Taiwan is beginning to receive the first operational aircraft from its 66-jet F-16V Block 70 order, marking a major milestone in the island’s long-running effort to modernise its combat-air fleet while confronting a far more difficult strategic question: whether advanced conventional fighters can remain operational in a conflict dominated by China’s growing missile, drone and electronic-warfare capabilities.
The first two single-seat fighters, serial numbers 6727 and 6728, departed the United States on August 17 and began their journey across the Pacific. After transiting through Fort Worth and Hawaii, the aircraft were expected to continue through Guam before reaching Taiwan’s Chihhang Air Base in Taitung, weather permitting.
Their arrival will begin a consequential induction process involving inspections, acceptance procedures, pilot conversion training, maintenance preparation and operational integration before the aircraft are incorporated into the Republic of China Air Force’s 7th Tactical Fighter Wing.
The delivery turns a long-delayed procurement programme into a visible demonstration of continuing US security support for Taiwan. More importantly, it gives Taipei additional capacity for air policing, beyond-visual-range interception, maritime strike and other missions at a time when Chinese military aircraft and naval forces are increasingly operating around the island.
Yet the F-16V Block 70 is not a decisive military equaliser. China retains overwhelming advantages in the number and geographic distribution of combat aircraft, missiles, airfields, surveillance systems and supporting forces. The People’s Liberation Army can also employ ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, electronic warfare and cyber capabilities to attack Taiwan’s air bases and command infrastructure.
The central issue, therefore, is not simply how many F-16Vs Taiwan possesses. It is whether the aircraft can continue generating sorties after the opening hours of a major conflict.
Taiwan’s approximately US$8 billion Peace Phoenix Soaring programme is designed to provide 66 newly built F-16C/D Block 70 fighters. Combined with roughly 139–141 upgraded F-16Vs derived from Taiwan’s existing F-16 fleet, the programme could give Taipei a modernised force approaching 200 Viper-series aircraft.
That would make Taiwan one of the world’s largest operators of the F-16.
The scale matters because modern air warfare depends heavily on operational mass. A fighter force that can sustain repeated sorties, absorb losses and continue operating from multiple locations presents a substantially more difficult problem for an adversary than a small elite fleet.
The new aircraft also provide considerable technological improvements.
The Block 70 incorporates the AN/APG-83 active electronically scanned array radar, an upgraded F110-GE-129 engine, conformal fuel tanks, modern digital avionics, electronic-warfare capabilities, Link 16 connectivity and an airframe designed for a substantially extended service life.
Together, those improvements provide better detection, engagement flexibility, endurance, situational awareness and interoperability than Taiwan’s older F-16s.
The aircraft are also compatible with a broad range of US weapons, including AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles and several precision-guided strike weapons.
That gives Taiwan the flexibility to employ the F-16V in multiple roles rather than limiting it to traditional air-to-air combat.
But flexibility also creates logistical demands. Different missions require different weapons, software, mission planning, trained personnel, loading equipment and intelligence data. A multirole fleet becomes strategically useful only when the supporting infrastructure can sustain those functions during combat.
The decision to base the new fighters at Chihhang in Taitung has significance beyond simple fleet distribution.
Eastern Taiwan has historically provided geographic depth against threats approaching across the Taiwan Strait. That assumption has become increasingly difficult to sustain as the PLA expands operations around Taiwan and conducts exercises that demonstrate its ability to approach the island from multiple directions.
The eastern coastline faces the Bashi Channel and the wider Western Pacific. Those approaches are strategically important because they connect the Taiwan Strait with the Philippine Sea and provide routes for aircraft, naval forces and submarines operating beyond the island’s immediate western approaches.
The deployment of F-16Vs at Chihhang therefore gives Taiwan an additional counter-air node in a region that is becoming increasingly important to the PLA’s military planning.
From eastern Taiwan, F-16Vs could conduct defensive counter-air patrols, intercept approaching aircraft and support maritime operations. They could also complicate attempts by Chinese forces to isolate Taiwan from the Pacific or establish uncontested access to waters east of the island.
The location also carries a political and military message.
Taiwan is signalling that it does not intend to treat its eastern side as merely a rear area during a crisis. Instead, it is becoming another active component of Taiwan’s air-defence network.
For China, this potentially means allocating additional surveillance, electronic-warfare, fighter and strike resources against eastern Taiwan.
However, the advantage comes with considerable risk.
A modern fighter is useful only if it can take off.
China’s missile arsenal creates perhaps the greatest challenge to Taiwan’s investment in advanced fighters.
The PLA could attempt to create what military planners sometimes describe as a “runway trap”: repeatedly striking operating surfaces, aircraft shelters, fuel facilities, ammunition depots, command centres and repair equipment without necessarily destroying every fighter.
The objective would be to prevent aircraft from generating sorties.
