First Block 70 F-16 for Taiwan
April 4, 2025
The first Block 70 F-16D for the Republic of China Air Force (6831) was handed over at Greenville on 28 March 2025. It is the first of 66 General Electric F110-engined F-16C/D Block 70s aircraft ordered in November 2019 in a Foreign Military Sales package valued at US $8 Billion. It was originally expected to be handed over last year, but was delayed by reported software issues and COVID-related disruptions to the supply chain.
The handover ceremony was witnessed by a number of VIP guests, including Taiwan’s Deputy Defence Minister Po Horng-huei, Congressman William Timmons (also a Captain in the South Carolina Air National Guard), South Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, the State’s Director of Governmental Affairs, Phil Hamby, and Sara H.Hazzard, the President & CEO of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance.
Hazzard said that the F-16 was “Proudly produced in Greenville, South Carolina,” and that it was the ‘23rd Coolest Thing Made in South Carolina.” She added that Lockheed Martin was the “employer of 1,800 of SC’s best.”
Taiwan originally signed an agreement for the sale of 150 F-16A/B aircraft (120 A-models and 30 two-seat B-models) to Taiwan in November 1992, under the Peace Fenghuang Foreign Military Sales programme.
The RoCAF Block 20 F-16s were broadly equivalent to upgraded NATO MLU aircraft, and were equipped with the improved Westinghouse AN/APG-66(V) 3 fire-control radar, AN/APX-111 IFF, ALR-56M advanced radar warning receivers, and AN/ALE-47 chaff/flare dispensers. They have a cockpit similar to that of the Block 50. All RoCAF F-16A/Bs were powered by the Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-220 turbofan engine.
Some 139 surviving F-16A/Bs are being upgraded to virtual Block 70/72 standards, with Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam AESA radar and a Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-229 engine, and a host of other improvements.
