BRAVE EAGLE: There were many challenges, critics and naysayers along the way, but ‘we were right and our efforts were not in vain,’ President Tsai Ing-wen said
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 25, 2019
By: Yang Chun-hui and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended the rollout of the first indigenously produced
President Tsai Ing-wen waves from the cockpit of a prototype of Taiwan’s newly developed trainer jet, the Advanced Jet Trainer, at the 50th anniversary of the Aerospace Industrial Development Corp factory in Taichung yesterday.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
The manufacture of the prototype, which the Ministry of National Defense named the AIDC T-5 Yung Ying (勇鷹, “Brave Eagle”), marks a historic milestone for the air force, the nation’s aerospace industry and the administration’s pledge to create a self-sufficient defense industry, Tsai said.
“There have been many challenges, detractors, critics and naysayers on the long journey leading to this day, but the facts show that we were right and our efforts were not in vain,” she said before thanking the ministry, the AIDC and the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology.
Tsai said that the idea for the indigenous trainer came from a discussion in 2016 with then-AIDC chairman Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) when she was campaigning as the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate. [FULL STORY]