“An extremely long process”, warns General Jérôme Pellistrandi

“The real problem for Ukraine is to train young pilots. However, this is an extremely long process”, alerted Monday, May 15 on franceinfo General Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the journal Défense nationale. Guest of the 8 p.m. newspaper of TF1, Emmanuel Macron announced avoir “opened the door to train pilots” ukrainian fighter “right now”, the day after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris.

Three to four years of training for French pilots

For comparison, “to train our own pilots in France, it’s between three and four years”, explains Jérôme Pellistrandi. You have to train them “both militarily, as an engineer and as a fighter pilot”. So he doesn’t see how “Ukrainian pilots will be able to take control of a fighter plane in the weeks or months to come”.

For the Ukrainians who will follow this training, it is necessary, according to the general, “that they have a sufficient level, a physical aptitude, an engineering level and that they speak very good English”. They will first be trained “on propeller planes” before “go through phases that will allow them in a year, or even two years, to be able to fly fighter planes and possibly, why not, Mirage 2000s”.

This training that France intends to open to Ukrainian fighter pilots aims to “to prepare the defense of Ukraine tomorrow, for the years to come”, explains Jérôme Pellistrandi. It’s necessary “start it as soon as possible” because it goes “take time”, he repeats. But “whatever happens, we will have to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself”.