The Ministry of National Defense is to increase the budget to upgrade the air force’s F-16 warplane fleet from NT$129.6 billion to NT$140.2 billion (US$4.21 billion to US$4.56 billion), a high-ranking defense official said yesterday.
Most of the budget increase aims to boost the number and types of air-to-air missiles the aircraft can carry, said the official, who declined to be named.
Better missiles are necessary to maintain parity between the upgraded F-16s and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s tactical fighters, the official said.
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
Details of the missile portion of the budget would be disclosed to lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee when the Legislative Yuan reviews the national defense budget for fiscal 2019, the official said.
After the fatal crash of an F-16 piloted by major Wu Yen-ting (吳彥霆) during the annual Han Kuang military exercises in June, the military has decided to install the latest version of the automated ground collision avoidance system, which would also be covered by the additional funding, they said.
The system, which has been installed in the US Air Force’s F-16 fleet, enables the aircraft to pull up before crashing into the ground independently of pilot input, which is advantageous in instances where a pilot has been incapacitated or otherwise fails to take action to avoid controlled flight into terrain, they added.
The Republic of China Air Force’s standard-issue equipment for that purpose is the equivalent of the enhanced ground proximity warning system utilized by civilian airliners, the official said.
The proximity warning system is designed to emit an audio warning to the pilot when an aircraft is dangerously close to the ground, but it is not capable of taking action independently of the pilot, they said.
The US government has agreed to supply the armaments and equipment identified in the budget, while an earlier scheme for F-16V performance improvement packages — which is to be completed by 2023 — is to be followed as planned, the official said.
CIVILIAN SIGHTING: Fishers from Penghu County took a photograph of a Chinese guided-missile destroyer near the median line of the Taiwan Strait China sent 77 military aircraft around Taiwan over a two-day period ending yesterday morning, an uptick in its activity over the past few weeks. Forty-one Chinese military aircraft were detected in the vicinity of Taiwan in the 24-hour period that ended at 6am yesterday, with 23 crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and nine crossing its extension, entering the country’s northern, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones (ADIZs), flight routes released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense showed. Of the nine aircraft that crossed the median line’s extension, were seven fighter jets and two drones that flew around
ESCALATING TENSIONS: The US called for restraint and meaningful dialogue after Beijing threatened Taiwanese independence advocates with the death sentence The US on Monday condemned China’s “escalatory and destabilizing language and actions” toward Taiwan after Beijing last week announced new guidelines to punish supporters of Taiwanese independence. Asked about the guidelines, which included the death sentence for “diehard” independence advocates, US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said: “We strongly condemn the escalatory and destabilizing language and actions from PRC [People’s Republic of China] officials.” “We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo,” he said at the press briefing. The US urges China to “engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan,” Miller said, adding that “threats and legal
UNDER THE RADAR: Two US deputy assistant state secretaries visited Taiwan and met with foreign diplomats to discuss how to boost the nation’s international participation US officials who visited Taiwan earlier this week met with foreign representatives and told them that UN Resolution 2758 does not involve Taiwan nor should it be conflated with China’s “one China” principle, sources said yesterday. UN Resolution 2758 recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China in 1971. Beijing has been misrepresenting it to exclude Taiwan from the international organization and its affiliates. A representative to Taiwan, requesting anonymity, quoted the US officials as saying during a meeting that as long as it is not specified in UN Resolution 2758, “everything is feasible” with regard to
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has