Taiwan is seeking US cooperation to make its next domestically developed fighter jet, the head of Taichung-based defense contractor Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC) said yesterday.
Taiwan’s air force scrambles daily to see off incursions by Chinese jets into airspace near the country, as Beijing steps up pressure on Taipei.
While the mainstay of the air force is Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-16s and French-built Mirages, it also uses AIDC’s F-CK-1 Ching-kuo Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF).
Photo: Aaron Tu, Taipei Times
The IDF fleet was rolled out more than three decades ago, but has been upgraded.
Speaking at a Taiwan-US defense industry forum in Taipei, AIDC chairman Hu Kai-hung (胡開宏) said the company wanted to raise its technical prowess to help with the development of Taiwan’s next-generation fighter.
“When it comes to the development of the next-generation fighter, we hope the United States supports Taiwan to develop it itself, including the engine, avionics, control systems, environmental controls and so on, which are all an opportunity for Taiwan-US cooperation,” he said.
Taiwan in 2017 announced the next-generation fighter program, to include stealth capabilities, but has given few details since.
Most countries are hesitant to sell weapons to Taiwan for fear of angering China.
Even the US has been unwilling to provide Taiwan its most advanced fighters, such as the F-22 or F-35, and Taiwan has no direct answer to China’s new J-20 stealth fighter.
This has driven Taiwan to develop a new home-built fighter as part of an overall strategy to make more weaponry itself, such as submarines.
“Domestically made aircraft is the road we have to travel,” he said.
AIDC in 2020 test flew a new jet trainer, the AT-5 Brave Eagle, Taiwan’s first jet made domestically since the IDF, and the company is also upgrading the F-16 fleet to the more advanced F-16V version and operates an F-16 maintenance facility.
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