By Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang
CHIAYI, Taiwan, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s air force showcased its ability to rapidly replenish and get back in the air its most advanced F-16 fighter jets in a readiness drill on Wednesday, designed to demonstrate combat-oriented training.
Taiwan’s air force scrambles on an almost daily basis to monitor and warn off Chinese aircraft which routinely fly around the island. Taipei views the incursions as part of an ongoing harassment campaign to test and tire out the much smaller Taiwanese forces and exert political pressure.
President Lai Ching-te’s administration, as part of a defence modernisation programme, has pushed for more combat-realistic training that relies less on set-piece performances and more on simulating actual combat.
At the Chiayi air base in southern Taiwan, personnel loaded up U.S.-made AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM anti-aircraft missiles onto a Lockheed Martin F-16V fighter jet to get the aircraft quickly back in the air.
“This ensures that, in the shortest possible time, the aircraft can complete ammunition resupply and refuelling and quickly go out on the attack,” weapons loading officer Wu Bo-jhih told reporters.
Taiwan routinely holds drills ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts next month, though these are the first to take place in front of the media since China held its latest round of war games around the island in late December.
Pilot Shih Shun-de said it was important to let people know just how fast the air force can react.
“The scramble drill lets the public see the results of the air force’s realistic, combat-oriented training,” he said.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the objections of the government in Taipei.
The repeated scrambling to see off China’s air force also gives real-life experience for Taiwan’s fighter pilots in terms of seeing China’s air force and tactics up close.
During the height of the Cold War the two air forces had regular dogfights over the Taiwan Strait, but no shots in anger have been fired in decades.
Speaking at the presidential office in Taipei on Wednesday during a promotion ceremony for senior officers, Lai said that the military’s training must be more practical, more flexible, and closer to real combat.
“At the same time, we must develop a range of enemy-defeating strategies with agility, using technology and artificial intelligence to build a defence force that is effective, credible, and modernised,” he added.
(Reporting by Yi-Chin Lee and Ann Wang; Writing and additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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