By Chethana Janith, Jadetimes News
The older fighters are less advanced than Russia’s fleet, but can use cutting-edge weapons.
By August 1, multiple sources indicated to journalists that Ukraine had deployed its first six F-16 Fighting Falcon multi-role jet fighters on home soil. Though some photos purporting to show F-16s flying near Lviv appear to have been fakes, on Sunday, August 4, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally unveiled two F-16 jets in their new Ukrainian Air Force livery at a ceremony, which also saw two more F-16As donated by Denmark flying overhead.
A video released by Zelensky’s office shows the F-16s armed with both AIM-9 and AIM-120 air-to-air missiles (albeit older models), Terma self-defense systems, and hulking external fuel tanks on inboard wing stations to extend range.
By one count, Ukraine is currently on track to eventually receive 95 single-seat F-16As and two-seat F-16Bs from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and The Netherlands-though some more conservatively place the current count around 60 or 85 aircraft. (F-16Bs are preferred for training, but are also combat-capable.) Zelensky, who has been pressing for F-16s for two-and-half years, said he’d eventually like to boost the fleet up to 130 F-16s.
However, no more than 10-20 of these fighters are expected to enter Ukrainian service in 2024 due to a shortage of qualified pilots. In addition, some of Ukraine’s F-16s will remain behind in The Netherlands for pilot training, others may be kept in reserve to replace losses, and at least 10 donated Norwegian F-16s will be cannibalized for spare parts to keep Ukraine’s other Fighting Falcons operational.
The media also shows that the static F-16s on display have ‘bird slicer’ IFF antennas on a raised plate in front of the cockpit—a configuration specific to U.S. Air National Guard F-16A ADF jets. (The Danish-donated Block 15 MLU jets seen flying, by contrast, have the antennas’ bases melded into the noses.) Some argue that this indicates these aircraft may be a non-flyable airframes supplied by the U.S. for instructional or decoy purposes.
The Ukrainian Air Force’s interest in F-16s predates even Russia’s 2022 invasion, as it searched for alternative means to improve its air combat capabilities following Russia’s initial invasions in 2014. Still, prior to 2022, Ukraine’s underfunded air arm hadn’t received a single new combat aircraft since its inception in 1991.
The F-16 single engine multi-role fighter, which weighs only 9-tons, always stood out as an option because it was inexpensive (by Western standards) to purchase and operate compared to newer Western fighters. It also has a massive user base and spare parts inventory spread across the globe, with more than 4,600 built and counting—the type remarkably remains in production by Lockheed-Martin a half-century after the YF-16 prototype’s first flight in January of 1974.
Overall, the F-16 (also nicknamed the Viper) is known for its versatility and extreme maneuverability thanks to its aerodynamically unstable design, which depends on a flight computer to maintain stability for routine maneuvers. It also has a unusually high maximum speed (up to Mach 2) and payload capacity (eight tons carried on nine weapon-capable hardpoints) for a single-engine jet due to its excellent thrust-weight ratio. On the downside, it has limited range without mounting external fuel tanks (340 miles carrying 3 tons of weapons, or 540 with a lighter payloads).
Unfortunately, the training of Ukrainian pilots and technicians is running into a shortage of free spots (and lack of funding to expand the current programs), and is thus taking longer than expected, with the first of only 12 Ukrainian pilots graduating from their Air National Guard training program this year in the United States. Meanwhile, the Netherlands is training only 8 more Ukrainian pilots, and Romania may eventually train another eight. At this rate, Ukraine is expected to have only 20 qualified pilots by the end of 2024.
For now, Ukraine’s small starter-force of F-16s is reportedly performing “air defense” missions, which likely refers to the interception of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones—missions Ukraine’s F-16s can perform at lower risk and possibly with more success than Ukraine’s Soviet jets. Russia’s manned warplanes rarely venture far into Ukrainian-controlled airspace to minimize exposure to Ukraine’s ground-based air defenses.
However, as numbers of F-16s and qualified pilots grow and personnel gain experience, they may be assigned additional missions, including launching precision glide bombs, targeting Russian air defenses with radar-homing missiles, or (most dangerously) attempting to ambush Russian helicopters and glide-bomb jets from across the frontline or border.
