The first cohort of Ukrainian pilots to receive training from the Royal Air Force are now learning to fly F-16 fighter jets in Denmark, having completed a basic programme of training in the UK.
The RAF began delivering flying and English language training in August as part of the UK contribution to the international Air Force Capability Coalition for Ukraine, which sees allies and partners working together to bolster Ukraine’s air capabilities.
The group was formed of six experienced Ukrainian combat fighter pilots who received aviation-specific English language training to increase their ability to engage with coalition training and support.
A further ten Ukrainian trainee pilots took part in the language training and remain in the UK to continue with practical basic flight training, as well as to learn important skills such as aviation medicine and centrifuge training.
I’m not with that person, but I’m surprised ‘learning English’ was repeated by a journo a couple of times with Ukraine probably having lots of speakers due to long eurointegration talks, many of them working in EU or online. That’s a specific field, and you need a close to zero response time like a native, but yet, it’s put on the same level as training them as military pilots and it indeed sounded off. It makes me think they didn’t have many info on interesting specifics of how these pilots learnt in a flight school and tried to fill a word counter, or had a hangover, or were an AI.
The trainees were already experienced pilots in Ukrainian aircraft though, they couldn’t just pick from a giant pool of people that already knew English