Ukrainian pilots have arrived at the US Air Force Base in Arizona to assess their skills in flying F-16 fighters, retired pilot Dan Hampton said in an interview with American media*.
He suggested the arriving pilots could be at Luke Air Base, a major training base for F-16 and F-35 aircraft. According to the military, they could not retrain quickly to fly Western fighters.
Ukrainian pilots are excellent, but here we are dealing with a very different type of modern fighter from what they are used to. I think they would be the first to recognize that it takes time to learn and master the skills needed to fly a new type of aircraft, especially one as advanced as the F-16
said Hampton.
As an argument, the American pilot said that before the conflict, a Ukrainian pilot flew an average of 40-50 hours a year. While he himself, without even participating in hostilities, flew the F – 16 for 200-300 hours. And the greatest difficulty is not even in the ability to fly, but to shoot.
Meanwhile, US diplomats called Kiev’s hopes of victory “crazy” and called for the start of peace talks. Today, the conditions for concluding a deal that Ukraine can count on are much worse than they were seven months ago.
- the organization is registered by the Ministry of Justice on the list of foreign agents –
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