Taiwan’s air force showed off its armed-to-the-teeth submarine hunters and early warning and control aircraft on Tuesday, demonstrating how it keeps watch on the skies and waters around the Chinese-claimed island.
China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has over the past four years regularly sent warplanes and warships into the skies and waters around the island as it seeks to assert sovereignty claims that the government in Taipei rejects.
Taiwan’s air force, dwarfed by China’s but well-armed with mostly U.S. equipment, has been at the front lines of responding to these missions and regularly scrambles to shadow and warn away Chinese aircraft and ships.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
On a defence ministry-organised media visit to the Pingtung air base in southern Taiwan, the air force displayed its Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft and Northrop Grumman-built E-2K Hawkeye early warning and control aircraft.
Crews demonstrated attaching missiles under the wing of an Orion, which can be armed with torpedoes, depth charges and U.S.-made Maverick air-to-ground missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
"We uphold the concept of integrating training for war under the guidance of the defence ministry. We are doing very solid training, which is enough to cope with various situations," said training officer Tsai Tsung-yu.
Photo: Reuters
Taiwan operates 12 Orions, which the U.S. government approved the sale of in 2007 for almost $2 billion. The first aircraft, surplus U.S. Navy stock, entered service with Taiwan in 2013 and can stay airborne for up to 12 hours.
The air force also conducted flybys with one of their E-2K Hawkeye aircraft. Taiwan has six of the planes, but one was damaged in 2022 during a landing accident and is still being repaired.
They have long-range detection abilities, allowing them to direct intercepts from the air and track low-altitude targets flying below the range of ground-based radars.
Photo: Reuters
Their Pingtung base gives the aircraft easy access not only to the Taiwan Strait but also to the Bashi Channel.
That strategic waterway separates Taiwan from the Philippines and connects the South China Sea with the Pacific. Taiwan has reported Chinese warships and warplanes frequently passing through the Bashi Channel.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its