The primary F-16 Block 70 fighter constructed for the Republic of China Air Pressure was seen taking off from Fort Value Naval Base in Texas, integrating conformal gas tanks and three exterior gas tanks. The plane is query is a twin seat F-16D variant, and is predicted to cross the Pacific Ocean through aerial refuelling to Hualien Air Pressure Base on Taiwan Island later in June. Though the plane was formally handed over in March 2025, it has but to be ferried to Republic of China Air Pressure services. Sixty-six F-16C/D Block 70 fighter plane have been ordered beneath an $8.2 billion contract in 2019, and have been initially anticipated to start arriving at bases on Taiwan Island in 2024, and to finish deliveries in 2026.
The Republic of China Defence Ministry has repeatedly raised issues over main delays to F-16 deliveries, which have been initially supposed to be accomplished in 2027. Premier Cho Jung-tai in October acknowledged that the federal government didn’t rule out “taking authorized motion towards the producer,” though cautioning that the U.S. International Army Gross sales course of didnot present for direct compensation claims. The primary vital delays to F-16 deliveries turned public in Might 2023, when the Republic of China Ministry of Defence introduced that software program integration points within the U.S. had postponed deliveries. These issues concerned the combination and testing of superior avionics distinctive to the Chinese language configuration, which required further growth and validation earlier than plane might be accepted.
By 2024, officers acknowledged that the delays prolonged past software program. Shortages of elements, provider supply issues, and changes to the meeting schedule at Lockheed Martin’s Greenville, South Carolina manufacturing facility pushed again the deliberate handover of the primary plane. All through 2025, the Defence Ministry repeatedly warned that finishing supply of all 66 plane by the top of 2026 had change into more and more unlikely. Officers cited persevering with provide chain disruptions, and restricted manufacturing capability inside the U.S. defence business.By March 2026, Republic of China officers introduced that deliveries would lastly start in the course of the yr, after inspections of the manufacturing line confirmed that manufacturing was working at full capability.
Deliveries of the F-16 Block 70 have remained far behind the unique timetable, with officers having acknowledged that the delays had stemmed from software program growth points, manufacturing challenges, and integration testing required for Taiwan’s customised configuration. U.S. officers additionally established devoted efforts to speed up weapons deliveries to the Republic of China Armed Forces amid rising regional safety issues. In December 2025, information from the Taiwan Arms Gross sales Backlog Tracker has offered a sign of the foremost delays in arms provides to the Republic of China Armed Forces, with excellent backlogs having reached over $21.45 billion. In Might appearing U.S. Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao confirmed that the supply of $14 billion price of additional defence tools to the Republic of China Armed Forces had been quickly suspended, as a way to enable for the replenishment of U.S. stockpiles following the 39 day U.S.-led struggle towards Iran. Delays to deliveries of F-16s thus replicate a part of a far broader development of points within the U.S. defence sector delaying the deliveries of a variety of armaments.
Deliveries of the F-16 Block 70 will present the Republic of China Air Pressure with one of many largest F-16 fleets on the planet at over 200 fighters, after 140 F-16A/B plane have been delivered to the service from the mid-Nineties. Though the massive majority of F-16s in service world wide as we speak are thought-about out of date, the F-16 Block 70 is essentially the most succesful variant and boasts an enhanced variant of the F110 engine, the F110-GE-129, in addition to a excessive composite airframe that reduces upkeep wants, and an AN/APG-83 AESA that revolutionises the sort’s situational consciousness. Plane constructed for the Republic of China Air Pressure every additionally combine an Infrared Search and Monitor (IRST) system, enabling passive detection and monitoring of plane with out emitting radar power.
Republic of China Air Pressure F-16s’ infrared search and monitoring capabilities are notably invaluable towards stealth plane or in environments the place digital emissions may reveal the fighter’s place. Though considerably extra succesful than Chilly Battle period F-16 variants that started to enter service within the Seventies, the F-16 Block 70 variant remains to be thought-about removed from innovative, notably in comparison with that superior fifth era fighters such because the J-20A deployed by the Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Army, which stays in a state of civil struggle with the Republic of China Armed Forces. The selection of the F-16 Block 70 is broadly assessed to have been a direct results of the Defence Ministry’s incapability to order extra F-35 fifth era fighters from america, though efforts to position orders for the F-35 are projected by analysts to persist.