Why F-16s give Ukraine a fighting chance, but as underdogs
Ukraine’s Air Force has not received new combat aircraft since it was created during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. By the 2010s it retained a fleet of 1980s-era MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters, complemented by Su-24M supersonic bombers and Su-25 ground attack jets. These totaled to roughly 150 warplanes prior to Russia’s invasion.
Since then, imagery confirms the destruction of at least Ukrainian 75 warplanes between February of 2022 and August of 2024 to varying causes (with undoubtedly additional losses going unrecorded). In that time, however, Ukraine received 27 MiG-29s from Poland and Slovakia, and 4 Su-25s from North Macedonia
Ukraine’s donated F-16A/B’s are technically historical peers with Ukraine’s 1980s-era Soviet fighters. However, these particular jets all received a mid-1990s Middle Life Upgrade kit designed to reduce the capability gap with the second-generation F-16C/D Block 52 jets. Such improved F-16A/Bs are sometimes designated as F-16AM or F-16BM Block 15 MLUs.
This update most importantly made them compatible with the more advanced AIM-120 and AIM-9X missiles and other precision guided weapons. The MLU also installed a moderately improved AN/APG-66(V)2A doppler radar, more effective identify-friend-or-foe capability, a GPS/INS navigation system, newer and faster computers, and new cockpit, and a widened-head’s up displays compatible with night vision goggles.
Despite those upgrades, Ukraine’s F-16s will remain outmatched head-to-head by Russia’s beefier twin-engine Su-35S, Su-30SM, and MiG-31 fighters used to patrol across the frontline and Ukraine’s northern border with Russia. And because they aren’t stealth aircraft, F-16s won’t be able to safely penetrate airspace overwatched by Russian long-range surface-to-air missiles without prior suppression.
But unlike Ukraine’s Soviet-legacy jets, they will be able to fully leverage more modern guided weapons and other capabilities to give them a fighting chance.
Furthermore, integrating F-16s is a first step in the lengthy process of converting and modernizing Ukraine’s Air Force to operating additional western fighters, which will also assuredly include French-donated Mirage 2000-5 jets with similar capabilities to Ukraine’s F-16 (but with different armament and better radar). Hundreds more F-16s and dozens more Mirage 2000s are scheduled for retirement in the coming years, which Ukraine may be able to pickup through donations or purchases, and the country could even seek to purchase new, fully modern F-16Vs.
Perhaps in the longer-term, Ukraine could conceivably seek to acquire other 4 or 4.5-generation jets such as F-15 Eagles, French-built Rafales, or Swedish JAS-39 Gripens.
But before Ukraine can truly explore such options, Ukrainian pilots and technicians must successfully integrate the F-16 into service and figure out how to best use its capabilities against Russia’s still more numerous (and technically advanced) air force and formidable ground-based air defenses.
How will Ukraine’s F-16s be armed?
The Wall Street Journal reports that Ukraine’s F-16s will be armed with the short-range AIM-9X and medium/long-range AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, as well as AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles, punchy JDAM-ER glide bombs, and small (but highly precise) GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs.
Ukraine already employs variants of the above surface-attack weapons on its Soviet jets, as well as the anti-aircraft missiles on ground-based launchers. As a result, they will not be entirely new to Ukrainian technicians.
Weapons visible on the F-16s at Zelensky’s unveiling included a dud ‘captive carry’ practice model of the dated AIM-120B missile, and an older-generation AIM-9L or M Sidewinder—though, other reports indicate that Ukraine will acquire more advanced variants of both weapons sooner or later.
Ukraine’s F-16s also carry some variant of the Pylon Integrated Dispenser System Plus (PIDS+) by Danish company Terma, which combined decoy dispensers with an optical Missile Approach Warning System (MAWS or MWS) to provide all-around coverage of incoming missile attacks and increase the odds that a pilot is warned with enough time to evade.
For closer-range combat, which is rare over Ukraine, the country’s F-16s will dispose of Sidewinder missiles of varying advancement. The 1980s-era AIM-9M or -9L seen at Zelensky’s unveiling was special in its time for being able to target aircraft from any angle, rather than just when trained on hot engines from behind.
Its heavily redesigned successor, the AIM-9X, is highly maneuverable (thanks to its thrust-vectoring engines and high G-force tolerance) and resistant to decoys (due to its Imaging Infrared seeker). Moreover, this neo-Sidewinder can be targeted up to 90 degrees left or right of the plane’s nose (i.e. a 180-degree forward arc) using the pilot’s helmet-mounted sight. Notably, the Ukrainian pilot in the unveiling video can be seen wearing such a Helmet Mounted Cueing System (HMCS) for targeting AIM-9X missiles.
