Another entry from Tom’s Worldwide Aviation Tours
Back in January last year, a bunch of decided on a week long trip to do Cruzex in Brazil (which looked like a lovely week for those that went!) however, in one of my fourth-glass-of-red-on-a-Friday thoughts, I'd always fancied a go at Taiwan. When participants started dropping off the Cruzex list, and the group started making other individual plans, I decided to convert to the Republic of China. The other reason I decided to go is, perhaps a bit morbid, but given the state of the world, and China's endless posturing, I have a feeling that the small beautiful island will, at some point, become more difficult to access.
As always with these sorts of trips, I had in mind a few objectives; top of the list was shooting their wonderful RF-5Es, the last reconnaissance Tigers in the world. Taiwan retired their F-5E/Fs in the training role last year, but the "Tigergazers" are lingering on until the end of 2025. Secondly, I really wanted to shoot their indigenous F-CK-1s - a design that has a really interesting history behind it. Thirdly, I wanted a chance to bag some of their rare helicopters. Despite taking deliveries of AH-64Es, they still operate a fleet of AH-1W Super Cobras, which would have been awesome to see.
Taiwan is a relatively small island, so a week (with travel either side) is good enough to cover what you want, as long as the weather gods are on your side (as they were this week - as the week before, and the week after were sandwiched by two unseasonably powerful tropical typhoons, which halted almost all flying activity).
As always with these trips, research is key, and part of the fun, for a nerd like me, is deep diving into orbats, operational deployments, exercises, trawling Google, speaking with locals etc to get an idea of the best spots. Reports from Taiwan were mixed previously. It seemed like it wasn't a red-list area to spot, like Greece, not nor was it as open as the likes of the USA or Japan. Almost all reports from the area (particularly Hualien, more on that later) have descriptions of people being moved on and/or followed by police.
Anyway, on with the shots;
Day one - Hsinchu - Saturday 2nd November 2024
One thing I learned from the locals, is that due to the ROC's posturing with mainland China, and the amount of China's breaches of airspace, the ROCAF are practically on the clock, around the clock. That means that you can catch flying activity pretty much 24/7, albeit slightly reduced on the weekend.
Hsinchu is a pleasant coastal town, just under an hour's drive from Taipei, and so is almost always a spotter's first or last stop if they're navigating the small island. Turns out, I'd accidentally booked myself into some weird sort of sex hotel - the room had a decor that I could only describe as "Shagadelic Sunset", and the complimentary sex kitten brand condoms I decided, responsibly, to take home with me and frame.
Hsinchu is home to Taiwan's Mirage 2000-5 fleet; highly capable machines, but also some of the most expensive, so there are calls to retire them in the near future. Other than roundels and slightly muted camo, the main cosmetic difference between Taiwan's and France's M2ks are the absence of the former's refuelling probe.
First off, a trio of twin-sticks were out and about on training missions. According to the very chatty local spotters, the orange flight suits usually meant the pilot was a student.
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Then, emerging from the HAS, some live-armed singles emerged, who flew the morning's CAP sortie. I ducked down a bit for this, lest local police come whizzing by, but the local spotters told me that I had nothing to worry about:
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Recoveries yielded similar shots, and that was me done for the day. A little quiet, but a happy start.
Day Two - Sunday 3rd November - Tainan/Gangshan
The next day I was up very early to drive south towards the city of Kaohsiung, all the way to a base called "Tainan", a joint civil/military airport, and one of Taiwan's F-CK-1 bases. The F-CK-1 "Chung Kuo" is referred to locally as the "IDF" - Indigenous Defence Fighter. It's development is an interesting story; emerging out of a diplomatic row between China and the US in the 80s, with China blocking an F-16 deal, and then a deal for the F-20 Tigershark. In the end, Taiwan went on their own and developed a really neat little twin-engine afterburning fighter.
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Even bagged one of two special tails!
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Sun starting to swing around now, but I managed to catch the live CAP patrol return; carrying what look like AIM-9s on the wings, and then on the centreline the indigenous Sky Sword II TC-2A, which Wikipedia tells me is in an equivalent class as an AGM-88 HARM
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I then shifted to Gangshan - the Air Force's Training Academy. The place is relatively easy to spot, but it was a bugger trying to find anywhere to stick the car. The main reason for going is that this base is home to the ROCAF's fleet of T-34 Turbo Mentors, and the indigenous AIDC AT-3, which has a very CASA C.101 feel to it. These vintage jet trainers (with a well-used attack capability) pack a punch, but are getting very long in the tooth now, and will soon be replaced by the AIDC AT-5, a training variant of the F-CK-1, but more on those later.
The sun was really shifting at this point, and with a north/south runway, I had to make the most of their morning sorties before they finished for the day. Additionally, even on the weekend, Kaohsiung City is a very smoggy place, and I found the combination of sun and air quality difficult to shoot in.
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All of ROCAF's AT-3s are painted in the colours of the national display team, the "Thunder Tigers". Whilst they still perform ceremonial flypasts, they disbanded in 2024 due to experienced pilot shortage. However, the new AT-5s have recently been tested carrying external display smoke pods, similar to the Reds, so one assumes the Thunder Tigers will have an upgrade soon!
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Then, with the sun getting really tricky, the T-34s returned, though they must've landed long, as their approaches over the fence were very high.
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With a few hours to kill before I could check into the next hotel, I took a look around the excellent, but cramped ROCAF museum:
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18. A shame I couldn't do better with this - the lack of a tripod meant I was shooting handheld, and there was a lot of clutter/people in the way, but this Il-28 was the first of the type in Western hands after it defected from mainland China. The tail gunner was killed, and the back seater and navigator both defected (the navigator attempted suicide, but failed and was captured alive).

