Taiwan Presses U.S. F-16 Jet Suppliers to Speed Deliveries as Tensions Grow With China
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Taiwan’s defense ministry says U.S. contractors have moved to extended 20-hour workdays to speed up production of 66 F-16V Block 70 fighters after deliveries slipped beyond 2026. The shift signals intensified U.S. industrial efforts to support Taiwan’s airpower amid rising cross-strait pressure.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced on November 2, 2025, as reported by Taiwan’s News Agency, that U.S. contractors have shifted to two extended work shifts totaling 20 hours a day to accelerate production of Taiwan’s 66 F-16V Block 70 fighters after delivery slid beyond the original end-2026 target. The ministry told lawmakers that ten aircraft are planned to complete flight tests in 2025 for handover beginning in 2026, while other U.S. items have slipped right on the calendar. Taipei says it is monitoring progress in the United States to ensure contractual obligations are met. Taiwan is not the only country to see its fighter jet deliveries being delayed: it is also the case for Bahrain, Slovakia and Bulgaria.Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
A line of Taiwan’s F-16V fighter jets sits on the flight line during readiness drills at an air base (Picture source: Taiwan DoD).
The program’s history explains the schedule pressure. Washington cleared the Foreign Military Sale in August 2019 for 66 new-build F-16C/D Block 70s valued at up to 8 billion dollars, a package that included 75 F110 engines, 75 APG-83 AESA radars, Link 16 and associated support. Lockheed Martin subsequently moved new-build assembly to Greenville, South Carolina, taking on a crowded export backlog for Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Jordan and Taiwan just as pandemic and microelectronics bottlenecks rippled through sub-tiers. As a result, Taiwan’s first jets moved right from 2024–2025 into 2026–2027, prompting the overtime shifts now underway.
Lockheed and the Pentagon are treating the recovery as part of a broader industrial push. The Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy calls for month-over-month acceleration in priority lines, and industry messaging frames the F-16 ramp alongside missile and launcher surges for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. That policy signal matters in Taipei as much as the airframes themselves.
The Block 70 is the sharpest Viper yet and tailored to Taiwan’s fight. Northrop Grumman’s AN/APG-83 SABR AESA improves detection and track quality and adds high-resolution mapping useful for maritime targeting in the strait. L3Harris’s AN/ALQ-254(V)1 Viper Shield, now through first flight and heading into export fielding, provides digital self-protection against contemporary radars. A 12,000-hour airframe life and Auto-GCAS reduce peacetime attrition and preserve sortie generation under sustained alert. Taiwan’s configuration is powered by the F110-GE-129, giving crews the thrust margin to carry heavier loads with better energy retention.
The 2019 buy adds to a parallel fleet refresh at home. Taiwan completed the “Peace Phoenix Rising” upgrade of roughly 139–141 legacy F-16A/Bs to the F-16V standard by December 2023, creating a largely common Viper fleet as the new airframes arrive. That upgrade closed avionics gaps and set the stage for follow-on weapons integration in 2024–2025.
Training and basing are moving in tandem: ROCAF pilots are training in Arizona under long-standing U.S. programs centered at Luke Air Force Base, a pipeline Reuters and open-source histories have tracked for decades. The new Block 70s are widely expected to join the 7th Tactical Fighter Wing at Taitung, complementing existing F-16V units at Chiayi to strengthen alert coverage on both coasts.
The F-16V deepens Taiwan’s island-defense mode in three ways. First, defensive counter-air: APG-83 plus AMRAAM and JHMCS cueing improves first-look, first-shot odds against daily PLA median-line probes, where reaction time and shot quality matter more than raw top speed. Second, maritime strike: Taiwan’s F-16s are cleared or slated for standoff effects that complicate any amphibious grouping, including AGM-84 Harpoon and the 135 SLAM-ER missiles approved in 2020, enabling attacks outside denser shipborne air defenses. Third, persistence: a longer-life airframe, optional conformal tanks and a mature logistics base aid dispersed operations when runways are threatened.
The wider context underscores why Taipei wants jets on its ramps, not on order: PLA air activity set records in 2024 and remained elevated through 2025 with sustained ADIZ penetrations and frequent median-line crossings, part of a pressure campaign designed to stretch ROCAF readiness. Each additional F-16V squadron increases the number of combat air patrols Taiwan can keep aloft while coastal missiles and HIMARS thicken the anti-landing belt.
Delays are not limited to fighters. The ministry’s briefing cited slippage for AGM-154C glide bombs and MK-48 heavyweight torpedoes into 2026–2028, even as 29 HIMARS launchers moved ahead of schedule after successful live-fire events in 2025. That mixed picture reflects real stress points in U.S. subcomponents and software integration, but also a genuine attempt to sequence deliveries where near-term deterrent value is highest.
Taiwan’s new F-16Vs could meet increasingly capable adversaries. China’s single-engine J-10C and twin-engine J-16 both field AESA radars and typically carry the PL-15 beyond-visual-range missile, assessed by leading institutes to deliver extended kinematics compared with earlier AMRAAM variants. The J-16D electronic-attack variant adds stand-in jamming for SEAD, a tool designed to pry open corridors for strikes. Against this, the Viper fights as a networked shooter with a sharper radar picture, modern electronic protection and robust standoff weapons. It isn’t stealth, but paired with E-2 airborne early warning and coastal missile batteries, it raises the cost curve for any rapid cross-strait dash.
One final reality check: Taiwan is not the only customer riding the F-16 production wave. Bahrain, Slovakia and Bulgaria have all experienced schedule adjustments tied to the Greenville restart and pandemic-era supply chain shocks, suggesting Taiwan’s frustration is part of a global backlog rather than a singled-out delay. That context does not ease Taipei’s urgency, but it helps explain why the U.S. and Lockheed have now put the line on extended shifts. Taiwan’s defense ministry says 50 of the 66 jets are already in work, with overtime shifts and a 2025 test-flight plan pointing to first deliveries in 2026. If the tempo holds, ROCAF will start fielding a second generation of Vipers just as PLA pressure persists, buying time and margin for the island’s wider air denial architecture to mature.
Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.
Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.
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Taiwan’s defense ministry says U.S. contractors have moved to extended 20-hour workdays to speed up production of 66 F-16V Block 70 fighters after deliveries slipped beyond 2026. The shift signals intensified U.S. industrial efforts to support Taiwan’s airpower amid rising cross-strait pressure.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced on November 2, 2025, as reported by Taiwan’s News Agency, that U.S. contractors have shifted to two extended work shifts totaling 20 hours a day to accelerate production of Taiwan’s 66 F-16V Block 70 fighters after delivery slid beyond the original end-2026 target. The ministry told lawmakers that ten aircraft are planned to complete flight tests in 2025 for handover beginning in 2026, while other U.S. items have slipped right on the calendar. Taipei says it is monitoring progress in the United States to ensure contractual obligations are met. Taiwan is not the only country to see its fighter jet deliveries being delayed: it is also the case for Bahrain, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
A line of Taiwan’s F-16V fighter jets sits on the flight line during readiness drills at an air base (Picture source: Taiwan DoD).
The program’s history explains the schedule pressure. Washington cleared the Foreign Military Sale in August 2019 for 66 new-build F-16C/D Block 70s valued at up to 8 billion dollars, a package that included 75 F110 engines, 75 APG-83 AESA radars, Link 16 and associated support. Lockheed Martin subsequently moved new-build assembly to Greenville, South Carolina, taking on a crowded export backlog for Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Jordan and Taiwan just as pandemic and microelectronics bottlenecks rippled through sub-tiers. As a result, Taiwan’s first jets moved right from 2024–2025 into 2026–2027, prompting the overtime shifts now underway.
Lockheed and the Pentagon are treating the recovery as part of a broader industrial push. The Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy calls for month-over-month acceleration in priority lines, and industry messaging frames the F-16 ramp alongside missile and launcher surges for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. That policy signal matters in Taipei as much as the airframes themselves.