AIM-9M and X’s range equal or exceeds 22 miles, while operational R-73 and R-74 models attain 19-25 miles, and can go 40 to 75 degrees of boresights.
But by far the most important is the F-16’s ability to use the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), as it has potential to disrupt the dominating edge that Russia’s newer fighters have in beyond-visual range air-to-air combat.
Russia’s R-77-1 missiles have a maximum range of 62 miles and can be launched in fire-and-forget mode, thanks to its built-in active radar seekers. The longest-range radar-guided missile available to Ukraine, the R-27R, lacks fire-and-forget capability, and therefore requires that the launching plane’s nose-mounted radar remain continually pointed towards the target. ‘Staying on target’ to complete an R-27 intercept has reportedly proven suicidal when already engaged by an incoming R-77-1.
The AIM-120 is not only a fire-and-forget missile, with its own active radar seeker, but the latest AIM-120C and AIM-120D variants substantially outrange the R-77-1. Fortunately for Ukrainian pilots, production of the latest batch of over AIM-120C-8 missiles has reportedly been earmarked entirely for Ukraine. However, the maximum range of the AN/APG-66 radar poses problems.
Russian Su-35s and MiG-31s also employ bigger (half-ton) R-37M missiles with ranges of roughly 250 miles when fired from higher altitudes in arcing trajectories (reportedly used for at least one kill from 110 miles away). But while the R-37M weapon is extremely fast (peak Mach 6 speed), it’s not very maneuverable, as it was designed to destroy bombers and airliner-based tankers and refueling aircraft. So, Ukrainian fighters have decent odds of evading using defensive maneuvers given adequate forewarning.
Ukraine’s aerial radar woes
The AN/APG-66V(2)A X-Band doppler radar on Ukraine’s F-16s is a circa-1994 upgrade kit for the F-16’s original AN/APG-66 radar intended to reduce the performance gap with the APG-68 on second-generation F-16C and F-16D fighters. Average time-between-failures was doubled, and it greatly improved the craft’s ability to see through jamming and scan for ground targets. This radar ordinarily scans a narrow 40 or 20 degree arc.
Unfortunately, it can only detect fighter-sized aircraft up to 52 miles away—half or less the maximum range of an AIM-120D missile. Moreover, the APG-66’s range is greatly inferior to the radars on modern Russian fighters assigned air superiority missions. The Irbis-E on Russia’s Su-35 jet can allegedly detect a fighter-sized aircraft from 124 miles away, while the MiG-31’s Zaslon-M radar allegedly can do so out to 200 miles.
Thus, Ukrainian F-16s will depend heavily on controllers of ground-based radars for situational awareness and forewarning of incoming threats, as Ukraine already does with its Soviet jets. Ukrainian F-16s will likely also continue the practice of flying at very low altitudes to mask with terrain and thus reduce the distance at which they are detected and shot at by Russia’s ground-based radars.
However, attacking enemies from below significantly depletes the energy of an air-to-air missile as it climbs upwards, decreasing speed and range—though there is potential to surprise higher-flying aircraft in potential blind spots in their downward-looking radar coverage.
To overcome detection range issues, Ukraine may be able to devise tactics and techniques to allow a separate platform (say, the controller of ag round-based radar) to provide initial guidance and course-correction instructions. Ukraine appears to have implemented similar methods in past ambushes of Russian aircraft using long-range Patriot and S-200 ground-based air defense systems.
Ukraine’s F-16s will remain most effective operating over friendly airspace also overwatched by ground-based air defenses, and may attempt to ambush Russian glide-bombing aircraft and attack helicopters conducting standoff strikes near (but usually not crossing) the frontline, or possibly overflying parts of the Black Sea.
Disrupting glide bombing particularly could tangibly impact the ground war, but success in doing so is not guaranteed. Reducing penetration rates of Russian cruise missiles might also serve to reduce the increasingly dangerous damage those are inflicting to Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
Overall, Ukraine’s F-16s will mostly need to operate while under the umbrella of friendly ground-based radars and air defenses to mitigate the range of Russian aerial radars. However, F-16s have far superior armament with which to snipe at Russian aircraft creeping just outside Ukraine’s ground-based air defense zone (given creative targeting methods and tactics).
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