Netherlands to deliver first F-16s to Ukraine this summer

Eighty F-16s and the uncomfortable question: who will fly them

At a military base in rural southern Netherlands, standing before two decommissioned F-16s inside a hangar, the commander of the Dutch air force summarized the plan with one phrase: "By around this summer, everything is aligning." General Arnoud Stallmann hoped the F-16s would finally fly over Ukraine after more than a year of requests. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have committed to delivering around 80 F-16 fighter jets, but the program has accumulated delays in deliveries and in pilot and ground crew training.

What is expected from the F-16s against Russian glide bombs

Russia has been using guided KAB air bombs massively against Kharkiv, launched from aircraft remaining inside Russian airspace. Aviation expert and former Ukrainian military pilot Anatolii Khrapchynskyi argues that the arrival of the F-16s will force a change in tactics: "The Russians will be forced to change tactics. We will be able to target their aircraft and missiles more effectively, and it will be really difficult for them to continue using guided KAB air bombs, which must be launched from a distance of between 50 and 70 kilometers."

The argument is repeated in Kyiv. Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak formulated it thus: "Against these, even air defense systems are not so useful, only aviation. The F-16 has a greater range than Russian MiG and Su aircraft." In terms of payload, the American aircraft matches the Ukrainian Su-24 tactical bomber, and its radar is more powerful than that of the surviving Soviet fleet, heavily damaged by the conflict.

Why is Ukrainian pilot training delayed?

Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren rejects criticism over slowness and maintains that the aircraft does not allow shortcuts: "You cannot simply skip several steps; you must trinc every step of the process, but we also want to deliver them as quickly as possible." And she adds: "We are making the project as fast as we can; we are really stretching our capacity."

It is not just pilots. General Stallmann insists that technicians and maintainers also require exhaustive instruction, and this is where the schedule is stuck. Aviation analyst Justin Bronk of the RUSI research center describes the deployment timing as a "risk and deadline decision" and warns that the desirable outcome is for it to arrive "when pilots and ground personnel are tactically and operationally ready, and not based on the idea that 'things look bad, we need a political victory'."

The underlying reason is that flying an F-16 does not resemble flying a MiG-29 or Su-27. Soviet-designed fighters operate with a high degree of ground intervention: commanders authorize weapon launches from the base, thousands of feet below the pilot. In the F-16, cockpit autonomy is much greater, and the aircraft and armament are designed to reflect this logic. It is another war inside the cockpit.

The attributed shoot-down: an SU-34 and the fight for ranges

The thread attributes the shoot-down of a Russian SU-34 at the moment of launching a glide bomb to the F-16, presented as the first combat kill for the aircraft. On paper, the air-to-air missile in question would have a range of about 120 kilometers, a figure that is not peaceful. The most technical analyses recall that these distances are advertised as maximum kinetic range: they are only achieved by launching from extremely high altitudes, nearly 20,000 meters, at maximum estimulante ilegal and against a target flying low. Against these brochure figures weigh the launch altitude and air density in the first seconds of the missile's flight.

Where the aircraft will sleep and what has been authorized

Ollongren has stated that Ukraine can use the F-16s donated by the Netherlands to attack targets inside Russia as long as the use is defensive and complies with international law. Denmark has said the same. "We have seen that it is necessary for Ukraine to be able to attack inside Russia. Otherwise, Russia will always have an advantage," the minister argues.

The thorny issue is where they refuel and stay overnight. Some speculate that part of the fleet will operate from Romania and neighboring countries, entering Ukrainian territory unarmed to refuel there and leave. The most repeated objection states that F-16s will never take off from Western bases to attack, because those airfields would become targets for Russian missiles.

A 1974 design still flying in 2024

The most sarcastic criticism points to the age of the aircraft: first flight on February 2, 1974 and entry into service on August 17, 1978. Defenders of the model respond that the delivered airframes incorporate upgrades, with older versions modernized, and that the aircraft continues to operate in a good number of air forces, Israel among them. The conversation shifted toward the SAAB Gripen, proposed as an alternative, and toward the F-35.

Regarding the real number, one forum user argues that after a year of announcements, there is not even one in Ukraine, and another jokes that of the 80, only 79 remain. The official Dutch forecast maintains summer as the horizon, with no further specifics. No one signs a date.

With attributed shoot-downs without independent confirmation and the schedule pending crews still being trained, everything stops at the same point: the F-16s are arriving, yes, but how many days per month they can fly remains an unknown that neither air propaganda nor forum analyses have resolved.