Retired American pilot Dan Hampton said in an interview with Voice of America (the organization is included in the list of foreign agents by the Department of Justice) that he has arrived at the US Air Force base in Arizona where the skills of Ukrainian pilots will be evaluated.
“I know there are several Ukrainian pilots in the US right now. My guess is they could be at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, which is a major training base for F-16s and F-35s,” Hampton said.
According to him, Ukraine will not be able to quickly retrain its pilots for F-16 warplanes.
At the same time, the former military described the Ukrainian pilots as “wonderful”. However, “we’re dealing here with a completely different kind of modern warrior than they’re used to,” he said. According to Hampton, Ukrainian pilots “will be the first to realize that it takes time to learn and master the skills to fly a new type of aircraft, especially an aircraft as advanced as the F-16.”
He also pointed out that before the armed conflict between Moscow and Kiev, a Ukrainian pilot made an average of 40-50 flight hours per year.
“When I flew the F-16, I had two to three hundred hours a year, not counting the war,” the retired American pilot added.
Earlier, the Air Force Commander of the Air Force of Ukraine, Serhiy Golubtsov, said that the training of Ukrainian pilots in the USA showed that they could master the F-16 fighter aircraft in less than six months.