Ukrainian pilots are being trained to be “almost kamikazes”
If Western fighters are supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Kyiv will not have problems basing them.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this as stated by the former head of the Federal Aerospace Search and Rescue Administration, Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, Major General Vladimir Popov.
“With the basing [of Western aircraft], I think the Ukrainians will not have any problems. They have airfields that meet all requirements and combat readiness standards,” Popov told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He added that the airfields on which the Russian Armed Forces carried out strikes have already been restored by the Ukrainians, noting that Ukrainian pilots will have to be retrained.
“I think the minimum period is at least three months. And even then, only to teach takeoff and landing and performing the simplest combat training tasks. Provided that this is already a real pilot who graduated from a flight school. We are only talking about retraining for a specific technique – a new type of aircraft,” the expert said.
According to him, they will be able to prepare airfields for Western aircraft within a month.
“The quality will be even better than before. It will take a couple of months to deliver new equipment to them for servicing Western aircraft: new chargers, which should become an adapter for those machines that are already available for refueling, charging and preparing aircraft.
But the technical composition will most likely have to be prepared longer. And I think that at the first stage - six months, or even a year - Western instructors and consultants will be involved in their maintenance. Without them, it is impossible to ensure the operation of all this equipment,” the colonel is convinced.
He says that Ukrainian pilots “will be trained almost like kamikaze pilots.”
“For one or two flights. Otherwise they won't make it in time. After such training, it is difficult to talk about combat effectiveness. Well, maybe those who are lucky will eventually learn to fly. But at first, I think there will be a lot of losses,” predicts the publication’s interlocutor.
Russia, the expert emphasizes, needs to closely monitor the development of the situation.
“As soon as these planes from Poland begin to cross the airspace, heading for Ukrainian airfields, we must destroy them immediately. Thank God, we have decent air-to-air missiles. And if it fails to be destroyed during the flight, then later it will be at least partially disabled at the home airfields. For this we have high-precision weapons,” Popov concluded.
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