It is an announcement described as “historic” by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president logically welcomed the green light granted by the United States regarding the delivery of F-16 fighter planes to kyiv. Concretely, Washington authorizes all the countries holding this type of device to donate it to Ukraine, still at war against Russia. However, it is unlikely that these machines will crisscross the Ukrainian sky in the immediate future.
Because now, the ball is in the camp of the allies of kyiv, owners of F-16 planes. It is up to them to agree or not to deliver part of their fleet to Ukraine. For the time being, in Europe, only the Netherlands have announced that they want to supply it. Denmark also said it would help train Ukrainian pilots on this model.
Four months to train pilots and up to six for mechanics
Training, precisely, which will require a lot of time because these pilots will have to learn to fly with American aircraft. According to an initial assessment, carried out by the United States Air Force, it would take at least four months of intensive training given to the best Ukrainian pilots to be operational.
Time, it may take even more to train the mechanics, says General Patrick Dutartre, a former fighter pilot in the French Air Force. “A typical fighter squadron, for example in France, is 150 people, 15 planes, 20 pilots and 130 mechanics. more sophisticated, you still have to add 200 mechanics for 40 planes, which means that there are about 600 mechanics to be trained in parallel on the maintenance in operational condition and the maintenance of the plane and any repairs”. To achieve this, it takes between four and six months, in the best case. Especially since Western countries have still not determined the modalities of these trainings.