This distinction is crucial. A fighter sitting intact inside a hardened shelter has little immediate military value if its runway is cratered, fuel supply disrupted, weapons unavailable or maintenance personnel unable to reach it.
Chihhang’s contribution will consequently depend on far more than the performance of the F-16V itself.
Hardened aircraft shelters, runway-repair teams, mobile fuel systems, dispersed ammunition stocks, redundant communications, deception measures and alternative operating locations will determine how much combat power the wing can actually generate.
Rapid runway repair will be particularly important.
Repairing pavement is not sufficient if Chinese surveillance systems can immediately identify the repaired section and strike it again. Taiwan would need to combine engineering capabilities with deception, dispersal and rapid changes in operating patterns.
The same principle applies to maintenance.
The F-16V force will depend upon trained technicians, engines, radar components, software, electronic-warfare equipment and specialised test systems. If those resources are concentrated at a handful of vulnerable facilities, the entire fleet could suffer operational degradation even without suffering large numbers of aircraft losses.
The AN/APG-83 AESA radar is among the most important improvements offered by the Block 70.
Unlike older mechanically scanned radars, an AESA can rapidly steer its electronic beam and perform multiple functions while providing improved resistance to certain forms of interference. This allows the F-16V to detect and track air targets while supporting a broader range of tactical missions.
The aircraft can also benefit from networked operations through Link 16.
That means an F-16V does not necessarily need to depend entirely on its own radar to understand the battlespace. Information from other aircraft, ground-based sensors and compatible systems can contribute to a broader tactical picture.
For Taiwan, this network-centric capability is especially valuable because operating aircraft with minimum unnecessary radar emissions can become important when confronting a sophisticated opponent equipped with electronic intelligence and long-range missiles.
An infrared search-and-track capability can provide another sensing layer by detecting aircraft through their thermal signatures without relying entirely on active radar emissions.
Electronic warfare will be equally important.
The Block 70’s modernised defensive systems are intended to improve threat detection and self-protection. However, the precise wartime effectiveness of those systems against China’s latest electronic-warfare capabilities remains difficult to assess publicly.
The important point is that survivability increasingly depends upon the interaction between radar, electronic warfare, networking, decoys, intelligence and supporting sensors rather than on any individual aircraft component.
The F-16V’s weapons compatibility gives Taiwan options beyond conventional air defence.
AIM-120 missiles provide beyond-visual-range air-to-air capability, while AIM-9X offers a highly capable short-range option.
AGM-84 Harpoon missiles provide an anti-ship capability that could be relevant during an attempt by China to impose a blockade or conduct an amphibious operation.
The AGM-88 HARM provides a potential suppression-of-enemy-air-defences role against radar emitters, while weapons such as JDAM, Paveway and JSOW can support precision strikes.
This creates considerable operational flexibility.
However, it also creates a major logistical challenge. Each weapon type requires stocks, maintenance, targeting information, mission planning and trained personnel. Taiwan would need to distribute these capabilities across multiple locations so that a single missile strike cannot cripple the fleet’s ability to conduct a particular mission.
Conformal fuel tanks are another important feature.
They can increase endurance while preserving conventional wing stations for weapons and sensors. This is useful for Taiwan because its aircraft may need to patrol increasingly distant approaches to the island.
But additional endurance cannot eliminate the need for functioning ground infrastructure.
Eventually every aircraft must return, refuel, rearm and undergo maintenance.
Taiwan’s expanded F-16V force will create a substantial logistical footprint.
The programme involves 75 F110 engines and 75 AN/APG-83 radars, including spare units, as well as mission computers, software, electronic-warfare support, test equipment, training systems and depot-level maintenance capabilities.
Commonality between the new Block 70 fighters and upgraded F-16Vs should offer important advantages.
Pilots and technicians can operate within a broader F-16 ecosystem, while common systems can simplify some aspects of training and supply.
Nevertheless, the new aircraft are not identical to Taiwan’s upgraded legacy fighters. Differences in propulsion, structure and integrated systems will still require specialised maintenance knowledge and components.
In wartime, this becomes a potential vulnerability.
A missile strike against a maintenance facility, calibration system or power supply could reduce aircraft availability without destroying a single fighter.
Fuel presents another problem.
Long-range patrols and heavy weapons loads consume substantial quantities of fuel. Fuel depots and transport routes are therefore potential targets for Chinese intelligence and strike systems.
The same applies to ammunition.
Taiwan must ensure that weapons are distributed across sufficiently protected locations rather than concentrated in a small number of easily identifiable depots.
The strategic principle is straightforward: **fighter numbers represent potential combat power, but sortie generation represents usable combat power.**
That distinction could determine the outcome of an air campaign.
The arrival of the first aircraft also highlights the long timeline associated with advanced fighter procurement.
