By WENDELL MINNICK
TAIPEI — Despite pains by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) to keep the F-16 upgrade program on course, the effort could be derailed by US defense budget cuts that endanger the US Air Force’s Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (CAPES) program for its own F-16s.
Local defense industry sources indicate with some irony that it is the Pentagon’s turn for bureaucratic inertia and budget woes. US defense officials have complained for years about Taiwan’s sluggish response in allocating funds and keeping procurement programs on schedule for US arms deals. Now it is the Pentagon’s turn to face complaints from the MND.
Taiwan has begun the process of upgrading 145 F-16A/B fighter aircraft procured in the 1990s. In September 2011, the Pentagon released a $5.3 billion retrofit program that included options such as the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, embedded global positioning system inertial navigation system, and electronic warfare management system.
Read the full story at DefenseNews