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Taiwanese plane maker AIDC to open region’s first F-16 fighter jet centre with Lockheed Martin
- President Tsai Ing-wen expected to inaugurate maintenance facility in Taichung on Friday
- It’s part of a ‘strategic alliance’ agreement signed in December, and comes amid worsening tensions across the Taiwan Strait
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A Taiwanese plane maker will on Friday open a maintenance centre for F-16 fighter jets in collaboration with US defence contractor Lockheed Martin, the first such facility in the Indo-Pacific, as tensions across the Taiwan Strait remain high.
President Tsai Ing-wen is expected to inaugurate the centre in Taichung, central Taiwan, local newspaper Liberty Times reported on Saturday. Representatives of Lockheed Martin – which is subject to sanctions from Beijing over its arms deal with the self-ruled island – would also be at the opening, it said.
The centre is part of a “strategic alliance” agreement signed in December between Taiwan’s state-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) and Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-16s.
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Under the plan, they are working on a retrofit of Taiwan’s 142 F-16A/B Block 20 fighter jets to upgrade them into Vipers, an advanced version of the F-16.
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Taiwan posts video of troops ‘fending off attack from mainland’ amid worsening cross-strait tensions
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AIDC chairman Hu Kai-hung said at a briefing on the new centre last week that it would support the island’s F-16 fleet and further develop Taiwan’s aerospace industry, according to a statement on the plane maker’s website.
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The company also wanted to attract business from other F-16 owners in the region, Hu said.
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