Taiwan's second batch of new F-16 Block 70 fighters heads for Hawaii on the way home

Taiwan's second batch of new F-16 Block 70 fighters has started the Pacific leg of its delivery flight. Three single-seat F-16C jets carrying air force serial numbers 6729, 6731 and 6732 took off from Fort Worth, Texas, on the morning of 3 November US time, with Hawaii reported as their next stop. Defence Minister Wellington Koo acknowledged on 4 November that the jets had been photographed and said the ministry hoped they would come home as planned and as quickly as possible.

The aircraft were spotted by US aviation enthusiasts, who photographed them arriving in formation at Fort Worth on the afternoon of 2 November and departing on full afterburner the next morning. A Taiwanese military enthusiast page cited by FTV and Taiwan News said the jets had flown in from the Lockheed Martin plant in South Carolina for a technical stop in Texas. TVBS noted that the national insignia on the jets was left uncovered while they flew in US airspace.

The route home

Newtalk reported that the transfer is being flown as a US Air Force Coronet West mission, the term used for a long-distance fighter move that needs tanker support, and that two US tankers are accompanying the jets. The fighters are expected to follow the same path as the first batch, staging through Hawaii and Guam before landing at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung.

Koo did not give an arrival date and said the ministry would announce the exact timing once it was settled. He had earlier said he hoped more of the new jets would reach Taiwan before the end of October, so the second batch is running a little behind the timetable he set out, TVBS observed.

A delayed programme

The first two Block 70 jets, serials 6727 and 6728, landed at Chihhang on 2 October. They were the first newly built main fighters Taiwan had received in nearly 30 years. Koo said in October that 63 aircraft were on the production line and that, of the six furthest along, two had reached Taiwan, two were at a US base for training and two were still being tested.

Taiwan is buying 66 new F-16 Block 70 jets under the Peace Phoenix Soaring programme for about NT$247.2 billion, or roughly 7.75 billion US dollars. Deliveries were originally meant to start in 2023 and finish in 2026, but supply chain and system integration problems pushed the schedule back, and many aircraft are still waiting on the production line, Newtalk reported.

The new fighters are due to join the air force's 7th Tactical Fighter Wing. They carry an active electronically scanned array radar, conformal fuel tanks and a more powerful F110 engine, and their airframes are rated for 12,000 flight hours. They are separate from the roughly 140 older F-16A/B jets that Lockheed Martin and Taiwan's Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation upgraded to the F-16V standard under the Phoenix Rising programme, work that was completed in December 2023.

Why it matters

Once all 66 new aircraft are delivered, Taiwan will operate more than 200 F-16s. Because the programme has run years behind its original plan, the gap between batches is a practical test of whether the production line can now turn out jets for Taiwan at a steady rate. A second delivery about a month after the first would be the clearest sign yet that it can, while any further slip would stretch a delay that has already lasted years.