The nation's air force doesn't have enough pilots to fly all of its second-generation fighters, but it hasn't had to ground planes yet, a high ranking air force official said yesterday.
"It is true that we do not have enough combat pilots," General Chen Chao-ming (
Chen said that recent media reports that a dearth of pilots has forced the air force to ground some F-16s were untrue.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen's visit to the legislature yesterday was the first time that a head of the armed services appeared before lawmakers to answer questions about budgetary issues or arms procurement policies.
Commanders-in-chief for the army and navy are scheduled to appear before the defense committee tomorrow.
"It is my honor to be invited by the legislature," Chen said yesterday. "I am glad to report to lawmakers about the air force's plans for weapons purchases next year. It is something which I needed to do."
Chen's appearance before legislators is the result of persistent efforts by the defense committee to have service leaders answer questions in person.
During last week's committee session, several opposition lawmakers strongly protested against the military's failure to send service leaders to the committee. In follow-up negotiations, the military gave in to the lawmakers' demands.
"It was good to have a service leader present at the committee for the first time. But what Chen told us was really not as interesting as we expected," a KMT lawmaker and committee member said yesterday.
"Chen deliberated in his report on the allocations of the air force's budget for certain special fields, such as the investments in information warfare and electronic warfare," the lawmaker said.
Chen's admission of a lack of combat pilots does, however, shed light on the readiness of the air force's fighter wings.
Among the three types of second-generation fighter planes, the US-made F-16s have the most severe shortage of qualified pilots, defense sources said.
For two other types of new fighter planes -- the domestically-built Indigenous Defense Fighter (
The current ratio of pilots to second-generation planes is around one to two, which means about half of the new planes do not have a dedicated pilot.
Chen said that part of the reason for the "apparent" pilot shortage was because of the pilot to cockpit-seat ratio.
If the supply of pilots for a certain type of fighter is calculated in this manner, the figure may not entirely reflect the truth since some planes are twin-seaters, he said.
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