May 19, 2023
Two Ukrainian Pilots, who qualified on the MiG-29 and the Su-27, flew the F-16 Fighting Falcon for the first time. The US Air Force gave them a brief familiarization and then tested on a flight simulator, performing “9 simulator events spanning a total of 11.5 hours.” The event produced an assessment that shocked the leaders of NATO Countries.
00:00 Flight Simulation
04:57 Preparing For Flight
08:02 F-16 Fighting Falcon Cockpit
View Full Assessment https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rTYm…
All of this could’ve been accomplished a half a year ago already, or longer.
It should have been done a year ago.
Aside from riding as a passenger, I have no experience for flying, but I would guess that the pessimistic “assessment” was in the assumption of pilots having to understand the controls and mechanisms of the F-16 in how they differ from the other aircraft the pilots are experienced with. Thing is though, that since those other planes are formerly of the russians, these pilots benefit well from an ironic backfiring of the russian military production. During the Cold War, the soviets did all they could to copy in reverse engineering, or outright steal the plans of American manufacturing, because the USSR’s flawed system hindered innovation and the intellectual genius of efficient invention. I expect the russians copied whatever systems they could of the F-16s, so the controls are probably close enough, perhaps differing more from the language of any letters the pilots would read. Most of Ukraine’s people are galvanized by the defense of their home, and to practice this defense as much as possible.
The russians are simply demanded by their kremlin to steal for putin, and without any real personal reason for being there. I think the Pentagon may be forgetting this.
Ukraine’s soldiers have proven themselves well with the various other military equipment, so I would have been more surprised if the pessimism was more correct.
Thanks for your elaborate comment, sir Mac. But, I find the assessment positive, over all. I think nobody ever expected a 100% performance from pilots that never sat in a fourth generation Western plane (simulator) before and, to top it all, don’t know English. This testing concludes that Ukrainian pilots can finish learning the F-16 in 4 months, instead of the 18 months that Colin Kahl said it would take.
At any rate, it is true that the Ukrainian pilots are driven by a hot desire to do their part to stop and push back the cockroach horde, as you say, galvanized as most Ukrainians are. This helps in learning new systems quickly and efficiently, as we’ve been seeing in every piece of Western equipment that they’ve been given. They haven’t screwed up one time with any of it, as far as I know. I’m sure that we will witness the same thing with the F-16 program.
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