/ world today news/ Colonel Litovkin: Ukraine has nowhere to maintain F-16 aircraft
In Ukraine, the adviser to the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Yuriy Ignat, said that serious difficulties are possible with the maintenance of F-16 fighters on Ukrainian territory. This assumption was made on the air of the Rada TV channel.
On Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, we discussed this topic with the military observer, reserve colonel Viktor Litovkin.
WESTERN INSTEAD OF SOVIET
– Ukraine has taken a course of replacing Soviet technology with Western technology, but things are not going smoothly…
– It is clear that a significant part of the Soviet military equipment in the composition of the armed forces of Ukraine was ground during the SVO. Now in Kiev they are constantly talking about the need to supply Western tanks, self-propelled guns, rocket launchers and aircraft. But at the same time, they themselves admit that they do not really know how to maintain or repair them, and in general they often do not know what to do with them, for example, in winter conditions.
– Maybe they’re lying?
– No, they admit the facts. There are sober voices out there. In order to provide quality service for Western machinery and equipment, where everything is in English, German and French, you must at least know these languages well. Moreover, it is a technical, engineering language, because all the instructions are also in German and English.
– But there are also specialists from Germany, Great Britain, Poland…
– Yes, mercenaries work as crew commanders or gunners, for example, on the Patriot air defense system or on the HIMARS MLRS. I do not rule out that the commanders of the Leopard tanks are citizens of Germany or Poland, which also have these tanks in service.
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS WITH THE F-16
– Well, Colonel Yuri Ignat says that it will be difficult to maintain the F-16s…
– Only the lazy didn’t talk about it. The problem with the F-16 is not just the training of Ukrainian pilots. The problem is to find where in Ukraine such a fighter will be able to take off and land later, so that it can first be prepared for take-off and then be serviced after the mission is completed. Well, pilots have to be taught to fight dogfights alone, in pairs, in flight. And it takes at least two or three years to learn.
– And the Ukrainian ace, who will fly on this plane, must also know English technical speech well?
– Yes, English indexing, English technical language – all devices are English indexed.
– What about airport service for American fighter jets?
– The airport must be equipped most seriously. Command tower, a group of radars that will see further than the pilot of the aircraft and transmit their observations to the command tower. And from the control tower they have to control the pilot. At the airport there should be a small plant – a technical and operational unit. There, the planes will be serviced before and after takeoff.
– Will specialists from Great Britain or the USA be discharged?
– There should also be technicians and engineers with English technical and engineering knowledge, so that they know where each spare part is, what the instructions are, what they should use to service it… Well, where can we find such specialists? Yes, these instructions can be translated into Ukrainian or Russian, but the translation does not provide a complete understanding of the whole picture.
– What about the fuel?
– A plant for high purification of jet fuel will be needed. Installations for the production of high-pressure air will be needed. Warehouses are also needed to store air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and much more.
– Is the F-16 in its latest versions advanced and powerful?
– It is good, but it will have to breathe the dust of our Su-35, not to mention the Su-57. Its radar doesn’t see as far as our radars, and its missiles don’t fly as far as our missiles. It is single-engined. It doesn’t have the variable thrust vectoring that our airplanes have.
To perform a maneuver in the air, he must draw half the sky. But ours rotate in one place and can take off or fall from the same trajectory they are on. And this is done to avoid the missiles flying towards our plane.
WHERE WILL THEY BE LOCATED?
– Well, where will the Americans be stationed – on the border with Poland?
– This is a question. And we’re not going to sit and bang our ears while they build these airports. We will hit these airfields and destroy them.
– By the way, Yuri Ignat, who is afraid of maintenance difficulties, also studied at the Lviv Military Institute – like you.
– He has already studied at the Lviv Academy named after Hetman Sagaidachny. He is not of our time, he later mastered the military sciences. The Lviv Military-Political School, which I graduated from, as well as Colonel Viktor Baranets – it ceased to exist in 1991. So it can hardly be said that Ignat and I are from the same school.
Translation: ES
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