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20. I saw this and thought "oh cool, at least I get to see a ROCAF twin-stick F-5, even if it is in a museum. Hopefully that's a premonition of things to come!"

That evening, Mr. Wise came to join me, after a spur of the moment decision to grab a flight out there, and get the express train down. After a few beers, we chatted the usual stuff and nonsense (great podcast material) and got to bed. We had a decision to make tomorrow - Four bases to do in a day, if possible - Tainan, Gangshan, both of which I had done a day earlier, and Guiren, and Pingtung. All with their own types and uniqueness. Hm.
Day Three - Monday 4th November
After a spirited breakfast, where I didn't understand that the mysterious orange power I heaped onto my buffet plate was, in fact, unrefined sugar (my teeth still itch), we decided to take a punt on Guiren. This is a ROC Army airfield, twin runways, and home base to OH-58Ds, TH-67s, CH-47s, and, best of all, AH-1Ws. I'd put a lot of research into this one, and tried to work out where to go to view the aircraft. It was also the base that I had seen the least amount of photography for, so it was difficult to judge results. Helicopter photography can be a nightmare to sit at the end of a runway for, so we took a major gamble on a) finding the right location and b) not getting hassle by the police.
21. As we were getting out of the car, six AH-64Es took off for a few circuits before departing. Sadly, they used the opposite runway to us, and with Kaohsiung's smog really rising fast, the air quality wasn't great. Some record shots, though:

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23. Turning to what was on the pan in front of us, one of the CH-47s started up, which was an unexpected Brucey bonus. We hadn't purchased step ladders for this trip as a) they were obvious to local police, and b) they can be cumbersome, and particularly if you don't need them at every base, so for stuff on the pan at Guiren, we had to shoot through the razor wire, which can be quite difficult at times!

24. Still, we wanted Cobras, and saw several looking tantalisingly active on the ramp, and sure enough, it wasn't long before they started up. Then, once that was sorted, we needed them to play ball, and play ball they did:

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Delighted with the Cobras, we made a hasty f-off from the area, as it looked like we had been spotted (turns out, they were waiving at us!), to the other side of the airfield to see if we couldn't catch some of the other choppers we saw in the distance:
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Then, again, fearing we might be being watched, we scooted off to Tainan, and saw some F-CK-1s. The shots achieved there were almost identical to those above, so I'll spare you. After that, we decided to miss Gangshan, and head straight to Pingtung. Pingtung is actual two bases, referred to as North and South. North has P-3s and E-2s, whilst South has C-130s. Whilst both would have been nice, we elected to go to Pingtung North, and had the most trouble there of the whole trip - some old geezer took great umbrage at some foreigners with cameras walking about, so shouted at us a bit, and then phoned the police. WE therefore made a hasty retreat to the nearest 7/11 for some food, and when we came back he was gone. But we had missed an E-2 take off! But, none the worse for wear, as we were able to catch its return, and thereafter about two hours of circuit bashing! Sadly, the light had gone by this point as the clouds had rolled off the mountains.
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32. We did see a P-3 taxy out and depart, but never came back (at least before we had to leave)

