Ukraine says its pilots could be ready to fly F-16s in four months

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May 19. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuri Ignat, has reported that, based on the estimates of their American counterparts, it would take Ukrainian pilots about four months to master the handling of Kiev’s long-awaited F fighters. -16.

“Our pilots have been evaluated, they are combat pilots, with experience and many flight hours,” Ignat described two of the Ukrainian aviators who have been trained in handling these combat aircraft in the United States.

“Currently all pilots in combat conditions perform extremely difficult tasks, do heroic things on old equipment, which in some cases are twice as old as the pilots themselves,” he stressed during an intervention this Friday on Ukrainian television.

Ignat explained that after these training sessions, it is estimated that the Ukrainian pilots would be able to master “Western technology” in about four months. “Each pilot has his own individual training, each pilot will have an individual program (…), the pilots are already here preparing themselves, studying some theoretical things and consequently taking big steps,” he said.

“Let’s not forget the engineers and control officers,” said Ignat, who has been convinced that the use of these combat aircraft can profoundly change the fate of war. That is why he hopes that the “European family” will also participate in the training of Ukrainian pilots.

The supply of F-16s is now kyiv’s main demand from its Western partners, after protesting the obsolescence of Soviet-made MiG-29s ceded by Poland and Slovakia. Ukraine is confident that the initial reluctance, as happened with the German Leopard tanks, will finally lead to the long-awaited delivery of these devices.