Maybe the Ukrainian pilots should take the full year to complete their training. I appreciate the fact that they need the Vipers for air support, but rushed training can often be a recipe for disaster. The last thing Ukraine needs is to have a rash of crashes due to inadequate or incomplete training. Those who fly them will tell you that the F-16 can be a handful for even experienced pilots.
They would definitely have been better served when their training would have started a year earlier, but as they are currently being bombed to pieces I understand their decision. I still consider the donation of our surplus F16’s to Ukraine as one of my best spent tax dollars.
I served on the F-16 European Test & Evaluation team testing those airplanes in the European operating environment 45 years ago. The jets subsequently produced there are the very airplanes now being donated to Ukraine. They’ve reached the end of their service lives and are now being replaced by F-35’s. Good to see that they’re being repurposed in support of the beleaguered Ukrainians. The F-16 is an inherently unstable airplane that takes a bit of training but – in the end – it is an airplane like many of the other’s they’re flying. There’s likely more to this story?
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Yep … I was gonna say that but didn’t. That period seems like just yesterday in my mind. I think of that time as one of the very high points in my USAF career. I met up with my Commander at Airventure 2023 … we both feel that way.