from
https://www.businessinsider.com/former-f-16-pilot-aircraft-no-fighting-chance-over-ukraine-2023-5

Former F-16 pilot says he would not want to fly missions over Ukraine
right now, arguing 'there is no fighting chance'

Jake Epstein May 3, 2023, 2:53 PM PDT
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon from the the 408th Fighter
Squadron, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, flies a training sortie Sept.
9, 2015, over Germany.
A US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon in a training sortie in Germany on
September 9, 2015. US Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jason Robertson/Released
Ukraine has repeatedly asked the US for fourth-generation fighter jets,
like the F-16.
But air-combat experts have said that these aircraft would have little
battlefield impact.
A former F-16 pilot said these jets don't have a fighting chance given
Russia's air-defense systems.

Ukrainian officials have long pressed their Western military backers to
send them modern fighter jets, arguing Kyiv needs the airpower to best
the invading Russian forces. While some in the West agree, others say
fighter aircraft like the ones Ukraine wants wouldn't stand a chance in
the current threat environment.

There have been repeated requests for the delivery of American-made
F-16s, leading to debates about how effective the fourth-generation
planes would be in the skies. One former F-16 pilot told Insider he
wouldn't want to fly missions over Ukraine right now, saying that the
aircraft can't outmatch Russia's air-defense systems.

Fourth-generation fighters "have no business in a modern-day
battlefield," John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the US Air Force, told
Insider in a recent interview.

Since the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022,
Ukraine has sought fighter jets from its Western allies to supplement
its diminishing fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters, which
arguably cannot compete against Russia's superior air force.

Air National Guard crews standing around a Ukraine F-16 fighter jet on a
runway.
California and Alabama Air National Guard crews replacing an Air Data
Controller on an F-16 at Mirgorod Air Base on July 25, 2011. US Air
Force/Tech. Sgt. Charles Vaughn
Kyiv has asked Washington on numerous occasions for American fighter
jets like F-15s, F/A-18s, and F-16s, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of
defense for policy, told Congress in late February, but the Biden
administration has punted on the request, insisting that aircraft like
the F-16 are not what Ukraine needs.

Some lawmakers and military officials have pressed the Pentagon to send
F-16s to Ukraine, and one retired US Air Force colonel said he believed
the jets would help give Ukraine an edge over Russia above the battlefield.

But other air-warfare experts and officials have said that providing
F-16s to Ukraine would be too much of a heavy lift for Kyiv's military,
arguing that in addition to the demands of establishing key maintenance
and support facilities, these fighter jets would struggle to survive in
the present threat environment and provide little impact on the grinding
conflict.

As Insider previously reported, Gen. James Hecker, the commander of US
Air Forces in Europe, said earlier this year that jets just aren't
needed right now. "The Russian, as well as the Ukrainian success in
integrated air and missile defense, have made much of those aircraft
worthless," he added.

F-16 fighters would likely be outmatched by Russian air-defense systems
The airspace above Ukraine remains contested after 14 months of war. But
Russia has enjoyed a numerically larger air force, stronger technical
capabilities in its fighter jets, and long-range surface-to-air missile
systems, according to a recent report on Russian airpower published by
the Center for Naval Analyses.

The capable SAM systems "have proven extremely lethal" against Ukrainian
aircraft and are the "primary killer" of Ukrainian jets, helicopters,
and drones, the report notes.

A group of people standing in front of a Ukraine Air Force MiG-29 on a
runway with a red stop sign off to the right.
A Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29 at a military airbase in Ukraine on
November 23, 2016. Danil Shamkin/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Fourth- and fourth-plus-generation fighter jets — like the F-16 — that
lack stealth features are "completely outmatched in high-threat
environments" because of advanced air-defense systems like Russia's
S-400, argued Venable, a veteran and senior research fellow for defense
policy at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.

In a commentary published on the think tank's website last month,
Venable wrote that the F-16 was not suited for Ukraine's air force for
several reasons, including that the S-400 could outsmart the F-16's
targeting systems and that it could target the fighter jets before
they're in range to fire weapons like Small Diameter Bombs.

"Giving Ukraine more MiG-29s will not help the battlefield. And even if
we gave them modern F-16s — I would say more modern F-16s — it's not
going to change or influence the battlefield in a year, much less in
time for a spring offensive," he told Insider in an interview this week,
referring to Ukraine's much-anticipated counteroffensive.

Venable said that when he was flying F-16s over Europe earlier in his
career as a pilot, his aircraft had solid jamming pods that worked
against threats posed by the SA-6 and SA-11 Soviet-era SAM systems. He
said that he would have felt comfortable going up against the integrated
Soviet air defenses in the 1980s and 1990s knowing he was backed by HARM
targeting systems designed to take those on.

A S-400 missile after being launched into the air in Russia, leaving a
trail of smoke against a dull blue sky.
An S-400 missile launching from the Ashuluk military base in southern
Russia on September 22, 2020 DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
"The threat would've been high. There would've been a good possibility
that I would've been shot down, but also at least an equal possibility
that I could have made it to the target, hit my target, and then I drop
successfully and then egress safely from the battlefield," Venable said.

But there's since been a "whole leap in capabilities" from those to the
current Russian SAM systems that have evolved over time. "I had a
fighting chance back then," he said. "Today, there is no fighting chance."

Though sending F-16s to Ukraine does not currently appear to be on the
table, the US could instead train the Ukrainian air force on how to use
the fighter jets and bring it up to Western standards, Venable said. In
other words, the US could get the Ukrainians oriented toward Western
calibration — learning about the specific technology, logistical supply
lines, maintenance, hydraulic systems, and fighter tactics.

"The end-game goal of that would not be for them to employ F-16s in
combat. It would be for them to be spun up in a Western standard — a
NATO standard, if you will — to where when they are able to fleet up to
a fifth-generation platform, then that step will be a much more simple
one for them to take," he said.

Although questions remain as to whether the US will eventually send
advanced fighter jets to Ukraine, NATO countries like Poland and
Slovakia have already committed to sending MiG-29s to Kyiv.

"Proud to be on the right side, doing the right thing to help protect
#lives," Jaro Nad, Slovakia's defense minister, wrote on social media in
mid-April after all of the jets that his country promised Ukraine were
delivered to Kyiv's air force. "We Stand w/Ukraine."

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