ROCAF F-5E Tiger II

My New Military art

The Taiwan air force (ROCAF) received its first batch of seven F-5As and two F-5Bs under the U.S. Military Assistance Program in 1965. By 1971, the ROCAF was operating 72 F-5As and 11 F-5Bs.During 1972, the U.S. borrowed 48 ROCAF F-5As to lend to the South Vietnam Air Force before the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. By 1973, most of those loaned F-5As were not in flying condition, thus the U.S. opted to return 20 F-5As to Taiwan by drawing nine F-5As from U.S. reserves while repairing a further 11 from South Vietnam. These were sent to Taiwan to make necessary repairs, with gave 28 F-5Es issued to Taiwan by May 1975 in return.By 1973, Taiwan's AIDC started local production of a first batch of 100 F-5Es in Taiwan, the first of six Peace Tiger production batches. By end of 1986 when the production line closed after completing Peace Tiger 6, the AIDC had produced 242 F-5Es and 66 F-5Fs. Taiwan was the largest operator of the type at one time, having 336 F-5E/Fs in inventory.The last batch of AIDC F-5E/Fs featured the F-20's shark nose.
With the introduction of 150 F-16s, 60 Mirage 2000-5s and 130 F-CK-1s in the mid-to-late-1990s, the F-5E/F series became second line fighters in ROCAF service and mostly are now withdrawn from service as squadrons converted to new fighters entering ROCAF service. Seven low airframe hours F-5Es were sent to ST Aerospace to convert them to RF-5E standard to fulfill a reconnaissance role previously undertaken by the retiring Lockheed RF-104G in ROCAF service.As of 2009, only about 40 ROCAF F-5E/Fs still remain in service in training roles with about 90–100 F-5E/Fs held in reserve. The other retired F-5E/F are either scrapped, or used as decoys painted in colors representing the main front line F-16, Mirage 2000-5 or F-CK-1 fighters, and deployed around major air bases.

Taiwan AIDC's Tiger 2000
Taiwan also tried to upgrade the F-5E/F fleet with AIDC's Tiger 2000/2001 program. The first flight took place on 24 July 2002. The program would replace the F-5E/F's radar with F-CK-1's GD-53 radar and allow the fighter to carry a single TC-2 BVRAAM on the centerline. But lack of interest from the Taiwan/ROC Air Force eventually killed the program. The only prototype is on display in AIDC in Central Taiwan.[99][100]
The only air combat actions ROCAF F-5E/F pilots saw, were not over Taiwan, but in North Yemen. In 1979, a flareup between North Yemen and South Yemen prompted the U.S. to sell 14 F-5E/Fs to North Yemen to boost its air defense. Since no one in North Yemen knew how to fly the F-5E/F (only MiG-15s were operational at the time), U.S. and Saudi Arabia arranged to have 80+ ROCAF F-5E pilots[101] plus ground crew and anti-air defense units sent to North Yemen as part of North Yemen Air Force's 115th Squadron at Sana‘a operating initially just six F-5E/Fs and then from April 1979 to May 1990, added eight more. The ROCAF piloted F-5E/F scored a few kills in a few air battles, but the ground early warning radar crews and anti-air units also suffered from air attacks from South Yemen, whose aircraft were piloted by Soviet crews.

Very nice and dynamic artwork !



Bernard

Bernard a écrit:

Very nice and dynamic artwork !



Bernard

Thank you