The nation’s air force is to purchase 66 advanced training planes as part of a plan to phase out all of its F-5s and AT-3s, Air Force Command Headquarters said in a statement on Tuesday.
The procurement has been approved by the Executive Yuan and the purchase is expected to meet the needs of basic flight training missions and improve training efficiency, the statement said.
The statement was issued after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), convener of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, wrote on Facebook that he feared domestic manufacturers would not be able to keep up with demand under the government’s policy of building military aircraft domestically.
Chiang wrote that the air force plans to decommission all of its F-5s in 2020 and its AT-3s in 2021.
However, some media reports have said that if the government insists on self-sufficiency in aircraft production, the nation would be able to produce a prototype aircraft by 2020, he wrote.
If no new aircraft have been produced by then, the air force would have to halt to its flight-training missions, he wrote.
The central government’s budget for next year has allocated NT$321.7 billion (US$10.2 billion) to the Ministry of National Defense, including NT$6.7 billion produce aircraft and ships domestically.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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