The Saga of Ukraine and F-16s: Overture (a.k.a. 'Part 1')

Once upon the time, there was a land beyond, beyond… and….long, long, long after creating some other country nearby (through hiring a group of Wikings to pacify and civilise a gang of barbarians in the wilderness on the other side of the river), all of its princess gathered together and decided to get themselves some F-16s…

And then the proverbial ‘shit hit the fan’…

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….that’s at least how do I think any saga about (Lockheed-Martin… formerly General Dynamics) F-16s in Ukraine should start.

Yes, I’ve already expressed so much critique about this entire affair. Indeed… I think most of you do not know, or do not recall it, but: I did so already well before the Pudding’s all-out invasion, too. Even with hindsight, I have no regrets that I did.

Back then, the reason was the systemic incompetence of the potential donor. Back in around… was it 2017 or 2018? ….the people recommending a ‘re-armament’ of the Ukrainian Air Force and the Air Defence Force (PSZSU; I’m usually ‘shortening’ this to PSU) with ‘300 F-16s’ simply had no idea what a huge undertaking such an enterprise would be.

More recently… sigh… it’s even more systemic incompetence - but then not only on the part of the donors, but almost everybody involved.

More recently, I’ve at least tried to do what I think is within my abilities to dampen both Ukrainian and Western expectations and bring people’s feet back to the ground. But, there’s still so much more, can’t say. Indeed, being fresh from working – very intensively – on two related books, the last three-four months, I cannot but wonder about so many things. Check this…

1.)    In flying – regardless if civilian or military – English language is considered THE language. World-wide. Sure, one can now ‘blame’ the Western imperialism and complain about it and whatever else. But, the cold matter of fact is: at least since the 1950s, English is the international language of communication in flying. This status was cemented in 2008, by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). With this ICAO’s decision, that’s de-facto a ‘law’ in international flying. So much so, even the Russians have accepted it, ever since.

Means: it doesn’t matter where, but, even if you ‘just want to fly civilian sports aircraft’, you have to have at least a minimal command of English language - to communicate with the ground control and other pilots in the air around you.

2.)    Communication between pilots and the ground control is… ‘odd’… to put it mildly. It’s a very special type of extremely compressed, cool and smooth interaction, entirely focused on facts. Its centrepiece is its own, very formal, standard phraseology. With other words: when piloting an aircraft, you do not go ‘online’ – on the radio, of course – and block the frequency by babbling loads of nonsense: you have to express yourself in a very specific, clear way.

What a surprise: this takes time to learn.

3.)    Now let’s get to the PSU and then back to… say… the year 2021, so the youngsters here do not complain I’m going ‘too much into history’…

At the time… sigh… actually, there is no way to stress in what kind of troubles was the PSU at the time:

a)       Pilots were receiving perhaps 40-50 hours of flying time a year. Mind: in the world of pilots, 30-40 hours of flying time a year is considered ‘bare minimum necessary to remain current’ on the aircraft type the pilot in question is usually flying.

b)      Compare these 40-50 hours of flying a year the PSU pilots were receiving, with 80-120 hours of flying a year the pilots of the Russian Air-Space Force (VKS) were receiving – and then,

c)       consider the fact that the latter (i.e. the Russians) are, generally, considered something like ‘incompetents’ in the West, because the ‘norm’ in the air forces there is ‘no less than 160 hours a year, better 200-240, but ideally 300+ hours’.

d)      All of which, essentially, means that the PSU actually run no tactical training at all: it simply didn’t have the money to pay for fuel and spares to train its pilots how to deploy their aircraft in combat; it could only keep them current on the type; the rest of training had to be done in theory and on simulators, on the ground…

e)      Further about 2021: at the time, the PSU pilots were paid so poorly, over 140 have quit the service in the first six months of that year.

f)        Atop of that, those still continuing to serve were burdened by bureaucracy without an end: for every single flight, every pilot had to fill some 50 different forms and reports – because that was the ‘rule’ imposed by the Ukrainian authorities on basis of rules established already during the Soviet times.

When pilots are receiving chronically too little training, they are making mistakes. This Su-27 was damaged in 2016, when its pilot exceeded the taxiing speed, and rolled off the runway… (i.e. the pilot didn’t even try to take off.) The jet ended undergoiong months-long repairs… In another case, in late 2018, a highly-experienced Su-27-pilot killed himself and a visiting US Air Force officer when violating rules and doing barrel rolls at much too low altitude…

And now it comes: nevertheless, though faithfully along best traditions of the Soviet times, nobody in the PSU was flying without a full day of ‘preparations’ on the ground. Means: even pilots lucky enough to fly these 40-50 hours a year, couldn’t fly more often than 2, at most 3 days a week. While, when flying, especially the ‘old guard’ flying Su-27s was excelling at crashing their jets – whether into the public at different air shows, or while ‘demonstrating’ the type to their US Air Force visitors – or with ruining engines by collecting road signs, and different other forms of testosterone-motivated bravado.

