That’s really only something like 160 hours a year not a lot really
Like a lightly used bizjet
Those things have two bizjet engines
Considering how a Singapore airlines 777 for example does three round trips to the USA and Europe each week and in its life time could do 100 thousand hours those fighter jets have a cushy life
Because they need about 4 hours of maintenance for each hour in the air
Still it’s 40 years old and things just wear out
One space shuttle was taken out by a cheap O ring and these planes have thousands of parts and they were all almost 40 year old so the chance of a part failing is high
My 17 year old car can suffer and did a failure that if it was a plane it would have crashed
Jets are going overtop of Taidong city many times daily. Given how many aerial accidents taiwan has, i often wonder if they should be flying directly over top of a city at very low levels. Not just crash risk, but the noise is deafening and physically offensive. I get their purpose and super grateful, but if safety is so up in the air why fly so low over heavily populated areas?
Out of curiosity, is taiwan doing anything in the lines of manufacturing their own weapons for the coming China conflict? Seems decades of no security and lack of allies would allow for self made weaponry. Is that a thing or, or just relying on foreign left overs?
No idea, but it is in the news often and given the population density it seems like a bad idea from a citizens perspective. But inform me otherwise if you have some info
Given above comments and the tech other countries have, doesnt seem far off.
Do you know what kind of things taiwan is making? I mean other than bullets and computer chips. Are there any jets, ships, missiles, satellites etc taiwan is producing for itself? Surely lots would be classified, logically, but a general sense of mass manufacturing in the field of wholesale murder is unfortunately comforting living here. At least in the sense of defense.
I am genuinely curious on this as i am obviously ignorant.
Cheers. Reading a bit on it. My deep dark net wiki sources say 2 companies.
A quick look shows 15B usd budget for military. Considering taiwan faces the greatest military threat on earth by bith size and lack of moral based support internationally…seems low. Canada is over 20 and we have literally zero enemies…
Totally ignorant, im sure there is a plan. But if this pilot died in a museum piece, as previously mentioned, im not super confident in our safety.
I’m all for doing it kinmen-style if they ever come to our beaches: fire till the tanks run out if ammo, then run them over as they search for their already burnt boats
Anyway, Taiwan seems to have quite a bit of museum grade hardware around. See the “brave tiger” tanks. Still, with all the upgrades they can hurt a lot. And I guess that is all one could ask for… Make it hurt if anyone tries to attack. Not sure if it makes a huge difference if you spend double or triple - but then I’m no military weapons expert. I guess more guns and more own developed stuff wouldn’t be bad…
If they come, give me a handgun please. I can’t hit shit with a rifle, but am a decent shot with all kinds of handguns. Never tried SMGs though. Maybe they have some here?
Taitung is fairly small. A jet in trouble coming in from the south for a landing at the air base could pretty easily swerve left, to crash into the sea or right, into the mountains- otherwise probably overshoot or undershoot the city itself. Most of the actual training flights take place over the ocean.
There are plenty of spare parts for it. Tons available from all sorts of channels owing to the ubiquity of the airframe.
It’s still being used because it has a competitive ratio of maintenance - flight hours. Can’t say the same for the Mirage 2000. In combination with a healthy supply of spare parts this makes the aircraft an excellent training platform and second-line fighter. Cheap way to keep the pilots’ hours up.
While the Air Force’s budget (like the rest of the Taiwan military) should be raised, it’s one of the better funded branches of the military. Nobody is buying parts with their own money (and it’s not like you can just order them from PChome).
In the event of combat with the PRC this would make for a very speedy ground-attack platform to dump anti-radiation missiles on forces occupying an offshore island. Good profile for missions where you don’t want to risk an F-16 airframe.
If they are such awesome planes, and many are “old as phuck”, why not copy new ones? Copying and manufacturing.is literally one of taiwans strongest assets in very real terms…again, i am ignorant but things just dont seem to be aligning quite right…
Sure, laws on registered brands,trademarks an patents. But taiwan has been getting around thise famously for decades. Modify slightly and mass produce seems cheaper than buying a fleet of f35s, which taiwan isnt trusted with anyways. Thats what im getting at. Taiwan is insanely good at setting up factories, sourcing and pumping out mass quantities of things. Seems a good idea to do such a thing with national defense (mass production). Wonder if they are, ir are planning to? If taiwan is using so much old tek, in theory it wouldnt too tough to figure it out and make a lot of it.
and Sky Sword, and… Uhm… I don’t know any ship names, sorry.
