Supply-Side Go

Lockheed Martin and the Taiwanese government-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation last week inked an agreement to cooperatively upgrade Taiwan’s F-16A/B fighter fleet, announced AIDC. “We are confident this collaboration effort will position both of our companies to better support our Taiwan customer,” said Roderick McLean, Lockheed Martin’s F-16 vice president, in AIDC’s July 12 release. The two companies, which formalized their collaboration at the Farnborough Air Show outside London on July 11, will upgrade Taiwan’s F-16s with active electronically scanned array radars, modern air-to-air missiles, and structural improvements to extend their service lives. The United States last fall granted Taiwan a $5.3 billion foreign military sale for these upgrades. In its version of the Fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, the House also supported a proposal to sell Taiwan 66 new build F-16C/Ds, something to which the Obama Administration has not yet committed.