At six o'clock on a winter's morning Taitung's Chih Hang base is shrouded in darkness, but lights blaze in the hangars while air and ground crews drive back and forth on the runway, where F-5E fighters sit like eagles waiting to pounce. An aerial battle between F-5Es and MiG fighters is about to commence over the Taiwan Strait.

These simulated battles which take place over the Taiwan Strait and Pacific Ocean day after day are staged by the Air Force Tactical Training Center, known as the "hypothetical enemy squadron."

Battle lines are drawn and both sides are clear who is friend and who is foe--on one side are F-5Es playing the part of attacking enemy aircraft, flown by instructors wearing MiG and F-5E badges on their shoulders who simulate the strategy and tactics of closely comparable MiG fighters; on the other side are trainee pilots, eager for combat.

No missiles or gunfire are heard, but both sides engage in high-difficulty turns and loops, and close combat produces some hair-raising encounters, rather like a real-life re-enactment of the movie Top Gun.

For this is the ROC Air Force's "Top Gun" base, its finest school for fighter pilots.

Taiwan's "Top Gun" air force base owes its existence to the USAF's experience during the Vietnam War.

US aircraft in the Vietnam War were often outclassed by MiG fighters' clever dogfighting techniques, so the Americans studied communist air force tactics and drew up "hypothetical enemy" training procedures to givetheir airmen more experience in dealing with the enemy through practical training at the "Top Gun" air base.

Taiwan's hypothetical enemy squadron was set up in 1985 using Chih Hang air base's 46 squadron with retired USAF instructors to teach Soviet air tactics, and outstanding fighter pilots from all ROC Air Force units were selected for training. In 1988 this squadron became the Air Force Tactical Training Center.

Simulation is made as realistic as possible, so although no real guns or missiles are fired in the air these aerial battles are no less hairraising and demanding than the real thing.

"No real warheads come towards you, but if the instructor's radar locks on to you, you're a goner," says trainee Ning I-tung. He's damaged the capillaries in his elbow due to maneuvering his aircraft too sharply, and has almost injured his neck twisting round to track the enemy.

"When we get back from a mission, instructors and trainees alike are exhausted and their flying suits are drenched in sweat," says the training center's commandant Chuang Chung-i.

"Here the main difference from other training is the emphasis on skill in actual combat," he explains. So "our course training takes pilots from one-to-one aerial defense, through two against two and four against four, up to full-scale air battles involving even more aircraft. Pilots are expected to accurately assess how to maneuver their aircraft in the heat of battle and how to assist each other to down hostile fighters."

But as in mastering any skill you need good material to start with; to get into one of the ten places on each training course you must meet minimum requirements of at least 1,000 hours flying time and experience leading a two-aircraft detachment, and these can only come with five or six years of consistently outstanding service after graduating from the Air Force Academy. The sole exception among the present intake is Tseng Yu-chang, who only graduated from the academy four years ago, but who won last year's air force bombing marksmanship competition.

To be an instructor you have to complete your training with flying colors, which entitles you to be placed on a list of those to be selected on some future occasion.

Compared to the confident, handsome trainee pilot played in the film by the American star Tom Cruise, the ROC students and instructors at the tactical training center, while just as confident and dashing, seem to have a slightly more restrained and thoughtful air.

"The chaps who come here feel pretty proud of themselves, but they grow more modest as time goes on." Tseng Fan-wei, delighted to have been posted here from Hualien air base as an instructor last December, puts the center's unique atmosphere in a nutshell.

With so much talent at its disposal, the center's rigorous training procedures and demanding course work forces pilots hitherto only too conscious of their superiority to draw their horns in and knuckle down to their studies.

"The center basically makes very tough demands, and unless you come up to scratch you're out on your ear." Supervisor Chou Ming-lu stresses that even though his students are hand-picked from their units, in each intake of ten there are always one or two who drop out.

A large white board hangs in the corridor outside the classrooms with the students' marks clearly shown in red. These cover everything from physics and principles of mechanics to comparing the power and capabilities of armaments and aircraft.

"The pass mark is 85 percent." Chuang Chung-i recalls that nerve-racking time when his own name was up on the board, "you could even take reference books in with you for certain exams, but more than half the students still failed to make the grade."

"A 45-minute flying lesson requires an entire day of 'homework,'" says student Ning-I-tung, pointing to a desk strewn with reference material and notebooks. It's no easy matter to take highly skilled instructors on at their own game, and besides working things out on paper and getting all your flight course data down to a tee, you need a wide range of experience as well.

On every flight an on-board tape recorder keeps track of their wireless communications and everything they say during mock combat, and these recordings are an unbeatable way of exchanging experiences and coping with tricky instructors. Come the evening prep hours these pilots, such enthusiastic flyers by day, settle down in their rooms to do their homework, listening to their walkmans and busily taking notes.

"From day one you worry about whether you'll make it through the course." Student Cheng Yao-hsiang admits he was pressured by both the academic and the tactical courses, but fear of losing face made him pull his weight. "I even dreamed of being chased by enemy aircraft and would think of evasive measures in my sleep," adds Ning I-tung.

