Defense News

Regarding the media coverage of “Ignoring the Insufficient Forefront F-16 Just to Make Timely Debut for the Advanced Training Aircrafts?”, the Air Force Command Headquarters has expressed today (16^th) that the relevant covered content is a false interpretation to the truth, and has provided the following explanations:

1. The new advanced training aircraft project of the Air Force Command Headquarters is to implement IDF policy, which was commissioned to Aerospace Industrial Development Corp for R&D and production, and has achieved the citizens’ expectation of autonomous national defense, after overcoming numerous obstacles. In addition, the early implementation phase of the configurational reform project of the F-16 fighter aircrafts was met with unplanned malfunction in the reform time course, hence the progress is not moving forward as forecasted, which explains how there are correlation and mutual impact, as well as no conflicts, between the two.

2. In order for the configurational reform project to be in line with the planned progress, the headquarters has been actively coordinating with the USA and the Aerospace Industrial Development Corp, where after the research and discussion from the professional teams, initial configurational reform obstacles have been overcome, whereas the configurational process has been refined, and the delivery procedure has been accelerated, with the entire project expected to be completed in 2023 according to the planned schedule.

3. The Air Force Command Headquarters emphasised that in order to respond to the implementation of the configurational reform of the F-16 fighter aircrafts, the headquarters has adjusted the mission assignment for the primary fighter aircraft unit, and cooperate with the rotation of various air defence troops, which is able to effectively maintain the air defensive combat capability of the Republic of China. Citizens can rest assured regarding the matter.