A ‘famous’ photo from August 2020, when a Su-27 collected two road signs while practicing landings on a stretch of highway in the Rivne Oblast. ‘Good’ that somebody from the command of the 39th Brigade ‘properly checked’ the stretch of the road in question, and that before initiating that exercise…

And now think of the following: DESPITE thus having plenty of time (and that over just some 20+ years since independence), and despite ‘discussing’ and ‘planning’ (read: daydreaming) about acquiring Western-made aircraft, helicopters and whatever other kind of equipment, even pretending to be a ‘NATO-style air force’, not one commander of any of PSU’s brigades is known to have organised English lessons for his airmen/women. Not one. In digits: 0.

Plus, gauging by what one gets to hear – both from Ukraine and abroad – whenever some group of PSU officers was sent to tour one or another NATO air forces or similar, young ladies, booze, and shopping were of higher interest than anything related to ‘military sciences’.

What a surprise then, when all of this ‘returns like a boomerang’, and hits the entire force, squarely, across the face - in form of there being massive problems just with,

a)       finding enough PSU’s pilots fluent enough in English so to start their conversion courses to F-16s ‘already’ after a ‘minimal English-language course’ (say: 3-6 months); and then

b)      finding enough cadets fluent enough in English to be sent for basic/elementary- and then advanced flight training in the West.

Now, sure: the last year, some 16-20 Ukrainian pilots have started their conversion courses to F-16s. However, they didn’t travel West and then started learning how to fly F-16s. Nope: one group started its conversion courses with… ‘ho-hum’ …’advanced’ English-language courses first…the other (see: majority) with ‘basic’ English-language course as first. I.e. they first had to learn English, and then ‘pilot English’, before they could start their actual training on F-16s.

Meanwhile, and separately from the process of qualified pilots undergoing English-language courses, another group of cadets – cadets: no qualified pilots - started their elementary flight training in the UK, France, etc.

(Of course, there is no doubt that this is the usual practice for all the ‘foreign customers’: every foreign air force buying US- or European-made aircraft, is first sending its airmen to learn English. I.e. every single conversion course - no matter if for F-15s, or F-16s, or F-35s - is, de-facto, starting with pilots and ground personnel undergoing English-language courses. These are always adapted to their skills.

Point is: in the case of a country at war since 2014, one could expect the responsible commanders to think in advance and do so on time…

Ah well…)

Is everything clear?

Like a glass of marmelade, I guess. Because: all of this is ‘still just the start’.

Now think about how long is it going to take to convert enough Ukrainian ground crews to English-language maintenance of F-16s… because - now: another surprise - all the technical documentation of their future aircraft, and all the operator’s manuals are in English, too. And so are all the maintenance stencils applied to the skin of the aircraft they’re about to start operating..

….and then, sometimes in the future: to convert the entire PSU to English….?

….with which we… erm… the PSU, actually: is just starting to scratch the surface. Because, and exactly as explained about a year ago, even once one has pilots and ground personnel converted to fly and maintain F-16s, the serious business of getting the jet into combat is only beginning.

Because (yet another ‘super-surprise'!): one needs the infra-structure to base and maintain F-16s in Ukraine. Maintenance facilities and tools for maintenance - maintenance of the airframe, hydraulics, engines, avionics, weaponry… and (well-maintained) runways suitable for their operations…

Who would have ever thought, eh?

At least within the PSU: nobody. Therefore, it’s only now, in July 2024, a month after ‘F-16s are going to reach Ukraine by June 2024’, that people there are ‘scrambling’ to get that infrastructure prepared.

….which is the third ‘major’ reason why there are still no F-16s operational in Ukraine – in addition to the second (‘that’ issue with English language).

Erm… what was the first, you ask?

Oh, my dear: that’s the usual Zombie Idiots in the West.

Where all the possible politicians were ‘pledging’ dozens of F-16s for Ukraine…. just nobody came to the idea to send own troops to the country, check the local facilities and help the PSU prepare the necessary infrastructure to support the type once it would be delivered. Or to say to the PSU: ‘come on, get your stuff together, start teaching English to your people’. And to do so on time.

Or, if anybody did so, then the PSU proved exceptionally- (through traditionally?), ‘advice resistant’ in this regards? Probably because, you know, ‘ah, just give us F-16s, we’re going to do the rest’… because, and as everybody knows, but nobody would come to the idea: introducing F-16s to service is as easy as training ZSU’s troops to use AR-15 assault rifles, right?

…and, when that was not the issue, then how many and what F-16s is who going to provide, and when. Because, plenty of super-smart Westerners were ‘pledging’, but very few actually did anything in this regards.

….and even once they did, then they had to ask for permission from the USA to actually deliver the aircraft to Ukraine. With which they meant: actually permit their use for training of Ukrainian pilots and ground personnel somewhere outside Ukraine.

…the permission for their actual deployment in Ukraine, and then their actual combat deployment against Pudding’s hordes - is a separate issue, and thus had to be separately granted by the Trio Fantasticus in Washington (see: Biden-Blinken-Sullivan).

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With other words: already by the end of its ‘Overture’, this saga is one of so much mass-incompetence – and that by almost everybody involved (bar poor NATO instructors trying to teach Ukrainians… in English, in flying in English, and in flying F-16s…) that one can only scream, yell and cry.

But, that’s just the beginning…

(…to be continued…)