Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse
If you've seen the classic film Casablanca, then you know who Humphrey Bogart is. If you know who Humphrey Bogart is (if anything, the best film actor of all time history according to the American Film Institute), you may know the film “Knock on Any Door,” from which this phrase came, which became a kind of motto of very famous personalities such as Sid Vicious, Jennis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and etc.
And what does this have to do with the “Fighting Falcon” F-16, which is about to appear in the skies of Ukraine?
Well, in general, they, the “falcons,” are already there. Our locator specialists have already seen them several times on their screens in the central part of the country. For now, they are camouflaging themselves among the MiG-29 and Su-27 sorties, of which there are surprisingly many, either someone else shared, or they actually patched up their own and saved it just for this case.
In principle, there is no need to be surprised. They promised that the first F-16s would arrive at the disposal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces sometime in June of this year? They promised. And, by the way, this is not the first time this reprise is played in the West when the supply of any weapons officially announced a couple of days after it is already being used with might and main in battles. It's like, "Oh yeah, we staged this."
Therefore, I would not be at all surprised by the presence of F-16s in the skies of Ukraine; moreover, I am sure that the people sitting in the cockpits of the planes are not Ukrainians at all. Well, simply because you don’t need to do PR, but do business. And after six months of training, Ukrainian pilots—forgive me, it’s like sitting at the controls of a Yak in bad times after 4 hours of flight time at a flying club.
Well, you all understand the analogy.
Therefore, there is such confidence that what is on the air is not language, but something else. And at airfields too, because teaching an experienced pilot to fly according to the analogies of his service is one thing, but with technicians and engineers, especially in radio electronics, excuse me, everything is according to Stanislavsky. That is, I can’t believe it at all. It’s not the Ukrainians who are bustling around there, preparing the Falcons for flight.
In general, I just want to quote the song: “Where the hell have you gone, sir?”
The Sokol's combat path since 1978 has been long and thorny, with the role of thorns mainly played by missiles Soviet production. Then the list became longer, but the F-16 somehow survived to our times, albeit not as the leading aircraft of the US Air Force, inspiring fear in everything flying. So, a solid middle-of-the-roader. Even if in many ways it is “the most” - the most widespread of the fourth generation, the most popular in the world (25 countries), and so on.
There were, of course, interesting moments of various kinds in the career of this generally wonderful aircraft; it was even “Russian”.
In fact, everything looks more like some kind of flying madhouse: an F-16 that was never in service fleet, in the photographs with the proud inscription NAVY on the fuselages also bears the identification marks of the Russian Aerospace Forces (though with a Chinese flavor) and even side numbers in the right places.
In fact, this is a direct illustration of today’s day here, not far away, three hundred kilometers from me.
If you show interest, this aircraft was called in reference books as F-16N. Based on the F-16 Block 30, with “some differences.” But there are differences - my dear mother, it’s really a different plane.
Completely unsuitable for air combat. More precisely, adapted, but for educational purposes. It initially lacked a cannon and ammunition, which had to be compensated for with ballast, and there was no electrical wiring necessary for launching missiles and dropping bombs.
All this plane could do was just fly, pretending to be a Russian plane.
Yes, everything is correct: the Aggressor squadron of the same Top Gun school, more precisely, Fighter weapons school. Only they were not flown by Tom Cruise's fellow Hollywood pilots, but by more prosaic pilots aviation US Navy. Experienced aces taught their colleagues by imitating Russian aircraft.
And now “Falcon” has become sort of Ukrainian. With approximately the same degree of combat readiness, because one can speculate for a long time, but there is no doubt that the Su-35 will eat it without butter for breakfast.
But no one will throw the hard-earned F-16s into a dog dump with Russian fighters. That's not why they asked, if that's the case.
It is very difficult to say who and how trained Ukrainian pilots and technicians for the F-16, but even with “imported” personnel everything will not be as luxurious as Kyiv would like.
Zelensky has said more than once that in order to repel the aggressor, the Ukrainian Armed Forces must receive 120-130 aircraft. It’s clear that no one will give that much; Europe simply doesn’t have that many “Falcons” to take away. Because they will give something and first they will very carefully observe what comes out of all this. So that it doesn’t work out like with German howitzers and American tanks. The plane is even more expensive, and besides, the F-16 is still produced to order for third-tier countries, so there’s no point in spoiling the image of the best plane.
Naturally, they will look at how “Ukrainian” pilots fly and how “Ukrainian” mechanics work. But if these problems are solved with the help of mercenaries, then some other problems will not be easy to solve.
F-16s need “their own” runways. The runway, created according to USSR standards, was very different (not for the better) from the ideal runway surface of the American Air Force. That’s why in all our design bureaus we worked on the landing gear, for which gaps in the concrete runway slabs are of no concern (and they cannot be made due to significant temperature changes throughout almost the entire territory of the country), unlike the Americans, who can afford to build ideal runways, in no way inferior in smoothness to the decks of aircraft carriers.
