Ukraine's F-16s Double As Radar-Hunting Spy Planes

Forbes

26-03-2025

Ukrainian F-16s.
Seven months after their combat debut in August, Ukraine's Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters are flying sorties every day—sometimes several sorties per jet.
Launching from a nationwide network of small airstrips, sometimes in conjunction with Ukraine's recently arrived Dassault Mirage 2000s, the nimble supersonic F-16s are shooting down Russian attack drones, jamming Russian radars with their underslung electronic warfare pods, dropping precision bombs—sometimes 'through someone's window,' according to one anonymous pilot—and apparently using their self-protection systems to pinpoint Russian air defenses.
'We constantly perform flights for aerial reconnaissance,' the unnamed pilot said in a recent official interview. 'We perform flights for electronic reconnaissance,' he specified.
Among the thousands of F-16s in service around the world, there are some that are specially equipped for reconnaissance—with underbelly camera or radar pods. But Ukraine isn't known to have received any of these pods.
Rather, the roughly 16 or so F-16s Ukraine has received—out of 85 surplus jets pledged by Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway—normally fly with AIM-9 infrared-guided air-to-air missiles, AIM-120 radar-guided air-to-air missiles, Small Diameter Bomb glide bombs and AN/ALQ-131 E.W. pods, which broadcast radio noise that can clog up a radar operator's screen.
The AN/ALQ-131 pods, which are programmed by a Florida-based team of U.S. Air Force specialists, can 'give you a pocket of air superiority for a moment's time to achieve an objective that has strategic importance and impact,' a USAF official explained.
Ukrainian F-16s also have the option of carrying Pylon Integrated Dispensing System and the Electronic Combat Integrated Pylon Systems: PIDS and ECIPS.
PIDS ejects metal chaff and hot-burning flares to spoof incoming radar- and infrared-guided anti-aircraft missiles. ECIPS houses passive defenses to complement the active chaff and flares, including the AN/ALQ-162 jammer for defeating radars on the ground, as well as an AN/AAR-60 missile warning system for triggering the passive defenses.
Self-protection pylons on a Ukrainian F-16.
The warning system connects to an electronic warfare management system, made by Terma in Denmark, that itself connects to a display inside the cockpit that shows the pilot where enemy radars are in relation to their aircraft. If Ukrainian F-16 pilots are flying electronic reconnaissance missions, they're probably leaning heavily on the Terma management system.
This is a new and critical capability for Ukraine. The Ukrainian air force's older, ex-Soviet fighters—its Mikoyan MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su-27s—don't even carry jammers, to say nothing of taking to the air with integrated self-defense systems that can double as reconnaissance systems.
The sequence of sorties is simple, if the unnamed F-16 pilot's explanation is accurate. F-16s fly recon missions, pinpoint Russian radars based on their emissions and then land so intelligence analysts can fold the fresh intelligence into strike planning. 'When all this is summed up, we plan flights for further action to defeat the enemy,' the pilot said.
When the rearmed F-16s head back out, perhaps aiming to fling a glide bomb through some unfortunate Russian's window, their pilots know where to go, and not to go, to avoid Russian air defenses.