T-50? I believe that AIDC may have tried to poke the possibility of joint production, but buying Korea would be a joke and political suicide for some people. AIDC is fully capable of designing and producing anything like T-50. Heck, re-engine IDF/B with F-124 instead of TFE-1042 and you get basically the same thing. AIDC/ROCAF's IDF C/D project is now going on well at the moment.

 

Typhoon is a no-no, since UK, Italy, Germany and Spain also have arms embargo toward Taiwan.

 

Grippen is not an option, since it's performance is very similar to IDF anyway.

 

So, we are really stuck with F-16C/D and Rafale for the moment. If the US is willing to sell F414 with afterburner and grant for other system integration contract, AIDC and ROCAF may be able to come up with something else. They have just completely a series of airborne weapons and system integration to IDF C/D project.

 

> the Rafale

Taiwanese themselves don't want Rafale.
 
Like Russia would care.

Who told you that we don't want Rafale? Once Mirage 2000 fleet is gone, MICA and Magic stock are basically junk and has to be resold back to France. Given the amount of missiles purchased, I doubt that France would be very interested in that deal. Trade-in old Mirage with new Rafale is actually a good deal for Taiwan. We can get newer everything, no more salty problem thanks for naval version, and still have built-in EW suite and even first active phased array radar.

 

Russia has a policy not to sell weapons systems to Taiwan. China is one factor, and they don't really care that much. They have other means to make money out of this small market.

Buy Typhoon instead. Better engines, radar, missiles, and it can use the same weapons families as the American inventory which the Republic of China cloned (Its already coded for it, so the Sky Swords should work ).

TC series missiles can't be used on any US-made weapons platform because certain amount of system integration fee is never paid. Besides, TC-1 is old technology, while TC-2 is completely different story. There will be funny things coming out next year to replace TC-1, and that will not be blatant copy of AIM-9 anymore.

 

AIM-120 can't be used on IDF for the very same reason. The ROCAF doesn't want to pay for AIM-120 integration, yet. 

Like the projected  HARM clone with an AMRAAM type seeker?  Sky Sword II used an American seeker based on the loser to the AMRAAM competition. If there is one thing I know about the ROCese, they can develop, invent a better type, or reverse engineer anything, they want as long as they have something as a guide. Coding is not a technical problem for them, that would be purely politics impediment.  IRIS-T can be back channeled through Israel and I expect it could very well be. Of course Derby is also a possible path. When you are an international "out" you tend to seek out your fellows and make arrangements to help each other.

CREF above.

While you are quite right that the original TC-2 is based on Motorola design, there was some difficulty involving loss of component provider which propelled them to seek alternative solution. All newer missiles are made with indigenously produced seekers. TC-2A version has been around fore very long time. It is the whole system that took so long.

 

A lot of time there are very strict budget constraints for almost every project. We don't have enough man power to do everything from scratch. And sometimes, a lot of experience and know-how can't be learned from principal. Blatant copying is a necessity in that situation.

 

As for seeking international  partners, there were some rumors that I've heard about. However, generally speaking, Israeli organizations are run by business people, and ours are run by bureaucrats and government engineers.

Joint production at this stage is impossible. License production, sure. T-50 does owe some of itself to around a dozen Ching Kuo engineers who worked on it and AIDC is fully aware of its capability since its own people worked on it.

> AIDC is fully capable of designing and producing anything like T-50.



Yes. But there is no money and time for it.



> Heck, re-engine IDF/B with F-124 instead of TFE-1042



F-124 is the US designation for TFE-1042.



> If the US is willing to sell F414 with afterburner and grant for other system integration contract, AIDC and ROCAF may be able to come up with something else.



I don't think importing F414 would be a problem at this stage, it is the lack of will on Taiwanese government to pursue another expensive indigenous fighter project, since it cannot be exported since no one would dare to buy arms from Taiwan and offend China.

1. Koreans won't admit that.

 

2. For a project of that scale, no, we do have money and time for that. It's a matter of choice rather than any form of limitation.

 

3. F-124 is TFE-1042 without afterburner.

 

4. The problem with F414 export is that the USG doesn't want us to have awesome strike power against PLA. Unless we show them the final design with only one engine or with very limited range, I doubt that they will ever grant it. But, why do we want a design with only one F414 engine? Upgraded TFE-1042 can do just the same thing. So had F414 is not a problem, they will simply make something like F/A-18E/F. That'll really piss commies off. I hope that I can see that happen.

 

5. Money is not really a problem had the politicians killed universal health care and social security.

Why not put Sweden or Israel on the list as potential suppliers of aircraft?

 

Why not Grippen or Kfir?  Kfir may not be ideal but more than adequate I wuld think. 

 

Given the way Obama has pulled the rug out from under Poland and the Czech Republic , if I were Taiwan I would definitely be looking around for alternative suppliers, and think about gong nuclear.