Ukrainian pilots use iPads to fly combat missions against Russia, US official says

• Ukrainian pilots are using iPads for combat missions, a U.S. deputy secretary said.
• iPads or similar tablets could help in so-called “Wild Weasel” missions.
• This is an example of adapted Ukrainian weapons, built by assembling Western and Soviet parts.

A video released by the Ukrainian Air Force appears to show its pilots using a tablet to help it carry out combat missions against Russian air defense systems.

This could be further evidence of the United States working with Ukraine to help it adapt Western technology to its obsolete Soviet weapons.

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told reporters at a conference in Washington DC last week: “Think about the planes the Ukrainians have, and not even to the F-16s, but they have a large part of the Russian and Soviet planes. -era aircraft.”

He described how Ukraine’s aging fighter jets could now taking many Western weapons and making them work on their planes as they were “Basically controlled by an iPad by the pilot. They’re flying it in conflict about a week after we handed it to them,” he said, according to The Telegraph.

LaPlante did not provide further details.

iPads or similar tablets could help in so-called “Wild Weasel” missions, said The War Zone, a defense publication.

The strategy involves tricking jet pilots into luring enemy air defenses into targeting them with their radars. The radar waves are then traced back to their source and struck by the Ukrainian pilots with weapons such as the American-made AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARM).

In the video, a plane pilot can be seen flying a Soviet Su-27 plane equipped with an iPad or similar tablet in the cockpit. The pilot can be seen firing HARMS, The Telegraph said. The tablet also displays a navigation map and other flight information.

Business Insider could not independently verify where or when the video was taken or whether it recorded a combat mission or training exercise.

The War Zone said the tablets were “vital to the employment of several Western-supplied air-to-ground weapons” because Soviet-era Ukrainian fighters lacked the data interfaces to ensure “seamless compatibility.” with the latest missiles.

“A cockpit tablet,” the publication says, “could provide a sort of visualized radar warning receiver for Ukrainian fighter pilots conducting Wild Weasel missions.”

The US Air Force developed the Wild Weasel strategy during the Vietnam War after the introduction of Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAM) which used radar to locate their targets, where aircraft equipped with anti-radiation missiles could detect and destroy the North Vietnamese. guided missiles.

It is the latest example, from the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, of Ukrainian weapons built by assembling Western and Soviet parts to form a new system.

Among them, the “FrankenSAM” air defense systems are now operating on the front line. The name is a nod to “Frankenstein” as their manufacturing involves cobbling together pieces of different machines to make Ukraine’s stockpile of Soviet SAMs more effective.