Taiwan to take delivery of first batch of four upgraded F-16s in 2019

Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) The Air Force is scheduled to take delivery of its first four upgraded F-16 fighter jets in the next six months, a military official said Wednesday during a legislative session.

The first of the four upgraded F-16s has completed combat flight testing and all four aircraft in the first batch to be delivered in six months are currently undergoing ground testing by state-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC), said Liu Jen-yuan (劉任遠), chief of staff of the Air Force.

Liu was responding to a lawmaker's question about progress in the upgrading of the Ministry of National Defense's (MND) 4 F-16 A/B jets into F-16Vs.

The fighters are part of a NT$110 billion (US$3.64 billion) government program to launch a domestic upgrade that transforms Taiwan's 144 F-16 A/B jets into F-16Vs, the largest and most important upgrade ever undertaken by the Air Force.

In order to carry out the upgrade locally, the manufacturer of the jets -- Lockheed Martin in the United States -- sent engineers to Taiwan last year to help train local personnel at AIDC on how to perform the upgrades.

According to AIDC, the retrofit program includes installing advanced equipment in the fighters, including the AN/APG active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system, currently used in U.S. F-22 and F-35 fighters.