The F-16 fighter jet: ‘super fun’ and more advanced, but not a silver bullet against Russia

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

His visit to a Danish air base in August was the culmination of a globe-trotting publicity campaign which 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,” Mr Zelensky said on Friday as he shared footage of Ukrainian pilots 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.”

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 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.

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 eventually 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.

“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.

Ukraine is not only short of aircraft, it also needs highly trained pilots to fly them. The F-16s will offer greater survivability to the pilots in them, compared to Soviet-era jets. While MiG-29s have radars that can focus on a single target, the F-16 offers pilots more situational awareness, vital to keeping 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 F-16 is capable of tracking multiple targets, delivering the pilot more information about when they are being targeted or even locked onto by an enemy, 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.

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 allies donating F-16s, it also signed off on shipments of AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to be used with the jets. The combination will enable Ukrainian pilots to lock on to a distant target that they may not even be able to see –

something the Russians have been able to do since the start of the war.

The AMRAAMs are also a “fire and forget” system, meaning the pilot can launch a missile and manoeuvre to safety, leaving the weapon to guide itself autonomously. 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 Prof Bonk said: “Different Ukrainian pilots will adapt to Western systems and tactics at different paces.” Even the best pilots have struggled to make the transition, he added.

One factor that will limit the impact of the F-16s is the large numbers of Russian surface-to-air missiles, including both S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft systems which can strike targets hundreds of miles away. “If it were just an air war the F-16 would be a huge step up, but given the surfacebased 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, in case debris is sucked into the air intakes, which, unlike Soviet aircraft, aren’t designed with in-built protections. Kyiv will also have to create enough airfields to ensure jets can move around to prevent them being targeted by Russia.

“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 gamechanger,” he concluded.