The nation celebrated the 30th anniversary of the maiden flight of its self-designed, self-manufactured jet trainer yesterday.
In attendance at the Taichung complex of Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC) were Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠), Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) and representatives from the air force.
The event started with a film documenting the difficulties encountered during three decades of the trainer’s development and how they were overcome.
PHOTO: CNA
“Without the AIDC, there would be no aerospace industry in Taiwan,” Lin said.
In 1975, the air force asked the Aero Industry Development -Center, the company’s predecessor, to research and develop a new trainer to replace its aging T-33 trainers, AIDC said.
Sixty-three AT-3 trainers were made, the company said, of which two were prototypes. The first rolled out on July 17, 1980, and made its maiden flight on Sept. 16, 1980.
Development and manufacture of the plane was a significant step in the history of the nation’s -aviation industry, AIDC said, saying that it signaled Taiwan’s transition from propeller-driven aircraft to jet planes.
As a result of the experience gained through the development of the AT-3 trainers, the country was later able to develop its first defense fighter: A supersonic, twin-engined plane similar to the F-16, but slightly smaller and with a slightly shorter range.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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