Key Points: The F-16 Fighting Falcon has proven indispensable to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, with at least two dozen aircraft delivered. However, challenges remain in transitioning Ukrainian pilots from Soviet-era fighters to the highly sophisticated F-16.
-Retired USAF Colonel Alex Mahon explained to 19FortyFive that while basic flight operations are relatively straightforward, mastering the F-16’s advanced weapons systems is far more complex and requires extensive training.
-Despite calls to abbreviate training, Mahon emphasized that proper preparation is critical to operational success.
-The training in clear-air environments like the American Southwest provides foundational skills before pilots operate in harsher conditions.
Retired USAF Colonel Explains Challenges in F-16 Pilot Training for Ukraine
In its more than four and a half decades in service, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has proven to be a reliable and capable warbird. It is the aircraft that Kyiv has said is necessary to help it not only hold its ground but turn the tide in its ongoing war with Russia.
The Ukrainian Air Force has received at least two dozen of the multirole aircraft – but what it may need is more time to adequately train its pilots on the aircraft, which is significantly different from the Soviet-designed fighters that its aviators had previously flown.
19FortyFive spoke with Colonel Alex Mahon, United States Air Force (Ret.), a fighter pilot with decades of instructor pilot (IP) experience. We asked him what types of challenges the Ukrainian pilots might experience and whether their training could be abbreviated.
“There are two elements to this question – flying the F-16 as an airplane and flying it as a weapons system,” Col. Mahon explained.
“As an airframe, the F-16 is no more difficult to fly than previous generation fighters,” he added. “One unique aspect is the computerized fly-by-wire system – the pilot provides input to the flight control system computer, which the system will respond to and convert into control surface (flaps, ailerons, rudder, etc.) changes/movements, but the computer will limit the input to what the computer is programmed to know the airframe can handle, e.g., in afterburner at 450 knots at 10,000 feet, the pilot can pull 9 Gs until he runs out of gas.”
Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs (CSDBs) are carried on the wing of an F-16 fighter from the Air Force Test Center’s 96th Test Wing at Eglin AFB Feb. 19, 2021 during the second flight test of collaborative weapon technologies. Six of the bombs were dropped from two 96TW aircraft during the third and final flight demonstration of the Air Force Golden Horde Vanguard May 25. (Courtesy photo)
Mahon further emphasized that as airspeed decreases/altitude increases/air gets thinner, “available G: decreases.
“In afterburner at 250 knots at 25,000 feet, the computer will limit the G-scheduling to a level that precludes stalling the airframe –about +/- 3Gs. This takes some getting used to, as the pilot will sense that the airframe is not responding to his control inputs. It doesn’t take long to get used to it,” Mahon noted.
Taking The Warbird Into Combat
Where the situation is a “different story” with the weapons system control/management, and Mahon further explained that he started in F-100D/Fs, a “dumb” airplane – as in no INS/GPS, air-to-air or air-to-ground radar, weapons-aiming cues, or other features combat pilots may depend on today.
“All weapons delivery aiming was done via a ‘combining glass’ located on the glare shield, just inside the front windscreen. Weapons delivery accuracy/inaccuracy was all pilot-controlled with no assistance from the airplane. As long as the airframe was flyable, 100% of mission success was the well-trained, experienced pilot,” Mahon told 19FortyFive.
His next airplane, the F-4C, was much the same, but it offered an on-board air-to-air radar system that communicated with the semi-active homing AIM-7 radar missile. Mahon said it was still a “dumb” airplane, but a bit smarter than the F-100D/F.
“For bombs, the system still relied on a ‘combining glass’ and accuracy, or not, was all pilot controlled. As long as the airframe was flyable and the weapons delivery subsystems were operable, 90% of mission success was the well-trained, experienced pilot,” Mahon continued.
F-16 Image: Creative Commons.
From there, he advanced to the A-7D/K – the first true “smart” airplane he flew.
It was outfitted with an Inertial Navigation System/Inertial Measurement System (similar in function to GPS), an altitude radar system, and a weapons-delivery radar system. As Mahon explained, the A-7D/K also featured various on-board sensors that could sense wind effects, airplane attitude, changes in altitude, and more.
“The subsystems were tied together and could automatically work in concert, selecting the best/most reliable information to deliver the weapons accurately,” said the retired USAF aviator. The pilot had to understand how it all works and fly the airframe to the precise point-in-space the computer was directing him to fly to. In some delivery modes the ‘pickle button’ on the ‘stick’ that would immediately release the bomb on the designated point on the ground/target if the button was pressed immediately (CCIP) would convert to being a ‘consent button’ the aiming system knew where the target was and where the bomb would hit when the airplane reached the required parameters when the computer was satisfied that the precise parameters had been met, it would command the release of the bomb (VisAttack)…”
Later he was able to take advantage of “LANA” (Low Altitude/Night Attack), similar to the F-15 Eagle/F-16 LANTIRN system (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) versions had double the computer capacity, visual IR sensor input projected on the heads-up display (HUD) coupled with a terrain-following autopilot system, during which the autopilot received ground obstruction information from the forward-looking radar and the radar altimeter, and automatically climbed and descended the aircraft at a pilot-selected set clearance plane (e.g., 200-feet; 500-feet) over the obstruction/ground.
“Night, lights out, 450 kts, 200 feet AGL, and ‘hands-off,'” said Mahon. “Bombing accuracy was uncanny. The A-7D/Kd did not have air-to-air radar, so no radar missiles, but it had AIM-9L/M infrared heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. It also had Maverick IR and optical air-to-ground missile systems.”
