The F-35 is too much to learn
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The F-35 is fast becoming the fighter jet of choice for many European air forces because of its technological and operational advantages over other available airframes.
Eight European countries either operate the fifth-generation fighter jet or have placed orders for it. More countries are in discussions to acquire the jet in the near future.
The increasing number of F-35s in Europe means more pilots will have to learn to fly the jet, but the F-35's technological superiority means some pilots, especially those trained to operate Soviet-made aircraft, could have difficulties making the change.
Among NATO's 30 members, only Bulgaria, Poland, and Slovakia still operate Soviet-era aircraft.
Of those three, Poland has the most, with 23 operational MiG-29s and 12 operational but obsolescent Su-22s. The rest of Poland's combat fleet consists of 36 US-made F-16s. In 2020, in an effort to modernize its air force, Warsaw ordered 32 F-35As, and it has an option to buy 16 more.
The mix of Western-made and Soviet-origin aircraft reflects Poland's political history as a member of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War and now as a member of NATO and the European Union.
Yet that mix will also make it harder for Poland to integrate the F-35 into its fleet, according to Billie Flynn, a former Canadian air force lieutenant colonel who served as a senior F-35 test pilot.In an interview with The Aviationist, Flynn described ways Polish pilots might struggle to move between the aircraft.
"There's very much the Russian, Eastern Bloc mentality vs. the Western F-16 cadre" in the Polish Air Force, and the pilots in each cadre do not cross between them, Flynn said.
Flynn said any pilot would face a "leap" in transitioning to the F-35, one of only four fifth-generation jets in operation around the world.
He added that F-16 pilots, or the Western cadre, in the Polish Air Force would be able to transition to the newer jet, as many pilots in other air forces with the F-35 have done, but the Polish Air Force's "Eastern Bloc" of pilots wouldn't be as fortunate.
Asking even a very capable MiG-29 pilot "to transition to this cosmic spaceship is far too much to grasp," Flynn said, referring to the F-35.
Differences in mentality
The F-16 and the MiG-29 are comparable in terms of capabilities.
Though the MiG-29 is primarily an air-superiority fighter and the F-16 a multirole aircraft, both are fourth-generation fighters. The Soviet jet was in fact built as a response to the American F-16 and F-15.
But transitioning from that Soviet-made jet to modern US fighters requires more than learning new capabilities. It also requires adjusting to a different design philosophy, which Flynn argues makes such a transition practically impossible.
"Every part of how we mechanize the aircraft in the West is different from how Russians design their aircraft — every part of philosophy of how you fly an airplane, how you design cockpits, how you process information is different," Flynn told The Aviationist.
In contrast, both the F-16 and the F-35 are designed and built by Lockheed Martin, and Flynn described the stealth fighter as a "logical step forward" from the older aircraft.
"To say to an F-16 pilot, hey, we're Lockheed Martin, and we build the aircraft the certain way, and switches the certain way, and now we're going to give you the next generation of that, there's a logic flow of our design, of the F-16, as the baseline, that kind of looks like what the F-35 is," Flynn said. "That does not exist for the MiG cadre."
Regardless of whether the MiG-29 pilots can make the jump to the new era, their aircraft are approaching obsolescence.
Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia already struggle to keep their MiG-29s up to date. Poland has maintained its MiG-29 contingent on par with that of its F-16, but as time and worsening relations with Russia make replacement airframes and machine parts harder to find, the last three NATO MiG-29 operators are slowly phasing out the aircraft.
"I think the MiG cadre will end up atrophying, spending their time in that jet until the MiG-29 phases out," Flynn said of the Polish Air Force.
With militaries embracing the F-35 and other advanced jets, "there is no place for the MiG-29 pilots in the sophisticated world of" fifth-generation aircraft, he added.
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They brought a B-52 back to Barksdale not too long ago. It had been in the boneyard for over a decade and it took a few months.
I suspect if a plane had been in storage only a few years and restoration to flight status was a priority, TAT would be measured in weeks, not months.
