Jane Edwards
Taiwan’s state-owned aerospace firm has begun to upgrade four Lockheed Martin-built F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft for the country’s air force, Defense News reported Tuesday.
Mike Yeo writes Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. said it expects to complete modernization work on 144 F-16s within six years at its Taichung facility.
According to the 2011 foreign military sales request with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Taiwan had allocated a budget of $3.5 billion to pay a portion of the $5.3 billion F-16 upgrade program.
F-16 upgrades include the integration of Northrop Grumman-built AN/APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array radars, Raytheon-made AN/ALQ-184 electronic countermeasures pods, AIM-9X agile air-to-air missiles, dual-mode GPS/laser-guided bombs and Terma’s ALQ-213(V) electronic warfare management units, Yeo reports.
The report added that AIDC was scheduled to complete upgrading work on 10 fighter jets at its facility this year but that number was reduced to four aircraft due to delays in software testing in the U.S.
