The nation is planning to purchase trainers to replace its aging fleet of F-5E/F jets and AT-3 jet trainers, Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) said yesterday.
The plans to procure advanced trainers are expected to be included in the Ministry of National Defense budget for 2017, Yen said while fielding questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Yen also confirmed that the trainers would be multifunctional — meaning that they can be used for flight training or in combat.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Currently, fighter pilots complete their training in T-34 trainers, the AT-3 and the F-5E/F jet, before pursuing instruction in second-generation F-16A/Bs, the Mirage 2000-5 or the Indigenous Defense Fighter, the air force said.
After the nation acquires the advanced trainers, fighter pilot training would involve T-34s, the new trainers and the second-generation jet fighters, it added.
Yen’s remarks came two days after the pilot of an AT-3 jet trainer, Lieutenant Colonel Chuang Pei-yuan (莊倍源), was killed after his aircraft crashed in a field in Zihguan District (梓官) in Greater Kaohsiung, after apparently colliding with another trainer during a training mission.
The aircraft — belonging to the Air Force Academy in Kaohsiung — were used by the Thunder Tiger Squadron and were on a training mission when the collision occurred, the air force said on Tuesday.
As the ministry is planning more military cuts, Lin asked whether the Thunder Tiger Aerobatics Team would be disbanded.
Yen replied that the aerobatics team would remain intact, but the military would review whether to retain riskier maneuvers that pose greater threats to pilot safety.
The air force said previously that Chuang twice rejected appeals to bail out as he tried to steer his aircraft clear of residential areas after a midair incident.
Chuang is eligible to be memorialized at a local martyrs’ shrine, Yen said as he expressed sadness over the death of an exceptional pilot.
Initial findings of an investigation into the crash have ruled out environmental factors or mechanical failure, with “human factors” more likely to be the cause of the crash, Yen said, but added that further investigation is needed.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS