Behind the problem-plagued Hankuang No. 19 exercise, there were still some achievements that the military could have made public but chose to keep secret for security reasons, defense sources said yesterday.
The air force, for instance, used an E-2T early warning aircraft to control the flow of fighter planes participating in the exercise, which was held on Sept. 4 in northeastern Ilan.
The air force dispatched the best of its fighter planes, which include the F-16, Mirage 2000-5, Indigenous Defense Fighter and F-5E. More than 10 of these aircraft were flying in the small airspace over Ilan at the same time.
None of these aircraft encountered any problems during their flights due to air-traffic control by the E-2T. Usually, the air force uses its ground-based radar network to control the flow of its planes.
This was not the first time that the E-2T was involved in the annual Hankuang exercises, but its workload this year was its heaviest-ever.
The smooth coordination between the E-2T and fighter planes indicates that the air force has the potential to turn this mode of cooperation into an effective battlefield operation.
The E-2T also served as a communication-relay station between the fighter planes during the exercise and it helped the military detect and track a Chinese spy plane which was approaching Taiwan during the exercise. The spy plane was identified as a Russian-made TU-154, which took off from an air base in Zhejiang Province.
A defense source said the TU-154 was on a routine mission but that it was still considered to be a potential threat because of its capability to collect electronic information on the fighter planes participating in the Hankuang exercise.
The military apparently cancelled the firing of a French-made Mica air-to-air missile from a Mirage 2000-5 during the exercise out of concern the TU-154 would monitor the firing. The decision was made also because a target drone intended for the Mica was mistakenly shot down by a Standard SM-I air defense missile launched earlier from a Chenkung-class frigate.
The military also used some of the army's electronic warfare equipment during the exercise -- although it has not disclosed the details of this operation and the army declined to comment on the equipment or how it was used.
Electronic warfare is the military's top priority in its arms buildup as China has made a great deal of progress in this field in recent years. But the military's development of an electronic warfare capability remains top secret.
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