Holland takes the final step: ready to send F16 fighters to Ukraine
It has often been argued that the final step in supplying arms to the Ukrainian would be the dispatch of Western fighters. Now someone is ready to make this move too. The Dutch government has said it is ready to consider the delivery of F-16 fighters to Ukraine with an "open mind". This position was expressed by Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra on January 19, 2022, one day before a meeting of the US-led Defense Contact Group of Ukraine in Ramstein, Germany.
Hoekstra added that there are "no taboos" for the Dutch authorities regarding the delivery of equipment to Ukraine, local media RTL Nieuws reported.
The Koninklijke Luchtmacht (Royal Netherlands Air Force) is currently eliminating its contingent of F-16A fighters, progressively replacing them with 52 F-35A stealth fighters. 12 Dutch F-16s have already been sold to Draken International, a US-based private company that trains realistic fighter pilots and will use them in realistic combat against US pilots. However, the Netherlands had built or purchased as many as 102 fighters of the initial series of F16s which then had been updated over time. So there are still potentially at least eighty fighters that could be transferred to Ukraine.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of their country, Ukrainian leaders have asked Western nations to supply them with modern warplanes.
Delivery of the F-16s would no doubt be subject to approval by the United States, their country of manufacture. Though the Biden administration was initially reluctant, the US House of Representatives earmarked $100 million to train Ukrainian pilots to fly US fighter jets in July 2022. Then the US would pay for the training of pilots who then should they fly on the fighters of the Netherlands? Apparently yes, but in any case the times are long because they also include the training of the technical staff on the ground. If, in theory, a pilot could be trained in six weeks (and perhaps it is already undergoing training in the US) it would take 25 ground operators for maintenance for each fighter, and 16 hours of technical interventions per flight hour, and this increases in a real combat situation. Therefore, even if tomorrow Ukraine asks for fighter jets and the USA gives the green light, it would be a long and complex process, irrelevant in the short term.
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The article Holland takes the final step: ready to send F16 fighters to Ukraine comes from Scenari Economics .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lolanda-fa-il-passo-finale-pronta-a-inviare-i-caccia-f16-allucraina/ on Sat, 21 Jan 2023 09:29:41 +0000.