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Two Ukrainian Pilots Are In the U.S. for Training Assessment on Attack Aircraft, Including F-16s (excerpt)

(Source: NBC News; posted March 4, 2023)
By Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee

Two Ukrainian pilots are currently in the United States undergoing an assessment to determine how long it could take to train them to fly attack aircraft, including F-16 fighter jets, according to two congressional officials and a senior U.S. official.

The Ukrainians’ skills are being evaluated on simulators at a U.S. military base in Tucson, Arizona, the officials said, and they may soon be joined by more of their fellow pilots.

U.S. authorities have approved bringing up to 10 more Ukrainian pilots to the U.S. for further assessment as early as this month, the officials said.

Their arrival marks the first time Ukrainian pilots have traveled to the U.S. to have their skills evaluated by American military trainers. Officials said the effort has twin goals: to improve the pilots’ skills and to evaluate how long a proper training program could take.

“The program is about assessing their abilities as pilots so we can better advise them on how to use capabilities they have and we have given them,” an administration official said.

Two administration officials stressed that it wasn’t a training program and said that the Ukrainians would not be flying any aircraft during their time here.

These officials said the pilots would be using a simulator that can mimic flying various types of aircraft, and they emphasized that there had been no updates on the U.S. decision to provide F-16s to Ukraine beyond what the Pentagon’s top policy official said to Congress last week.

The official, Colin Kahl, told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. had not made the decision to provide F-16s and neither had U.S. allies and partners.

He also said the U.S. had “not started training on F-16s” and that the delivery time line for F-16s is “essentially the same” as the training time line, about 18 months. (end of excerpt)

(Click here for the full story, on the NBC website.)

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