Ukraine drag on, the introduction of a couple of dozen Ukrainian F-16s in 2024 could disrupt the Russian air force’s risk-averse modus operandi, which recently has come to incorporate lobbing glide bombs at Ukrainian cities at standoff range. But it surely’s debatable whether that may greatly impact the bottom war in Ukraine, as manned aircraft have had relatively limited overall effect attributable to overwhelming ground-based air defenses.
Still, Ukrainian pilots consider they may accomplish so much by combining the guerilla air warfare tactics they’ve relied on to survive with Western fighters with the reach to fight back. The earlier the lengthy strategy of adopting those jets is about in motion, the less time Russia could have to grind on with its current strategy, seemingly geared toward running out Kyiv’s inventory of surface-to-air missiles.