And then a night drive through the mountains to the south, all the way to Taitung. As the guy who rented the car, I did all the driving, and it was a pretty exhausting drive after the day we'd had - not helped by Taiwan's ridiculously slow speed limits; though, when I saw the sheer faces we were driving a long the next day, I could at least understand why.
Day Four - Taitung/Hualien
A lot of research had resulted in me finding the iconic "spotter's hotel" - this hotel looks onto Taitung base from a roof terrace, as the sun rises over the sea behind you. With a lovely breakfast provided, there were worst places to spot!
Taitung was host to F-5E/Fs until December 2023. Now it plays host to the new AIDC T-5 "Brave Eagle" - this is a heavily updated and non-afterburning version of the twin-seat F-CK-1D, wearing a rather smart livery!
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The base is also host to some deployed types. At the moment, there were some Hualien and Chiayi F-16s there. One twin-seat departed on a local sortie, and two single-seaters departed on a CAP patrol
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36. To our delight, a Pingtung South C-130 dropped in, somewhat vindicating our decision to miss their base yesterday:

37. Note the lack of roundels. Local spotters have told us that during COVID, they were required to carry out international relief flights. Due to Taiwan's difficulty being fully recognised as a nation (as a result of China's pressure), their theory is that by removing the roundels, they were allowed to fly internationally.

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And then one of the VIP UC-35s (Beech 1800s) also dropped in and out for a quick turnaround, another brucy-bonus.

Taitung from that hotel is only really good in the morning, as the sun shifted, we decided to get a wriggle on up north, now on the eastern side of the island, up to the city of Hualien. Again, geographically not a long drive, but given the narrow roads, cliffs, and Taiwan's relentless speed limits, wit ended up being a very long, but spectacular, one.
39. By the time we arrived at Hualien, we decided to head to the local Carrefour, near our hotel, to see what the craic was. Turns out, some Hsinchu Mirage 2000s deployed to the base and local F-16s were operating on night flights. Forgive the photography, but this was all handheld, in a bit of wind, too.

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Day Five - Hualien proper. We planned this trip to be at Hualien on a Wednesday. Word amongst local spotters was that the RF-5Es performed local CAP flights every Wednesday morning. It's a bit of a pain, as Hualien is usually either the first or last stop in the "round the island" drive, so I would have preferred to spend a bit longer down south, but there we are. RF-5s were number one priority, so that's how we worked it.
Hualien, on the east coast, also bears the brunt of the Pacific weather, as the sea air is pushed up against the mountains. It's often got meh weather, as it did when we were there, but then, that can also work to one's advantage, as most of the good spotting locations would have been shooting into the sun anyway. Hualien is also a massive F-16 base which, whilst neat to see, you can have a guts-full after a few days of the same aircraft!
We started on the beach to the north of the base as the local Carrefour car park was closed to vehicles. This was so windy here, we could hardly speak to each other! I'd spent a lot of time trying to work out how people had got over-the-fence shots from here, until we saw a local climb on an old and disused bunker structure.
Again, we were worried about getting dicked by police/security, but once again, the crews seemed only too happy to give us a wave or throw up squadron signs:
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43. The sun-god motif is unique to the Hualien-based fixed wing aircraft fleet, as are the aboriginal patterns along the base of the tails.

Then, finally, the reason for the whole trip, the RF-5E launched pretty much on time, as we'd been led to believe. However we were in a pretty rubbish place to catch recoveries. Mick(theslick!) was in the Carrefour at the time, and let us know that it was now open to vehicles, so we quickly jumped into our car and zipped over.
The Carrefour has a multi-storey car park, that looks directly onto the runway threshold at Hualien. In sunny weather, it would only be good for the afternoon, but in the more usual overcast weather, it was great all day. The police have historically turfed people out of here, so we kept a low profile and didn't get out of the car until the last minute, and...
44. Boom. Finally, we had the RF-5 in the bag! The world's only recon F-5/Tigergazer left flying (and I believe Taiwan only have 3-5 airworthy). As an added bonus, note the live missiles on the wings, too. So not only my first (and only) reconnaissance F-5, but my first live-armed one, too:

45. Not sure about the spray-can marks. It's giving "three strikes" from Ace Combat...

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47. Then, an added bonus, the supporting F-5F also landed, too. This, too, supporting live-missiles, and still wearing the marks of the Taitung training school from which it used to fly. To save hours on the RF-5E fleet, the reconnaissance version usually flies with a non-reconnaissance twin-stick. I believe this jet has now been painted in full Hualien marks.

