Ukrainian F-16 pilots' training delayed till September, both ace and young pilots will be trained

The Ukrainian Air Force has updated the start date of training for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets. The first group of pilots is expected to depart in late summer, Defense Express reports.

"The end of summer is the starting point when the process of sending the first group of our pilots will begin. So far, the training is planned for Europe, including Denmark and possibly other countries that have training facilities for our specialists," said Yuriy Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command.

To recap, in mid-July, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the start of the drills had been postponed from June to at least August: "the training should start somewhere in August, possibly in early September".

But now, apparently, we are finally talking about September. However, the rather broad deadline for completing the training which was announced earlier - the first quarter of 2024 - remains unchanged.

The reasons for the delay, as previously reported, are not political, but organizational aspects. There is a banal issue of training center capacity, and Ukrainian pilots had to be squeezed into the training schedule of F-16 operators. This is a rather global problem that Romania has already faced.

Yuriy Ihnat also added extremely important information about the progress of the training. In particular, all pilots will be divided into groups according to their experience. Ukrainian pilots with significant flight time and experience will be trained on the F-16 immediately. And young pilots will first undergo basic training in countries such as the UK.

Although the British Royal Air Force does not have F-16s in service, they can provide basic training on jet trainers, which lasts several months before a pilot sits at the controls of a real fighter jet.

Thus, it is possible that the training period for Ukrainian experienced pilots will still be shorter than the general basic programme. This means that the first F-16s could be delivered much sooner.

However, in addition to the pilots and even technicians, the task of creating the entire ground infrastructure for the new aircraft must be solved in parallel.

• On July 1, President Zelenskyy mentioned that the schedule for training Ukrainian pilots on Western F-16 fighter jets has not been finalized yet, and some foreign partners are causing delays.

• On July 6, media reported that Romania would become a base for training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.

• On July 11, Ukraine agreed to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 combat aircraft with France. On the same day, Ukraine signed a memorandum with 11 partner countries to create a coalition to train pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

• Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says that the first F-16 fighter jets are likely to fly in Ukraine's skies by the end of March 2024.