Representatives from German training aircraft manufacturer GROB Aircraft arrived in Taipei yesterday to explore business opportunities that could be available if the nation decides to outsource basic military training to the private sector.
According to Apex Flight Academy, which is set to form a partnership with GROB Aircraft, the German manufacturer has been seeking business partners in the private sector in Europe and Southeast Asia in recent years.
It included Taiwan in its Asian tour this year, Apex Flight Academy said.
Apex Flight Academy general manager J.J. Tsang (臧運國) said that militaries around the world used to administer the basic flying training themselves, but many countries have begun to outsource the task to private operators.
Tsang said that the government is evaluating whether it should continue budgeting the funds to purchase and maintain aircraft used to train pilots.
GROB Aircraft is set to display and demonstrate two types of aircraft at Taitung Airport from Tuesday through Saturday next week, with the exhibitions to be attended by military officials.
The first type, the G120TP, is manufactured using eco-friendly materials and equipped with functions that can provide various types of advanced pilot training.
GROB Aircraft vice president Karl Fuernrohr said that G-120TP aircraft have more than 90 percent of the functions of the turbo-prop jets in the same class, which could save about 70 percent of fuel costs. Currently, 480 G-120TP aircraft are in service around the world, he said.
The other aircraft to be demonstrated, the G-520NG, can fly at an altitude of 50,000 feet (15.24km) and do aerial photography.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching