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April Fools - Taiwan style — Parallax Forums

April Fools - Taiwan style

LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
edited 2015-04-02 01:16 in General Discussion
Two U.S. F-18 fighter jets landed in Tainan. One supposedly was having mechanical difficulty.

This is a rare visit as the US refuses to sell F-18 jets to Taiwan, or could this be related to April 1st?
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201504010018.aspx

Comments

  • JLockeJLocke Posts: 354
    edited 2015-04-01 17:33
    I notice there are no markings on either of the jets in any of the photos. Is this customary in today's US Air Force? I know when I was in the Navy, naval aircraft had all kinds of US and squadron markings on them.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2015-04-01 20:48
    Mr. Locke, F-18s are US Navy birds. You can see the plane number, 410, on the one that's taxiing.

    The one in flight, you can barely make see his squadron markings on the tail but can't really make them out.

    The low visibility stuff is pretty low visibility but these pictures make it really hard to see.
  • abecedarianabecedarian Posts: 312
    edited 2015-04-01 22:28
    410 is an F/A-18C assigned to VFA-94. Data I have suggests it's stationed at NAS Lemoore and currently deployed aboard CVN-70 (USS Carl Vinson), but that ship is allegedly near the Persian Gulf, not anywhere near Japan or China.

    http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=86327
    ...Release Date: 3/31/2015 9:05:00 AM ...
    ...
    Carl Vinson is currently deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations along with Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 1 in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, strike operations in Iraq and Syria as directed, maritime security operations, and theater security cooperation efforts in the region.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-04-02 01:16
    Well, it is all very intriguing.

    Regarding the lack of national markings....
    Back when Lee Deng Hui was running for president in Taiwan, China got in an uproar and seemed to be considering naval invasion of Taiwan. Two USA aircraft carriers were deployed to cool things down. I remember that photos of aircraft on the flight deck of one of those showed all aircraft without any markings.

    I mentioned this to a few people --- never got a good explanation.

    I posted this yesterday just because I merely thought it was amusing. But it may have political implications beyond the Forum guidelines.

    At the time that Lee Deng Hui was running for president, China dropped several large ballistic missles offshore withing 15 km of where I reside. No warheads, but all my fellow expats were trying to book tickets to depart Taiwan quickly, gold was being sold off locally in exchange for US dollars.


    Never a dull moment here.
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