The War ZoneAn official U.S. Air Force assessment on training Ukrainian pilots has leaked as pressure builds to send Western fighter jets to Ukraine.
Air National GuardUkrainian fighter pilots could be trained in the basic operations of American-made F‑16 Viper fighter jets in around four months, according to a U.S. Air Force assessment conducted earlier this year. The disclosure of these findings comes as pressure builds on the U.S. government to approve the transfer of Vipers to the Ukrainian Air Force. Four months for a very basic F‑16 skill set is very close to the training schedule estimates that F‑16 pilots provided to The War Zone for a feature published back in February. Exactly how relevant that minimal skill set would be over the battlefield is still a question that needs to be answered.An F‑16C Viper fighter jet assigned to the Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing. The 162nd was the unit that oversaw the assessment of two Ukrainian pilots earlier this year. Air National Guard Yahoo News was the first to report on the Baseline Pilot Assessment (BPA) that the Air Force conducted involving the pair of Ukrainian fliers this past Spring after obtaining a copy of the final report. The document says it is releasable outside of the U.S. government only to approved individuals from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and the Netherlands. With the exception of Great Britain, all of these countries are F‑16 operators. The Ukrainian pilots who took part in the BPA are not named, but are identified in the report as a Su-27 Flanker pilot holding the rank of Captain and a Major primarily flying the MiG-29 Fulcrum. Soviet-designed Su-27s and MiG-29s make up the bulk of the Ukrainian Air Force’s current tactical combat jet fleets.A Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker fighter jet photographed back in 2008. Oleg V. Belyakov/Wikimedia Commons A picture of a Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jet from the current conflict provided to The War Zone by a Ukrainian pilot known by his callsign Juice. Juice/Ukrainian Air Force The Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing hosted the BPA, which was conducted entirely using unspecified simulators on the ground and with minimal direction, at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona. The assessment ran from February 27 to March 10, 2023. The report notes that the original plan had been to do this in December 2022, but that U.S. government funding issues forced its rescheduling. Reports had emerged in March that this assessment was occurring, but details were limited at that time.Four unnamed instructor pilots from the 162nd Wing – three majors and a lieutenant colonel – observed the simulator sessions and gave their feedback. To give a sense of the qualifications of these individuals, the least experienced of them was a major with four years’ worth of experience at an F‑16 formal training unit, or FTU, and 1,500 hours of flying time in Vipers personally, according to the report. The lieutenant colonel had the most experience, with more than six years at an FTU and 2,300 hours of F‑16 flying time.The BPA had the following three main objectives, according to the report:“Observe Ukrainian pilots to establish a baseline assessment of skills and determine feasibility of training on Western 4th generation fighter aircraft.”“Observe Ukrainian pilots to aid in development of a specialized training syllabus to determine an accurate training timeline to transition to Western fighter aircraft.”“Informally assess English language aptitude of Ukrainian pilots.“A pilot sits inside an F‑16 simulator. CAE After the evaluation, which consisted of nine separate simulator events with a total time of 11 and a half hours, the F‑16 instructor pilots concluded that the two Ukrainians had demonstrated above-average skill progression. This included demonstrated ability in the simulator “to successfully land the aircraft from an overhead simulated flameout (SFO) pattern …