AIR FORCE FIGHTERS COMPLETE FREEWAY EMERGENCY LANDING DRILL
ROC Central News Agency
2007-05-15 23:49:02
Taipei, May 15 (CNA) Six air force jet fighters completed a successful emergency landing drill on a closed section of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway Tuesday as part of the ongoing combined forces Huan Kuang 23 military exercise.
Two each of the air forces' three mainstay types of fighters -- the U.S.-built F-16, the French Mirage 2000-5 and the locally developed Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) -- swooped down to land and take off from the six-lane section of freeway in central Taiwan as the military responded to a simulated attack by China at the start of the extensive live-fire war games.
In the exercises, the F-16s were armed with advanced AIM-120 air-to-air missiles and Mirages were equipped with MICA medium-range air-to-air missiles while IDFs were not armed.
The six fighters screeched to a halt in quick succession along the Huatan section of freeway in Changhua County in central Taiwan, had their fuel tanks and munitions pods topped off by Air Force personnel and took off to face another wave of imagined attackers from China.
The drill attracted many media professionals, including 50 foreign correspondents.
Squadron leader Lt. Col. Wang Kai-ming said pilots involved in the landing felt a lot of pressure because of the unusual nature of the runway. "It was very difficult to do this, " he said. "But we were successful in accomplishing our mission."
The freeway landing scenario was developed to prepare the Taiwanese military to deal with the possibility that local air bases would be knocked out by Chinese aerial bombardment.
(By Sofia Wu)
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