The Block 70 is the sharpest Viper yet and tailored to Taiwan’s fight. Northrop Grumman’s AN/APG-83 SABR AESA improves detection and track quality and adds high-resolution mapping useful for maritime targeting in the strait. L3Harris’s AN/ALQ-254(V)1 Viper Shield, now through first flight and heading into export fielding, provides digital self-protection against contemporary radars. A 12,000-hour airframe life and Auto-GCAS reduce peacetime attrition and preserve sortie generation under sustained alert. Taiwan’s configuration is powered by the F110-GE-129, giving crews the thrust margin to carry heavier loads with better energy retention.
The 2019 buy adds to a parallel fleet refresh at home. Taiwan completed the “Peace Phoenix Rising” upgrade of roughly 139–141 legacy F-16A/Bs to the F-16V standard by December 2023, creating a largely common Viper fleet as the new airframes arrive. That upgrade closed avionics gaps and set the stage for follow-on weapons integration in 2024–2025.
Training and basing are moving in tandem: ROCAF pilots are training in Arizona under long-standing U.S. programs centered at Luke Air Force Base, a pipeline Reuters and open-source histories have tracked for decades. The new Block 70s are widely expected to join the 7th Tactical Fighter Wing at Taitung, complementing existing F-16V units at Chiayi to strengthen alert coverage on both coasts.
The F-16V deepens Taiwan’s island-defense mode in three ways. First, defensive counter-air: APG-83 plus AMRAAM and JHMCS cueing improves first-look, first-shot odds against daily PLA median-line probes, where reaction time and shot quality matter more than raw top speed. Second, maritime strike: Taiwan’s F-16s are cleared or slated for standoff effects that complicate any amphibious grouping, including AGM-84 Harpoon and the 135 SLAM-ER missiles approved in 2020, enabling attacks outside denser shipborne air defenses. Third, persistence: a longer-life airframe, optional conformal tanks and a mature logistics base aid dispersed operations when runways are threatened.
The wider context underscores why Taipei wants jets on its ramps, not on order: PLA air activity set records in 2024 and remained elevated through 2025 with sustained ADIZ penetrations and frequent median-line crossings, part of a pressure campaign designed to stretch ROCAF readiness. Each additional F-16V squadron increases the number of combat air patrols Taiwan can keep aloft while coastal missiles and HIMARS thicken the anti-landing belt.
Delays are not limited to fighters. The ministry’s briefing cited slippage for AGM-154C glide bombs and MK-48 heavyweight torpedoes into 2026–2028, even as 29 HIMARS launchers moved ahead of schedule after successful live-fire events in 2025. That mixed picture reflects real stress points in U.S. subcomponents and software integration, but also a genuine attempt to sequence deliveries where near-term deterrent value is highest.
Taiwan’s new F-16Vs could meet increasingly capable adversaries. China’s single-engine J-10C and twin-engine J-16 both field AESA radars and typically carry the PL-15 beyond-visual-range missile, assessed by leading institutes to deliver extended kinematics compared with earlier AMRAAM variants. The J-16D electronic-attack variant adds stand-in jamming for SEAD, a tool designed to pry open corridors for strikes. Against this, the Viper fights as a networked shooter with a sharper radar picture, modern electronic protection and robust standoff weapons. It isn’t stealth, but paired with E-2 airborne early warning and coastal missile batteries, it raises the cost curve for any rapid cross-strait dash.
One final reality check: Taiwan is not the only customer riding the F-16 production wave. Bahrain, Slovakia and Bulgaria have all experienced schedule adjustments tied to the Greenville restart and pandemic-era supply chain shocks, suggesting Taiwan’s frustration is part of a global backlog rather than a singled-out delay. That context does not ease Taipei’s urgency, but it helps explain why the U.S. and Lockheed have now put the line on extended shifts. Taiwan’s defense ministry says 50 of the 66 jets are already in work, with overtime shifts and a 2025 test-flight plan pointing to first deliveries in 2026. If the tempo holds, ROCAF will start fielding a second generation of Vipers just as PLA pressure persists, buying time and margin for the island’s wider air denial architecture to mature.
Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group.
Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.
