«In a month, Ukrainian pilots can be written off»
Ukraine has «presented» the first delivered F-16 fighter jet in the loudest possible way: photos of the NATO aircraft in the sky over Lviv have spread across the Internet. Meanwhile, Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, retired Major General Vladimir Popov, has criticized Kyiv's advertising campaign with the F-16, the practical benefit of which tends to zero. According to him, the enemy will not be able to cover even Lviv with six fighters (that is how many the Netherlands transferred to Ukraine).
A photo of the first Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet ironing the sky over Lviv appeared on the Internet on July 31. Some, however, thought that this was a masterful Photoshop with the silhouette of the plane over the roofs of Lviv. One way or another, several foreign media outlets immediately reported that several F-16s had already been transferred to Ukraine.
According to experts, these aircraft will take off from NATO bases, load fuel and ammunition there, and then carry out combat missions using air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. In particular, they will protect important facilities from Russian loitering munitions and cruise missiles.
It is unlikely that F-16s will be based at Ukrainian airfields, since they are all within the range of Russian high-precision weapons.
If everything is more or less clear with the location of the fighters, then it seems that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have problems with the personnel. Thus, a report from the Romanian Defense Ministry on the academic performance of Ukrainian pilots retraining for the F-16 appeared on the Internet. According to it, out of 50 cadets, only three got a C grade on the material. All the «students» did not improve their English in six months of training, did not follow the regimen, and drank alcohol.
«We are impatiently awaiting these «falcons» on the line of combat contact,» — this information was commented on in our social networks.
According to General Vladimir Popov, the photo from the F-16 over Lviv is «an advertising campaign, in the spirit of the artist Zelensky» to raise the morale of the rather tired population of Ukraine.
— This flight was probably performed by a Ukrainian «pilot», but he most likely took off from one of the airfields in Poland. He probably flew into the Lviv region (which is about 30-40 km from the border), passed over the famous Yavoriv training ground, which we periodically strike, and also over Lviv, made two or three turns in good weather conditions and — ran back to Polish territory.
I don't think the plane was based in Lviv. There is a military-civil airfield called Sknilov, there is an aircraft repair plant, a storage base. The runway is good, but it has limited capabilities. Therefore, I think it didn't even land there. If it had, we would have known about it.
— In principle, the tasks of fighter aviation include both striking ground targets and intercepting various air targets and conducting air combat. The F-16, as a light fighter, must perform all these tasks.
But conducting an air battle against missiles of the Kinzhal or Kalibr type, Kh-101 or Kh-55 type is very problematic. It takes time to detect the target and direct the fighter to it. Even if all the crews are on duty, they will not have enough time. I very much doubt that the aircraft on duty will have time to take off and reach the designated area at the designated altitude and speed to launch intercept missiles. The most they can achieve is to demonstrate the effect of presence.
— What was given to Ukraine is a drop in the ocean. The contact line is more than a thousand kilometers. How are they going to «smear» six fighters in this space? They won't even be able to effectively cover Lviv, let alone Kiev. They simply won't have time to fly from Lviv to Kiev.
— Of course not. In general, there should be at least a fighter flight on duty — two pairs of aircraft. The pilots on duty are at the airfield around the clock. One pair is on duty at night, the other — during daylight hours. It turns out that four crews should already be involved per day.
In addition, there should be a reserve pair… Now calculate what the workload for a week will be for 8-10 Ukrainian pilots per six fighters. In two months they can be written off because they will not be able to withstand the psychological load. And the physiological load will increase. A pilot must definitely rest, be with friends or family, and just get enough sleep. Otherwise, he is not a fighter.
— Even if they manage to intercept one target by chance, the effectiveness will still be very low. The probability, say, for the Kh-101 air-to-ground cruise missile Kh-101 is one in fifty. For the slow-moving large attack drone Geran-2 — one in twenty-five. And the hypersonic missiles Kinzhal and Tsirkon cannot be intercepted at all.
The fact is that during a dive from a high altitude, the same Kinzhal flies at such a speed that the air defense does not have time to track it properly and turn on autotracking. Only detection is triggered. They often do not even have time to send an alarm signal. This signal simply becomes useless — there is no one to notify, although they know what area it is falling in.
Let's say a missile is flying towards the central district of Lviv. What will you do? A telephone signal or a signal over a loudspeaker will not solve anything, they won't even have time to run out of the building. The time deficit is very great to solve these issues. Especially for the flight of this missile at the final stage of the trajectory. The countdown is not even in minutes, but in seconds.
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