With F-16s, Ukraine Could Grow Its Air Force By Half

The Netherlands and the United Kingdom back in May announced a new initiative to train Ukrainian pilots to fly Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters.

The training program all but guaranteed at least one of Ukraine’s foreign allies would donate surplus F-16s to the war effort. The question was—which? And how many of the nimble, supersonic F-16s would it take to make a difference in Russia’s war on Ukraine?

Three months later, we can answer both questions. As predicted, the Dutch and Danish governments both have pledged to Ukraine many of the F-16s their air forces are putting into storage as new Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters gradually replace them.

These F-16s should extend a profound shift in the way Ukraine deploys air power—a shift toward long-range strikes that lately has added years to the average life-expectancy of Ukrainian air force pilots. The American-designed planes also could grow the Ukrainian air force by half.

The Dutch air force will hand over to the Ukrainian air force 42 F-16A/B Mid-Life Update jets. The Danish air force will transfer an additional 19 F-16A/B MLUs. All 61 F-16s should arrive in Ukraine by early next year.

It might take a while to train pilots. The Ukrainian government has tapped 32 pilots for the first round of F-16 training. Four are proficient in English, a prerequisite for NATO flight training. The other 28 are learning the language in the United Kingdom.

“Then they’re going to get a little bit more training on propellers, and then go down to France and fly in the Alpha Jet [training plane] for a little bit,“ Gen. James Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces-Africa, told the Defense Writer’s Group. “That all is going to take time.”

The F-16s aren’t new. The airframes date from the 1980s. But their avionics and sensors are modern. Most importantly, the F-16s are fully compatible with an array of modern Western munitions.

The Ukrainian air force already has armed some of its ex-Soviet fighters and bombers with American-, British- and French-made munitions, including AGM-88 anti-radar missiles, GPS-guided glide bombs and cruise missiles. Ukrainian pilots increasingly launch their weapons while flying on the Ukrainian side of the front line, thus avoiding all but the longest-range Russian surface-to-air missiles.

Shifting to long-range attacks, the Ukrainian air force sharply has cut its loss rate. The air force wrote off no fewer than 62 fixed-wing aircraft in 2022; so far in 2023, it has lost seven. Reequipping with F-16s should further reduce the losses.

Sixty-one F-16s is enough F-16s to replace around half of the Ukrainian air force’s front-line inventory of 125 or so Cold War-vintage Mikoyan MiG-29s, Sukhoi Su-24s, Sukhoi Su-25s and Sukhoi Su-27s. While the Ukrainians have lost nearly 70 jets since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 18 months ago, Kyiv’s regiments have made good their losses through donations and the restoration of grounded airframes.

Ukraine has as many warplanes now as it did in February 2022, so as F-16s and F-16 pilots begin arriving, Kyiv has two choices. It can replace half its aging Soviet-era jets, or it can grow its air force by half.