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Taiwan’s New Training Jet Is Also A Sneaky Attack Plane

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The Taiwanese government did three things right when, in 2017, it tapped local plane-maker Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation to design and build 66 new training jets as part of a $2.2 billion program.

The resulting Brave Eagle jet, which flew for the first time over the city of Taichung back in June, is more than a trainer for the Taiwanese air force’s future fighter pilots.

It’s also an attack jet, as well as a means of preserving the island country’s ability to assemble its own warplanes—despite relentless efforts by mainland China to strangle Taiwan’s defense capabilities.

And the Brave Eagle manages to be both of these things without also being hugely vulnerable to Chinese sanctions.

The Taiwanese air force has around 300 front-line fighters—a mix of American-made F-16s, French Mirage 2000s and AIDC’s own F-CK-1s. A large fleet of three-decade-old AT-3 and F-5 trainers supports the combat fleet.

When it came time to replace the old training planes, Taiwan had options. Italy’s M-346 and the South Korean T-50 both were candidates.

But the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen wanted Taiwanese industry to make its own planes. So AIDC dusted off the blueprints for the lightweight, twin-engine F-CK-1—which looks a lot like a miniature F/A-18.

To the basic F-CK-1 airframe, AIDC’s engineers added a two-seat cockpit, new avionics, a thicker wing, more fuel capacity, composite components and—reportedly—a small electronically-scanned-array radar, although the latter feature is difficult to confirm.

The result is a trainer that, in many regards, also is a front-line warplane. Which is consistent with Taiwan’s policy of assigning combat roles to non-combat forces during a crisis. If Chinese forces invaded, today’s AT-3 and F-5 trainers likely would join the F-16s, Mirage 2000s and F-CK-1s in flying missions.

“They would be capable of providing support for the navy and air force in cross-strait conflicts,” Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defence and Security Research, told South China Morning Post.

Which is not to say the Brave Eagle is just a new-build F-CK-1. Its Honeywell F125 engines lack afterburners, so the trainer is subsonic. Its nose is narrower than the F-CK-1’s is. If the Brave Eagle does carry a radar, it’s a very small one.

But the trainer can carry missiles and bombs. It sustains thousands of skilled jobs at the only company in Taiwan that builds fighters. And as a program it’s mostly, although not entirely, immune to Chinese sanctions.

Yes, the Brave Eagle includes many foreign-made components—in particular its American engines. Washington provides the F125s to Taiwan as part of a government-to-government deal. When in 2019 Beijing threatened to sanction Honeywell over the transfer, the company simply shrugged and said it had nothing to do with the deal.

Honeywell is a “component-provider and [does] not decide where the products are used,” the firm stated.

Moreover, Honeywell originally developed the F125 along with Taiwanese firm International Turbine Engine Company. The Taiwanese company retains its expertise. There have been rumors that the Brave Eagle might eventually fly with locally-made engines.

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