Ukraine loses its first F-16 – Asia Times

Ukraine has lost its second F-16 in a fight function, with the plane destroyed and the captain killed. The Ukrainian Air Force has publicly confirmed that much, but it is still unclear how and where the shootdown occurred.

An earlier fourth-generation F-16 that had been upgraded before being delivered to Ukraine was destroyed. That concept carries present air-to-air missiles for self-protection and can provide cruise missiles, fly bombs and other arms.

The US&nbsp, 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, &nbsp, the US Air Force’s leading electronic warfare system, &nbsp, upgraded the electronic warfare methods of Netherlands-supplied F-16s to deal with Soviet jamming challenges.

The plane’s radar was improved ( AN/APG-66 ), and systems were adapted for some of the newest weapons. &nbsp, Ukraine claimed that an F-16 had&nbsp, now shot down&nbsp, some Russian boat weapons.

The Ukrainian Air Force has n’t attempted to engage directly with Russian warrior or fighter plane despite the fact that Ukraine has only a small number of F-16s delivered to the country. At least so far, the Ukrainians have not engaged in any combat that may expose them to Russian air defense systems. &nbsp,

With more plane sales, this may change, but qualified planes are in short supply. Colonel Oleksii Mas, Lieutenant Colonel, the Ukrainian captain who was killed, was &nbsp. He was a skilled pilot and one of the first Russian aircraft to fly the F-16. &nbsp,

Early reports suggested the aircraft had been killed during a Russian airbase airstrike. The Ukrainian Air Force then informs us that the captain was killed and his flight was blown up in a battle. &nbsp,

Below is the Rybar accounts of the statement:

Oleksii Mesia, a captain of an F-16 warrior flight, was the subject of an established article from the Ukrainian Air Force Command. &nbsp,

During the huge missile attack on August 26th, the combatant he was piloting was reportedly looking for Russian cruise missiles and bomber drones. He is said to have shot downward three cruise missiles and one UAV before self-inflicting a fatal blow. This language suggests that the F-16 either was shot downward by Ukraine’s personal air mechanisms, which were also engaging the missiles and drones, or crashed into one of the flying target, which has happened before – in December 2022, a MiG-29 chasing a” Geran” drone crashed into the vehicle’s dust.

We do not realize if the F-16 was hit by a Russian missile or, if it was, what kind. &nbsp, The F-16 reportedly was operating near the&nbsp, Ivano-Frankivsk&nbsp, airport in eastern Ukraine, somewhere near any Soviet ground-based air defense systems. &nbsp, That airports was one among a number&nbsp, thought to be Russian F-16 foundations. It is likely that some Russian air mechanisms assisted in keeping the airport safe.

The fact that the captain was killed suggests that his weapon warning method did not rechtzeitig notify him if his plane was struck by a weapon. The program on the Ukrainian F-16s is known as the&nbsp, &nbsp, Pylon Integrated Dispenser System.

It is supposed to offer&nbsp, near-spherical protection for spotting approaching weapon challenges. &nbsp, When a projectile threat is detected, the plane can release particular measures, and the pilot is action to prevent the threat. &nbsp, We simply do n’t know what happened here: Did the pilot get a warning, and if so, did the Pylon system react, or did he have time to react?

Was the F-16 the projectile that killed it from a Russian air defense system, if it was one? &nbsp, Ukraine supports a mix of Western and Soviet ground-based air defense systems. &nbsp, The most sophisticated are those from NATO countries including Patriot, IRIS-T, &nbsp, HAWK-I and NASAMS. Soviet techniques used by Ukraine include BUK-M1, Strela-10, OSA, S-300, S-125 and Pantsir S1. &nbsp, &nbsp,

NATO aircraft and missile security systems are equipped with IFF, or Identification Friend or Foe, equipment. The earth product questions the aircraft in search of a particular ID code. The communication between the plane and the air defense system is encrypted and specifically designed to prevent electrical phishing and countermeasures. It goes through a number of questioning ways. &nbsp,

What is known as a Mode 4 or Mode 5 IFF sensor, which is only intended for military use, are used by NATO airplane. Mode 5 crypto has different appliques ( e. g. Raytheon, General Dynamics, Leonardo ) but supposedly are interoperable. &nbsp,

Russia even has IFF investigators and transmitters, but they differ from NATO methods. &nbsp, Soviet systems are based on either&nbsp, the Kremniy-2 system or its leader, Parol. &nbsp, Kremniy-2&nbsp, dates as far back as the 1950s, the more current and encrypted Parol technique dates back to the 1980s.

It is likely that Russian Russian technology uses&nbsp, Parol IFF&nbsp, unless the Ukrainians changed it over to NATO-standard IFF. There would have been no justification to present NATO IFF to Ukrainian air threats or aircraft prior to the introduction of F-16s.

( An additional tidbit is that Ukraine was operating older Russian aircraft, some of which were purchased from Russia and others from Eastern European war stocks. ) &nbsp, It is unlikely the MIG-29s, Su-27s and Su-25s shipped from Europe would have had NATO-standard IFF modules. )

If the above is correct, then there is a strong possibility that the weather defenses around &nbsp, Ivano-Frankivsk&nbsp, could have been older Russian units, as protecting the place was not a top Russian military focus and the bottom was far from any anticipated Russian assault.

Given that this is speculative, it would follow that local air defenses using Russian IFF would not work with the F-16. &nbsp, Thus a missile fired by a local air defense system could have destroyed the F-16, assuming the aircraft’s self-protection systems were ineffective.

If the story is right, Lieutenant Colonel&nbsp, Mas was busy chasing cruise missiles and drones. Such weapons could have confused his Pylon system, or he might have even shut it down because no Russian aircraft was in danger, he said. &nbsp, That would have exposed his F-16 to friendly fire.

We will never fully understand what actually transpired when the first F-16 crashed into the Ukrainian skies. &nbsp, Even so, the mishmash of equipment in Ukraine and the difficulty in standardizing remains an operational problem with many consequences, one of them perhaps the cost of an F-16 and its&nbsp, pilot.

At Asia Times, Stephen Bryen is the senior correspondent. He also served as the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s staff director and its deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. &nbsp,

This article was originally published on his&nbsp, Weapons and Strategy&nbsp, Substack, and is republished with permission.