by mike stone
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be tested by the U.S. military, two U.S. officials said on Saturday, as Washington remains unclear whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kiev.
The United States and its allies have been flooding Ukraine with weapons, from Javelin missiles to HIMARS rocket launchers, but the Western allies have not promised Ukraine sophisticated planes or the largest armed drones.
The Arizona “familiarization event” is the first and will facilitate dialogue between Ukrainian and US personnel and provide an opportunity to observe how the US Air Force operates, said a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities,” the defense official said.
“The program is to observe how Ukrainian pilots perform their mission planning and execution in flight simulators to determine how we can better advise the Ukrainian Air Force on how to use the capabilities they have,” said an administration official under condition of anonymity.
Other allies have also held similar events in the past, the defense official said. The defense official did not say how long the Ukrainians had been in the southwestern state.
The officials said there were no updates regarding the F-16 fighter jet promises to Ukraine.
“This is about training them on their own planes,” the administration official said, “not F-16s.”
The United States has not begun any F-16 training of Ukrainians, Colin Kahl, assistant secretary of defense for policy, told members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Training on military equipment, both in its use and in its maintenance, has been a leading indicator of a possible transfer.
Kahl made the comments during a hearing focused on oversight of the nearly $32 billion in military aid that President Joe Biden’s administration has provided to Ukraine since the invasion of Russia a year ago, including drones, long-range artillery systems and air defense capabilities.
The Pentagon assessment for even the fastest F-16 delivery and simultaneous training is 18 months, “so there’s really no time saved by starting training early,” Kahl told the panel.
To complicate matters, there is no clear fleet Ukraine can get, according to Kahl. “They could end up getting British Tornados or (Swedish) Gripens or (French) Mirages, so you don’t want to train them on F-16s,” he said.
NBC News reported the pilot’s presence in Arizona the previous Saturday.