07-03-2023, 07:46 AM
NATO/the West is in the process of repeating a monumental error. It appears that the "decision" has been reached to provide F-16s to Ukraine, although the timeline and lots of other "details" are still TBD. At the same time, the West has drug it's feet on starting pilot training. This pilot training is currently targeted to occur in Europe. A significant part of such training is initially classroom work followed by simulators. That can take place virtually anywhere the equipment exists and at any time. However, in order to actually fly the aircraft, you have to do exactly that, and you need to do it "a lot", especially if you are on an accelerated training schedule.
The weather in Europe right now is pretty good and you could do quite a bit of flying. Unfortunately, there are no Ukrainian F-16 students that far advanced in the program to take advantage of this good weather. Even if the classes started today, it would probably be the end of August at the earliest before the students would be even vaguely ready for high-intensity flight training. That is about the time the weather in Europe starts to become an issue, and it just gets worse from there. The West is missing another "window". While you can fly in Europe in the winter, it isn't true you can fly every day. It is also true (based on past experience) that student pilots in Europe (actually everywhere) have a much higher accident rate in bad weather. Some air-to-air training requires the ability to see the other aircraft. In bad weather, you can't. There are just all kinds of constraints on what is possible training-wise in the European winter months.
For many decades, Germany in particular and other NATO nations to a lesser extent maintained significant training locations in the US because the weather was better. They could train almost every day even in the depths of winter. That is no longer the case, as the end of the cold war removed the need for intense pilot training (or so it was thought). NATO missed the opportunity to train pilots to be ready for the current Ukrainian offensive by not starting training on a contingency basis a year (or more) ago. NATO is in the process of repeating the mistake.
The weather in Europe right now is pretty good and you could do quite a bit of flying. Unfortunately, there are no Ukrainian F-16 students that far advanced in the program to take advantage of this good weather. Even if the classes started today, it would probably be the end of August at the earliest before the students would be even vaguely ready for high-intensity flight training. That is about the time the weather in Europe starts to become an issue, and it just gets worse from there. The West is missing another "window". While you can fly in Europe in the winter, it isn't true you can fly every day. It is also true (based on past experience) that student pilots in Europe (actually everywhere) have a much higher accident rate in bad weather. Some air-to-air training requires the ability to see the other aircraft. In bad weather, you can't. There are just all kinds of constraints on what is possible training-wise in the European winter months.
For many decades, Germany in particular and other NATO nations to a lesser extent maintained significant training locations in the US because the weather was better. They could train almost every day even in the depths of winter. That is no longer the case, as the end of the cold war removed the need for intense pilot training (or so it was thought). NATO missed the opportunity to train pilots to be ready for the current Ukrainian offensive by not starting training on a contingency basis a year (or more) ago. NATO is in the process of repeating the mistake.