No, well done, of course, they wiped the noses of the Russians, but either the MiG-29 or the Su-27 - they can land where they need to, and not where they can. But there is no such confidence about American aircraft. Here we can recall a historical example when, after the end of the Vietnam War, a copy of the F-5E Tiger fell into the hands of Soviet specialists. The car is generally new, even if it’s not top-of-the-line: the “Tigers” were systematically torn off by their fangs in the skies of Vietnam.
F-5E Tiger at the LNII test airfield in Akhtubinsk
The Tiger fell into the hands of testers who began to study it. But it was not possible to fly around in full: after the fifth or sixth flight, the landing gear miraculously did not break. It turned out that landings on our runways tore the slots in the struts out of the car.
It is very difficult to say in what condition the majority of Ukrainian airfields are today and what the runways there are like. But something tells me that the maximum is a C grade.
But the Falcon requires not only an even, but also a perfectly clean runway. The low location of the air intakes is not conducive to takeoffs on a dirty runway; this can end in trouble for everyone.
Fuel. Here, in general, the song is swearing under the bandura, because what the MiG-29 and Su-27 of the Ukrainian Air Force flew on, that is, T-6 or T-8B aviation fuel, are very different from the American JP8. Moreover, it is doubtful, or rather, there is confidence, that the remnants of Ukrainian industry can master the production of JP8 and its unpleasant component, hydrazine, which must be stored separately.
That is, only imports will help Ukrainian pilots. Here, of course, everything is in order so far, and the good Americans will most likely bring, say, from Poland or Romania a sufficient amount of this fuel. But if changes begin, first of all, in the approaches of the Russian army in terms of striking logistics hubs, then fireworks from burning tanks with aviation kerosene may become a kind of slogan “Fly away.”
In addition to semi-sterile runways, Falcons will need hangars, storage facilities for fuel and its toxic component hydrazine. Of course, it’s not worth even trying to talk about such work in accordance with NATO standards, but it still requires time and money.
And one last thing. An American-made fourth-generation fighter is not the D-30 or the BMP-1. Yes, in some ways it is almost the same age as them, but the aircraft, unlike simpler weapons systems, requires specialized service centers. A modern aircraft, unfortunately, requires maintenance after each flight and adjustment of on-board systems. And sometimes even replacement of some equipment units. Here it is worth reading about the hellish efforts with which Poland joined NATO, how the Poles switched from Soviet to Western technology.
Yes, of course, in today’s conditions one can not give a damn about NATO instructions on aircraft maintenance, but... it will simply reduce the already small service life of the transferred aircraft. If they were Danish, they were still preparing for decommissioning, so they didn’t have much time left to fly. Yes, in principle, the situation is exactly the same with others. No one would part with such an expensive weapon as an airplane without getting the most out of it.
In general, most sane experts agree that the appearance of the F-16 in the Ukrainian Armed Forces is unlikely to radically change the situation on the battlefield in favor of the Kyiv regime.
Of course, the Falcons can be very, very useful in intercepting targets such as cruise missiles, since the latter do not have the same speed as, say, their super and hypersonic counterparts. Well, dropping missiles like Storm Shadow from a relatively safe distance.
But we won’t see dashing air battles with the same Su-30s and especially Su-35s. Airplanes of different classes and flying a light fighter under a Russian plane that can see further and fire missiles over long distances is nonsense. It’s clear, a catapult, a parachute, a support propeller wing – that’s all yes. And if we add to this the Russian radars, which perfectly see more than half of the airspace of Ukraine, and even add to them the radars on the territory of Belarus...
And without even touching on air defense systems like “Buk”, “Thor”, “Osa”, “Pantsir”, it’s just enough to remind you that we still have enough S-300 and S-400. And it is precisely these air defense systems that pose the greatest danger to American aircraft, which, we are so sure, will not fly to the front line in the thick of it.
This means we will have to work in this direction. As they say, if the mountain does not come to Mohammed...
In fact, let's see how things are going with those models of equipment on which Kyiv had such high hopes?
Where is the self-propelled gun Pz.2000? Not much with them, many are under repair, some are all gone.
Where are the Leopards? No comments at all.
Where are the Challengers? They mostly hang around in the rear; somehow they didn’t make it to the front line.
"Abrams"? Yes, too.
We could go on for a long time, but the essence is the same: samples of European and American weapons that fall into the millstones of the war in Ukraine are regularly ground. It couldn’t be otherwise; moreover, most likely, they will start hunting for the F-16 with passion and passion, just as they chased the Leopards and Abrams.
It's not about the prize money at all. No, of course, awards are not bad, but a crippled menagerie in Moscow is no worse. At least as an action to demonstrate the successes of the Russian army, it was beyond praise. The Ministry of Defense has learned how to put on a show.
The F-16, due to many reasons, is doomed to just such an ending. It is not so important what will cause the “fall of Lucifer”; air defense systems, untrained pilots, crooked mechanics and untrained engineers; the work of the Aerospace Forces or missile forces of the future in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has nothing. Everything that falls into the possession of the Ukrainian military will sooner or later be destroyed.
And this raises much less doubt than the future of the F-16 in the service of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
So the motto “Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse” is very vital. And beautiful corpses will be useful for exhibitions on Poklonnaya Hill and in Patriot parks.
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