How Ukraine’s new ‘super fun’ F-16s will help hold back Russia

F-16 fighter jets

Volodymyr Zelensky could hardly contain his excitement and broke into a wide grin as he lowered himself into the cockpit of the F-16 jet fighter.

His visit to a Danish air base in August was the culmination of a globe-trotting publicity campaign that finally convinced the West to send Kyiv dozens of the advanced warplanes.

The jets have been the subject of feverish debate in defence circles, with some holding them up as potential war-winners. This year, the first of them will arrive in Ukraine.

“All Ukrainians are waiting for the day when the first Ukrainian F-16s appear in our skies and strengthen the defence of our cities and communities,” Mr Zelensky said on Friday as he shared footage of Ukrainian F-16 pilots in training in Denmark.

“It is really a super fun jet to fly,” said one Ukrainian pilot, identified only by his callsign “Moonfish”. “I’m not saying that the MiG that I flew before is super boring, but the F-16 is definitely more agile. It feels like the jet wants you to fly it more aggressively.”

Volodymyr Zelensky grins as he sits in the cockpit of an F-16 fighter jet – MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/AFP

But with Russian forces once again advancing along the length of the front line, in the words of Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former army chief, the long-sought F-16s are not the “silver bullet” the country is searching for.

Instead, experts on aerial warfare, including one of the few Western pilots who have flown both the F-16 and its Russian counterparts, say they may not be the decisive advantage many have been hoping for but will nevertheless help Kyiv’s air force go toe to toe with Russia in the skies over Ukraine.

Keeping Ukraine in the air war

Perhaps the greatest impact the F-16 could have is simply keeping Ukraine’s air force in the war.

Eventually, Ukraine’s fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29s and Su-24s, which carry the British Storm Shadows, will succumb to the ongoing conflict.

Some jets will be shot down by Russia. Others will be left grounded because of the lack of spare parts from Moscow-controlled firms to patch up wear and damage.

Kyiv must transition to Western aircraft if its air force is to have any chance of survival as the war drags on.

“It’s about sustainability. In order to exist as an air force in the medium term, Ukraine will have to transfer onto a Western jet,” said Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for air power at the Royal United Services Institute. “They can no longer access maintenance and service from the Russian companies, such as Sukhoi.”

The F-16 is by no means a long-term solution for Ukraine. Some of the jets being offered to Kyiv are around 40 years old – roughly the same age as many of its MiG-29s.

There are questions over how long their more delicate airframes will last under the stress of constant sorties. But in the medium-term at least, the jets offer Ukraine’s air force a lifeline.

Survivability

Ukraine is not only short of aircraft, it also needs trained pilots to fly them.

Importantly, the F-16s will offer much greater survivability to the Ukrainian pilots, compared to their Soviet-era counterparts.

While MiG-29s have radars that are capable of focusing on a single target, the F-16 offers pilots far more situational awareness – vital if they are to keep an eye out for threats.

“Soviet pattern radar warning receivers are very basic and don’t give pilots much information about threats that are targeting them,” said Prof Bronk.

The Western jet is capable of tracking multiple targets, delivering the pilot more information about when they are being targeted or even locked on to by an enemy weapons system, he said.

The onboard systems can identify the most dangerous threat to the aircraft and feed back to the pilot to improve decision-making.

“The Western fighter pilot is given the tools to make autonomous decisions, the Soviet fighter pilot was not given those tools,” said Lt Col Fred “Spanky” Clifton, a retired US air force pilot who has flown both the F-16 and MiG-29.

The F-16’s deadly arsenal

In theory, the advanced weapons donated by Ukraine’s allies will work better when fired from an F-16.

“It will be much easier to integrate a whole host of weapons,” said Prof Bronk.

When the United States agreed to its allies donating F-16s, it also signed off on export declarations for shipments of AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) to be used with the jets.

The missiles will give Ukraine’s air force the ability to engage in what is known as beyond visual range aerial combat for the first time.

With the combination of F-16 and AMRAAMs, Ukrainian pilots will be able to lock on to a distant target that they may not even be able to see – something their Russian adversaries have been able to do since the beginning of the war.

Further increasing survivability, the AMRAAMs are a “fire and forget” system, meaning the Ukrainians can launch a missile and manoeuvre to safety, leaving the weapon to guide itself to the target autonomously.

The version of the missiles donated to Ukraine will have a range of up to 110 miles, according to Yuri Inhat, a spokesman for Kyiv’s air force.

“But there will be limitations around configuration and also limitations on what the US will and will not authorise in terms of export for weapons,” said Prof Bronk.

Doing more, with less

The Nato-standard fighter is designed to give more functionality to the pilot with fewer controls.

An F-16 can engage a target without the pilot having to remove their hands from the control stick or throttle.

In comparison, the same task in a MiG-29 is a much more complicated process, using a number of switches and controls around the cockpit.

But mastering the Western aircraft’s streamlined controls is no easy feat.

“Once you get it, it’s easier to maintain tactical awareness,” Professor Bronk said. “Different Ukrainian pilots will adapt to Western systems and tactics at different paces,” he added.

Even the best MiG-29 pilots had struggled to make the transition to the F-16, he said. “They couldn’t unlearn what they had spent a career getting good at, while new pilots picked it up easier learning from scratch.”

The F-16’s Achilles’ heel?

One major factor that will limit the impact of the F-16s on the war is the large numbers of Russian surface to air missiles on the battlefield, including both S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems, which can strike targets hundreds of miles away.

Security sources describe the threat of Russian SAMs as “pretty ugly”, without taking into account smaller, more mobile systems also deployed by Moscow’s forces on the ground.

“If it were just an air war the F-16 would be a huge step up, but given the surface-based threats the situation becomes more complicated,” said Lt Col Clifton.

But perhaps the greatest challenge for Ukraine will be putting the infrastructure in place to fly the F-16, which is designed to operate from extremely smooth, clean runways.

Ukraine’s airstrips will have to be constantly swept for debris, in case it is sucked into the aircraft’s air intakes, which unlike Soviet aircraft aren’t designed with in-built protections.

Kyiv will also have to create enough airfields to ensure it can move the jets around the country to prevent them being found and targeted by Russian missile strikes.

“The F-16 is going to be a big improvement over the Russian Su-27s and MiG-29s and make the Ukrainian fighter pilots more lethal, but I’m not convinced the F-16 will be a game-changer,” he concluded.

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