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Absolutely delighted with the RF-5 and F-5F, we then set about the rest of the day watching the usual base operations.
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50. The C-130 from Taitung yesterday turned up again, and departed quite quickly:

51. The very old SH-60 "Thunderhawks" were also active. The ROC Navy maintains a detachment of them at Hualien.

52. The much newer S-70is were also active:

53. And then another Herk joined, this one with full roundels

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55. One of the local squadrons, 26 Tactical Fighter Group "Witches", were taking part in a bombing competition with other fighter squadrons from other bases on the West coast. To pump up the crews, local maintainers and crew chiefs not on duty went out to the "Last Chance" area, as well as up to the Carrefour, to wave the squadron flag and wish them luck. Apparently they did very well and won the competition, and one of their pilots was crowned "Bomb King".

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We ended up talking to those local guys (mostly begging patches), and they were kind enough to take us out to dinner later, as well as give us a squadron goodie-bag full of tat, which was so kind!
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58. Out they went, with the comically small blue BDU-33 practice bombs.

59. And back they came with empty racks

Day Six - whilst we had already bagged the RF-5s, we had given ourselves two days at Hualien for weather/operations, so we were back up the Carrefour again:
60. To our surprise, the Northrops were back out again! This time, not armed. They taxied to last chance, had all the checks, held for a short while, and then taxied back in again past us. Not sure what the point of it was, but I wasn't going to say no to shooting them again!

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63. A UC-35 dropped in

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72. Then the deployed Mirage 2000-5s came out to play, in some awful lighting conditions:

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That was, Hualien cracked. We had one more day left until I had to fly home. The Friday of the week was either a reserve day, or just a day of city-mooching in Taipei. However, one of our local contacts messaged me to say that Hsinchu was putting on an impromptu Mirage 2000 solo display. I didn't really fancy the four hour drive, but, on the chance to see a Taiwanese Mirage 2000 demo, I channelled my inner UKAR spirit, and got behind the wheel. Luckily, doing the full circle of the island, once we got close to Taipei, the expressways started up again.
Making good time, we stopped at a service station near to Hsinchu to pick up some food, and look what was doing circuits:
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76. It's not going to win any awards, but still!

Onto Hsinchu proper - forgoeing the chance to explore Tapiei, we met up with the locals (accepted yet more gifts) and then waited for the 11am display, and right on time:
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Then, we'd heard about an F-CK-1 solo display further on at a base called Taichung, which I'd skipped a few days ago. Sadly, our luck had run out, and the demo was cancelled at short notice, but we got to see a few local birds recover, and a visiting UH-60, completing the ROC Army types list, I think:
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And that, I dare say, is your lot. A fantastic week of aviation action, all told. I'd be minded to curse the weather a little bit more, but given the massive typhoons that ravaged the island the week before and the week after, I think I count myself quite lucky.
A small note, too, for the Taiwanese spotting community - it's without doubt the most hospitable I've ever encountered. They showered us with gifts to the point of embarrassment, and could not have given us a warmer welcome. The spotters at one base would send messages to spotters at the next base to alert them to our arrival, and ensure that they knew who we were and to go and say hello.
As for the police, we only saw them once, and they just came up for a chinwag with the locals and didn't speak to us. I think we got off lucky, but there is a new law in Taiwan now that prohibits military spotting when shooting the base infrastructure. I believe that it came in force at the start of this year. At any event, I think that spotting in the country will become more difficult (but by no means impossible).
Taiwan itself was a beautiful country. A sort of Japan meets China sort of vibe. Some areas worst than others, but the people are among some of the most generous and kind I've ever met. Things were relatively cheap, too. Sam joining help me split the cost of the trip in half, but the trip was a lot cheaper than my trip to Japan in 2023.
Thoroughly recommended, if you've got the chance.
C&C, as always, welcomed.
Best,
Tom