Russia - threadbanned users in OP

while I agree with the sentiments... sitting in the grey favours Russia... so unfortunately, even though people like to make out theirs 3 choices, when it comes down to it, it's a binary choice...

Anyone thinking he's exaggerating his own skills and capabilities, is wrong.

Who is this idiot 'he' who is suggesting it would take 3 months instead of the years that Rishi Sunak claimed? He was until very recently a Republican rep. who sponsored a bill to train Ukrainian pilots. He's Adam Kinzinger, currently a Lt Col in the USAF Wisconsin Air National Guard. He's been a military pilot for years who also served in the Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Combat Command, and Air Mobility Command.

Oh but he's just one experienced pilot, the Whitehouse said different, or some other politician or mouthpiece trying to shut down discussion on the topic quoted the longest time the military would actually stand by as possibly being correct.

No he isn't. The US Air National Guard have been training with and doing joint exercises with the Ukrainian Air Force since the 1990's. 29 years of joint operations and experience.

An F-16 instructor has said training could be as short as 69 days.

I actually don't think the F-16 is the plane the west should be looking at to supply to Ukraine. Barring F-15 strike eagles, I think Australia's 46 surplus f-18s are the ideal aircraft:

This Youtube discussion about what western fighters would be most suitable for Ukraine mentions the F-18 as being more suitable than F-16s.

I think the A-10 would also be perfect if they had air-cover from F-18's which have good radars.

The most critical issue in this topic is the training of the pilots. It needs to be done now and it should have been begun 6 months ago if for no other reason than as a contingency.

If it's only a few people, then they're not dominating the tone of the conversation and therefore shouldn't be fixated upon to any great degree.

There is the flip side to online discussion which is that in the apparent pursuit of balance, you'll have those popping up to question what should be/have been accepted facts, i.e. is the earth really round? Regarding this discussion, I've no time for those trying to add nuance to the issue of Russia invading Ukraine and being apparently prepared to lay waste to the whole country if need be. If Russian soldiers are coming to Ukraine to take territory and kill anyone who gets in their way, it shouldn't be at all surprising when many of them may meet their end in that pursuit. That kind of carry-on can make the locals angry, apparently. If Russia leaves Ukraine tomorrow, no more of their sons have to die and Russia still is a huge big country with plenty of territory for its own benefit and advancement.

Might be the best news I have seen all week. Hooray; better late than never.

That loud sobbing sound you hear is Zelenskyy and Reznikov as they view this video of the US equipment in Poland awaiting shipment back to the US.

FFS!

That is not showing US equipment for Ukraine arriving, it's their equipment about to be shipped back to the US.

The units have been on deployment in Europe for a while and are being rotated back.

Ah OK. Must be some operation transporting that kind of weight and size back home to the US, you'd think it would make more sense to leave them where is and have the relevant technicians come to them. Maybe the latter approach isn't politically palatable.

I read somewhere that there are already Ukrainian pilots in the US being assessed on simulators how as to how long it will take for them to learn to fly the f16

edit: Missed your last post regarding this

Unfortunately the official story goes that the US is only assessing how well they can fly simulator versions of their own aircraft, and not any US fighters.

Speaking of inexplicable aviation craziness involving fighters, this is quite weird:

What I find comical about the whole situation is the fact that there are these private Russian armies in Ukraine at all. They're sort of independent of the regular Russian military but yet seem beholden to the Russian state for supplies, so they are in effect like a rogue battalion. It'd be like if you were watching the Falklands war back in the day and you saw that the British government decided to let Mad Mike Hoare get stuck in.

I think that its more understandable when you treat Russia as a mafia state, (which is what it is) with Don Putin as the Capo de Capo. Under the Russian Constitution, private army's are illegal, but Prigozhin serves Putin as a deniable branch of Government. And he's a very good source of income too. In any country he was or is working in, he has also being massively stealing from. Once a criminal, always a criminal. The world will be a much better place the day he leaves it and returns to where he came from IE: Hell.

Win win for Russia though.

That's a shame.

The point is it's only simulator time.

Not going to do Ukraine any good in the near to distant future,

It's going to take more than 3 week's to lean how to fly any western aircraft, along with the various advanced training for air combat maneuvers and percision strikes