Ukrainian pilots like the F-16

[Gums]

Salute!

A fellow rocket/space nerd asked me about this.... a Tyler site with a report by USAF and more.....

If you look at links, one is actual USAF document.

I would like others to comment in order to save my sanity, but some of the timelines initially used are absoultely ridiculous.

So before I really get cooked up, folks here should know that I helped several dozen pilots learn to fly the Viper, including foreign officers that did not speak English very well. I designed and implemented the first B-course syllabus for nuggets right outta pilot training. I flew with all the NATO folks except the Belgium, then the Israelis and Pakis.

Coments from Viper and Hornet and Eagle instructor pilots that have helped foreign folks should comment here.

The link is easy peasey:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/b ... our-months

Gume sends...

[outlaw162]

Interesting topic.

As an old 162nd TFTG guy and graduate of three formal fighter checkouts (all C/I courses) and two local informal fighter checkouts, I'll throw in my 2 cents.

For blk 10/15s in 1986, for an experienced fighter pilot (500 or more fighter hours), a combined C/I (Conversion/Instructor) course took roughly 6 months, with full air-to-air, air-to-ground training and instructor upgrade and there was still a considerable amount of off-day dead time, ostensibly for CBI and book 'lernin'.

After early initial transition checks, instrument and AAR training was generally combined with some primary employment profile and was minimal anyway, one day and one night, and they're not going to need AAR training anyway. Throw out the air-to-ground and other frills, and how long can it possibly take to teach someone to point and shoot a slammer or 9M/X?

As far as the basics, the aircraft is just easy to handle and easy to employ. Compared to previous fighters, a lot of variation in pilot ability is just taken out of the equation. You can tell a lot about a guy by the way he flies an SFO. A wonderful machine.

With respect to the language concern, there is a minimal basic required threshold of English mastery required plus some flexible hand movement for communicating aviation concepts. Never had a foreign student in a fighter (unless you count a Marine ), but trained a lot of foreigners and once a minimal level of understanding was demonstrated, my best 'not so good at English' Iranian student was just as good as my best Danish or Norwegian student (both of whom probably spoke King's English better than me or is it I). Avoiding language problems just takes more instructor effort, not more time.

I would tend to follow the current 162nd instructors' recommendations. Ultimately, MX is going to be the limiting factor anyway.

As I said, my

[quicksilver]

“Ultimately, MX is going to be the limiting factor anyway.“

x2

[Gums]

Salute!

I guess we early folks were "gifted" or very fast learners or just maybe we understood the "basics" real well.

I went thru checkout with three Norwegians, two Danes and three other Americans. I had not flown a fighter for three years and was forced to go to Holloman and get a landing in a T-38 ( which I had never flown before.) But to be very honest, the Viper was so easy to fly that all of us coming outta a staff job could have flown first mission as easily without that T-38 drill. In fact, the Viper was easier to land , and it only took 10 or 15 seconds to adapt to the "concrete" stick, heh heh.

Our new IP group started in late summer/early fall, like September and we flew our first conversion course studs as IP's in January or so. No IP special training, it was basic monkey see monkey do, and avionics ground school was more important than the flying stuff. Remember, we had no sim until late 1983!!!! We used an avionics thing that ALC had to learn modes and control switches, otherwise it was cockpit time. Our original B-course guys had no sim, and we had to work with the ALC avionics sim for their checkout. However, they were of the Atari generation and adapted quickly to the computers.

oh well, glad to hear from Outlaw, and would like to hear our resident Hornet driver AoA-something or other.......

Gums sends...

[outlaw162]

If you mean 35_AOA, he'd be a very credible guy to comment on the amount of training required to employ the Viper air-to-air only. USN adversary in the F-16A or N, I recall, in addition to Hornet driver. Be very interesting to hear how long that checkout took.

No IP special training

(Reminds me of my Ohio Guard F-100 IP 'upgrade'. Having been turned down by 3 airlines, I was a financially strapped Guard bum with somewhere around a couple hundred hours when the DO said 'ANG needed an F-100 IP at Tulsa to convert from C-124s to Huns, are you interested?' 6 mos or possibly more of active duty orders, cut 1 month duration at a time with TDY per diem and return to Rickenbacker each month for drill weekend pay. I asked what I had to do to become an IP and rich. He said the two-seater was available that afternoon so I could get 3 backseat landings and that would legally do the trick. Throw me in coach. )

[Gums]

Salute!

Somehow I feel that using the basic CCIP or DTOS modes will NOT take hours of training. Good grief, we didn't call it the death dot for no reason, and first pass accuracy was better than the Sluf except for high drag bombs from a coupla hundred feet.