By the time he transitioned to the A-7D/K, Mahon had been promoted to captain and classified as an “experienced” fighter pilot (minimum 500 hours in fighter aircraft); while he had about 1,000 hours.
“Transition to flying the ‘airframe’ was easy – standard cable/hydraulic assist control surface input/effect,” Mahon further noted. “I had no problem quickly learning the fairly sophisticated weapons delivery subsystems, as they did for me what I had learned to do and had been doing for myself. The design engineers had done a very good job in marrying up core fighter pilot skills with more complex weapons delivery subsystems. As long as the airframe was flyable, 70% of mission success was the well-trained, experienced pilot.”
Flying the F-16 Fighting Falcon
Mahon found converting from the A-7D/K to the F-16 A/B was pretty simple, and he was a Lt. Col and had about 2,000 hours in the A-7D/K (3,000 hours total fighter time). He said adjusting to the computer-commanded fly-by-wire flight control system was also easy.
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft sits parked on flight line at MacDill Air Force Base, Sept. 8, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Lauren Cobin).
“The innovations in the weapons delivery system were a substantial improvement over the A-7D/K, but quite similar, e.g., both had the Constantly Computed Impact Point (CCIP) and Visual Attack (VisAttack) bomb delivery modes,” Mahon explained. “The air-to-air radar-equipped F-16A/B had AIM-9L/M, AIM-7, and AIM-120 missiles. It was also Maverick-capable. It could accurately acquire radar ground targets in zero-zero visibility and drop bombs on them. As long as the airframe was flyable, 60% of mission success was the well-trained, experienced pilot.”
The Ukraine Will Have to Go Further
The F-16A/B weapons systems that Col. Mahon trained in and mastered (Block 15 and Block 25) were far less complex than the F-16C/D models flown today, he told 19FortyFive.
The version designators are now up to and moving past, for example, Block 70 models. By his rough estimate, the current model F-16 weapons systems are two to three times more capable and complex than the early models he had flown.
The stick and rudder of the F-16 are essentially the same, however, sophistication-wise, there is little comparison.
“As long as the airframe is flyable and all the high-tech subsystems are operable, 50% of mission success is the well-trained, experienced pilot,” Mahon emphasized. “What this translates to in the Ukrainian fighter pilot context is that while they can stick-and-rudder the F-16 probably pretty good, pretty quickly, their experience in low-tech Russian fighters will preclude a rapid transition into the present-era F-16 weapons systems.”
According to Mahon, whether the training to transition Ukrainian fight pilots into F-16s can be abbreviated, is a bit more complicated.
“The illogical extreme is ‘of course!’ Give them a cheat sheet in Ukrainian that tells them how to start the engine and let them loose. See if they make it,” he quipped. “The opposite end of the training spectrum is to give them the ground/academic training in aircraft systems, flight time necessary to skillfully stick-and-rudder the airframe, all the training necessary to skillfully manage the complex weapons delivery subsystems, and do all this in a flight environment in which pilots can see the ground clearly, see each other clearly when information and practicing air-to-air combat maneuvering, and under controlled conditions in which errors are not terminal.”
What is prudent is obvious, Mahon also noted.
“When the Ukrainian reality intervenes, one does what one must do. ‘Ready or not, here I come.’ As in most things, there is a balancing test,” he cautioned. “And, yes, perfect can be the enemy of good. But if the Ukrainians need their fighter pilots in the air NOW or risk annihilation, they will do what all desperate nations have done – pressed their warriors into service regardless of the risk.”
The 310th Fighter Squadron’s newly painted F-16 Fighting Falcon is towed to the flight line Jan. 19, 2022, at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Structural maintainers applied a paint scheme to match that of the World War II era 310th Fighter Squadron’s “Passionate Patsy” Republic P-47 Thunderbolt in celebration of the Air Education and Training Command’s 80th anniversary. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman David Busby)
With all that said, Mahon also made clear that he believes the Ukrainian training cannot be abbreviated – at least not yet. He also said that any criticism that Ukrainian pilots were training in the American desert southwest – terrain vastly different from their homeland – is done for a very good reason.
“The West has been training fighter pilots since the early 1900s. They/we know how to do it. We have complete and expert knowledge in every dimension of fighter pilot training,” Mahon told 19FortyFive. “When able, we train our fighter pilots in clear-air environments. That’s why the wWesternEuropean community sends their pilot trainees to Texas. That’s why the USAF and the USN train their fighter pilots in areas where clear air predominates. Then, when the core skills are trained into them, those fighter pilots go off to meteorological environments that are less accommodating and less safe.”
When the weather and other limiting conditions close in, the pilots are fully capable of managing the demanding tasks and succeeding.
“Virtually all my basic and fighter pilot training was done in the southwest,” Mahon continued. “When I was ready, but not until then, I went off to my operational assignments in places with weather conditions much like Western Europe. I was ‘Mission Ready’ (MR) in about 24 months, from start to finish. Without the benefit of UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) in Arizona and F-100 RTU (Replacement Training Unit) in Arizona, I would have required 6-9 months more training to become MR.”
NOTE: This is the first in a series with Col. Mahon. We appreciate his taking the time to offer a truly unique experience. Check back next week for the second part.
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Senior Editor focusing on defense issues for 19FortyFive. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,500 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on X: @PeterSuciu – and on Bluesky: @petersuciu.bsky.social.
NOTE: This piece has been updated on 12/13 to correct a minor typo. It was also updated on 12/17 with additional information.
