Ukraine is working hard to negotiate with international partners on the transfer of American F-16 fighters. In parallel, various fakes about these aircraft began to appear. Some of them sound really funny.
This Channel 24 was told by military analyst Aleksey Getman. He debunked a popular myth about F-16 maintenance. Some people started coming up with outright nonsense.
Dozens of people are required to maintain the F-16
According to Getman, one of the most popular myths around the F-16 concerns the maintenance of these aircraft. Information began to appear that, allegedly, from 15 to several dozen people were required to “care” for one such fighter.
This is not entirely true. A military analyst explained why it is incorrect to say so.
Funny. Because this is true. But not really. For comparison. There are also many people accompanying him in hostilities against one soldier. For every soldier there is one doctor, one company commander, one cook, one telephone operator… But all these people serve other soldiers as well. So you can distort that one soldier is 15 servants, – said Hetman.
He stressed that in the group that deals with the aircraft, there really are 15 people. However, they arenot pinnedonly for one conditional fighter, but serve all the aircraft located at the airfield.
Why Ukraine needs F-16 fighters
As Hetman noted, the F-16 is an aircraft that first took off back in 70s of the last century. But since then it has been modernized many times. There are many modifications of these fighters. It is not yet known what kind of F-16 Ukraine could potentially receive.
However, it is very important that this is the most common light fighter in the world. The F-16 is also called a flying platform, because it can be loaded and used in different ways.
About 4,500 F-16s were produced in total. And about 3000 are in service in 24 countries around the world. It is very useful. If, God forbid, there is some kind of “breakdown”, then in Europe there are a large number of personnel who have been serving them directly at the airfields for years,” Getman emphasized.