The programme has experienced production and delivery delays, making schedule management a significant issue for Taiwan.
Every delayed aircraft represents more than one missing airframe. It also delays pilot conversion, technician training, unit-level experience, maintenance learning and the development of tactics specific to the new aircraft.
That is why delivery velocity matters alongside technical capability.
Taiwan has adjusted payment arrangements around delivery milestones and explored forms of compensation for delays, including technical assistance, spare parts, extended warranties or software-related improvements.
The broader issue is the limitations of the US Foreign Military Sales system.
Advanced fighters require highly specialised components, skilled labour and complex supply chains. Production capacity must be shared among multiple customers, while the same industrial base is simultaneously supporting other US and allied requirements.
The result is that strategic urgency does not automatically translate into immediate delivery.
China strongly opposes US arms sales to Taiwan, describing them as interference in China’s internal affairs and violations of Beijing’s interpretation of the One-China principle.
Washington, meanwhile, regards its support for Taiwan as consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances.
Each F-16V delivery therefore carries both military and political significance.
The aircraft demonstrate continuing US commitment to Taiwan while reinforcing the broader security relationship between Washington and Taipei.
For Beijing, the programme represents another element of US involvement in the island’s defence.
China could respond through increased military pressure rather than direct escalation.
PLA aircraft and naval forces could increase activity around Taiwan, while surveillance missions, median-line crossings, circumnavigation operations and military exercises impose a persistent operational burden on Taiwanese forces.
Such activity can have an important cumulative effect.
Even without combat, frequent interceptions consume fuel, maintenance hours and aircraft service life while increasing the workload of pilots and ground crews.
The greatest strategic mistake would be to treat the F-16V as a stand-alone solution to Taiwan’s defence problem.
China possesses a large fleet of advanced fighters, including the J-20, along with extensive missile forces, surveillance aircraft, drones, electronic-warfare systems and a growing naval aviation capability.
Taiwan cannot expect approximately 200 F-16V-class aircraft to establish air superiority against that system.
Instead, the F-16V must form one layer of a much broader defence architecture.
That architecture includes mobile surface-to-air missiles, coastal anti-ship missiles, unmanned systems, hardened bases, underground facilities, deception, dispersed command networks and rapid repair capabilities.
The concept resembles Taiwan’s broader “porcupine” approach: make an attack sufficiently costly and difficult that an adversary cannot achieve a rapid political or military victory.
In that context, the F-16V’s purpose is not necessarily to dominate the airspace.
Its purpose is to complicate China’s calculations.
Every surviving fighter capable of launching an air-to-air missile, attacking a ship or suppressing a radar represents another variable for PLA planners.
Every additional sortie required to establish air superiority consumes time and resources.
Every day that Taiwan maintains meaningful combat capability increases the possibility of outside diplomatic, economic or military intervention.
The arrival of the F-16Vs also has implications beyond Taiwan.
The island sits close to the Bashi Channel, the Philippine Sea and major maritime routes linking Northeast and Southeast Asia.
Its airspace and surrounding waters are therefore connected to the strategic calculations of Japan, the Philippines, Australia and the United States.
A Taiwan able to maintain a credible air force for longer would complicate Chinese military operations across the wider Western Pacific.
For Washington, the programme also strengthens interoperability and creates deeper long-term sustainment ties with Taiwan.
But that relationship brings its own obligations.
If Taiwan requires replacement engines, software updates, weapons, radar components or technical assistance during a prolonged crisis, the ability of the United States to provide those resources could become strategically significant.
The trans-Pacific supply chain that supports the F-16 fleet therefore becomes part of Taiwan’s deterrence architecture.
The first F-16V Block 70 deliveries will not overturn the military balance across the Taiwan Strait.
China retains major advantages in numbers, missile capacity, geographic depth and industrial scale.
But that does not make the programme strategically insignificant.
The value of the F-16V lies in increasing uncertainty for Chinese planners.
If Taiwan can disperse the aircraft, protect maintenance facilities, distribute fuel and ammunition, repair runways quickly and maintain resilient communications, the fighters could continue operating after the opening missile strikes.
That would transform the aircraft from expensive static assets into a regenerating combat force.
The first arrivals therefore mark more than a procurement milestone.
They represent the beginning of a new phase in Taiwan’s air-defence strategy—one in which advanced fighters must operate under the assumption that their bases, logistics and command networks will be attacked from the opening moments of a conflict.
The decisive question will not ultimately be how advanced the F-16V’s radar is, how many missiles it can carry or how many aircraft Taiwan receives.
It will be whether Taiwan can keep those aircraft flying.
If Taipei succeeds in protecting the infrastructure behind the fighters, the Block 70 fleet could raise the cost of Chinese military operations, complicate attempts to establish air superiority and buy valuable time in a crisis.