Our B-course Viper troops did just fine without having dropped a lotta bombs in previous planes. Dittto for the nuggets in first Sluf classes at DM, and they didn't have FLIT at Holloman then. Hell, they were getting 10 meter bombs on their first mission at the range. Two of them showed up at Korat about a year later via the AVG ( not the Flying Tiger 'American Volunteer Group' but John Morrisey's flight from the DM wing - Arizona Volunteer Group. HQ wanted extra pilots for us and somehow John talked the staff into sending his whole flight to join our wing. He insisted on keeping them together and they chose my squad to join as "D" flight or something. One of them wound up the AZ Guard chief in the 2000's - Mike Shirra, and I flew a lot with Fred Buhl, who later wound up with the Green Demons at The Beach.

Let's face it, the Uke folks don't need to learn about radar bombing modes, offsets, VIP approaches, setting LGB codes and then using the pod to acquire and designate something. And the beat goes on. They don't need a lot of ACM/ACT stuff with 4 v many or even 2 v many. The Lima is magic, easy to use in the Viper and I can't see these guys in long range setups where the Slammer would be great.

Gums sends...

[jbgator]

Shortly after becoming an IP at Luke in 1986 I was selected to be an academic instructor and flew with and taught Thai pilots who were experienced F-5 pilots. They were poor English speakers (the one good one would reteach the class I had just done during their breaks). They were good pilots but forget instrument procedures (so we gave up on that).

We put them through a standard F-16A OCU TX course (minus instrument rides and check) in the normal timeframe (about 4-5 months) including A/A and A/G with basic Aim-9 and free-fall weapons.

Then I was selected to participate in Peace Carvin 1 (Singapore). These were all experienced F-5, Hunter, and/or A-4 pilots. Their F-16A was unique so I helped build and presented their academics. Their kings English was better than mine. Same AIM-9/FF weapons A/A and A/G and IP upgrade for half of them was done in less than 6 months.

We did an MQT up to 4VX, mostly versus the new F-15Es, and 8 ship strike packages fairly quickly. Within a year all training was done and we were flying all CT. So I have no doubt experienced Ukrainian pilots can be A/A trained in that timeframe but would expect them to also get some basic A/G as it isn't that challenging with medium altitude FF and basic LGB with TGP. The challenge is the avionics and that's what the sims and part task trainers are for.

My B-course, and every one I taught, was 6 months long so 4 months should be enough.

[outlaw162]

From Gums' link:

It is worth noting that the abridged training syllabus would eliminate specific training on U.S. instrument approach procedures, Basic Fighter maneuvers (BFM), Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM), Air-to-Air Refueling (AAR), Close Air Support (CAS), and Basic Surface Attack (BSA). Air-to-air refueling is certainly not applicable to the current situation in Ukraine, where operations are conducted in local airspace, and the country doesn't have suitable tankers anyway.

I may be wrong, but I got the impression that any air-to-ground training was a politically sensitive area and the concept, at least initially, was to provide these resources strictly for home country air defense. Avoiding the appearance of providing any 'offensive' capability that might stir the tactical nuke pot. I would think there will probably be numerous international secret handshakes involved.

When you see the ordnance and support equipment to be ultimately provided that can be employed from the Viper that would indicate the acceptable usage if this deal is done.

[Gums]

Salute!

I gotta see the syllabus. Sheesh, my real world experience with the Vee from 1968 to 1971 tells me a good story.

Our intiial group were very experienced A-1 jocks, and all they ever did was drop dumb bombs using TLBAR ( that looks about right). Good news was they could fly instruments using really primitive gauges, so on a few days we lost some coming home but they recovered at Alex easily. Of course, no A2A stuff for the A-37, and all we had to do was get them used to 100 knots faster for a drop and using the jet engines. So they went home and were IP's!

Then we had the Vietnamese "b-course" folks. Most were "cadets' that were not even officers yet. They had done T-41 time and maybe some Tweet time at Shepperd, then T-28 time at Keesler. We taught them to bomb and strafe and use rockets.... The course went about 3 months. No high-tech avionics crapola, but we emphasized instrument flying due to their arena and because the Dragonfly did not have the endurance of the A-1. One thing was the non-directional beacon approach. Many of their alternates were crude Army camps and had no VOR or TACAN. but it was not hard to use the AM radio band beacons and the associated approach plate to get down to "circling approach' criteria. Oh yeah, "timing" from station crossing, then outbound and a procedure turn back and stay on the altitudes all the way until final approach.

I fear we are cultivating some weak folks and not eliminating them early in the program.

Gums sends...