But no matter how good they are in the air, few pilots get through without stumbling when their instructor asks them to describe the engagement back on the ground. "Every-thing happens so fast, your mind's a blank when you try to remember the details of a ten-minute dogfight," admits one student. The instructors expect them to describe and analyze every maneuver that took place before their eyes, a great imposition for such habitually carefree, happy-go-lucky flying officers.

"There's no fixed model in aerial combat, the reason we ask them to do this is to get them to think coolly and analytically so that if anything happens they can describe the situation clearly and accurately to the control tower and give orders." An instructor here for nearly three years, Tsai I-lung says this is a big test for the students, but "you just have to develop your powers of expression."

"The age of the solo aerial combat hero is over, the tendency in the modern air force is towards group tactics requiring a high level of coordination between friendly aircraft." Commandant Chuang Chung-i goes on to explain that the students' most common mistake is not giving clear enough instructions, so that an advantage only ten seconds away is lost through delay. "In a real combat situation, that would mean being shot down and killed."

"We also need to get away from the instinctive approach where people act without knowing why, and adopt more accurate scientific methods. This is the only way to improve the caliber of our men," Chuang Chung-i adds.

To boost its scientific base, the training center bought an American aerial combat monitoring station three years ago as a teaching aid.

This set of scientific equipment presents radar images of aerial combat on a screen so that students sitting in the monitoring room can follow the action from afar, while military assessors give their criticisms and determine the result. A panorama is presented of the whole situation in the air, also showing up each person's good and bad points.

Ground radar controllers also come within the training center's scope. "At the start of an air battle, pilots are totally dependent on radar information supplied by ground controllers, so coordination between the two is extremely important." According to radar instructor Hsiung Ching-hui, an experienced radar controller knows how to guide a pilot to the most advantageous position for superiority over enemy aircraft.

"They can take a lot in, and they're quick to react," is how Chou Ming-lu assesses the younger generation of airmen. "They've got an excellent grounding, and they're plucky with it." When this batch of warriors return to their units after completing their rigorous modern training, they will be seed instructors responsible for enhancing the ROC Air Force's overall combat capability.

Although air forces on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have not really tangled since 1958 and there's no way of measuring the ROC Air Force's true capabilities, occasional contacts with foreign pilots gives the tactical training center the chance to compare flying skills.

In 1976 an American Vietnam war hero who had downed three MiGs came to the center to challenge the squadron, and was well and truly worsted.

Three years ago, instructor Wang Mu-tseng went to America for training at the "Top Gun" base with some of the best pilots anywhere in the world. Flying an F-5E fighter he beat an F-15 fighter with far superior capabilities and firepower, he came out top in the flying skills course, and he also averaged over 90 percent in his academic courses.

"Taiwan pilots are at least as good as American airmen in terms of aerial interception, engagement and attack," is how Wang Mu-tseng sees ROC pilots' superiority, based on his own experience, but "we are slightly outclassed when it comes to air-to-ground bombardment."

"Of course, America's a big place with plenty of target zones for pilots to practice to their heart's content," Wang Mu-tseng continues. Taiwan is not just a small island, "but the public are demanding that air bases be resited because of excessive noise, so what hope is there of acquiring target zones for bombing practice?"

"In fact, our most important hypothetical enemy is still ourselves," says instructor Han Yu-cheng. "With the War of Resistance against Japan, the 1958 Kinmen bombardment and the U2 Black Cat squadron, our predecessors in the air force have carved out a glorious record in world history, and if our performance in any future war cannot excel theirs, other people may be able to forgive us, but we will never forgive ourselves."

Living up to the ROC Air Force's glorious history is a mission these warriors of the air have set themselves, and their honorable pledge is constantly before them.

(Hsieh Shu-fen/photos by Diago Chiu/ tr. by Andrew Morton)

[Picture Caption]

Before daybreak, tactical training students on Chih Hang base, Taitung, are about to take off on hypothetical enemy practice.

Waving to show all is ready as the aircraft prepares to take off.

Instructors in the control tower closely watch how their students take off and land.

Pressures of training keep students at their homework late into the night, working out how to deal with their instructor's attack maneuvers.

After inspection by ground maintenance personnel is completed, these F-5E fighters will take off on a simulated combat mission.

Instructors of 46 squadron are superb pilots hand-picked from units throughout the air force.

F-5Es are the aircraft type used for training with the hypothetical enemy squadron.

At six o'clock on a winter's morning Taitung's Chih Hang base is shrouded in darkness, but lights blaze in the hangars while air and ground crews drive back and forth on the runway, where F-5E fighters sit like eagles waiting to pounce. An aerial battle between F-5Es and MiG fighters is about to commence over the Taiwan Strait.

These simulated battles which take place over the Taiwan Strait and Pacific Ocean day after day are staged by the Air Force Tactical Training Center, known as the "hypothetical enemy squadron."

Battle lines are drawn and both sides are clear who is friend and who is foe--on one side are F-5Es playing the part of attacking enemy aircraft, flown by instructors wearing MiG and F-5E badges on their shoulders who simulate the strategy and tactics of closely comparable MiG fighters; on the other side are trainee pilots, eager for combat.

No missiles or gunfire are heard, but both sides engage in high-difficulty turns and loops, and close combat produces some hair-raising encounters, rather like a real-life re-enactment of the movie Top Gun.

For this is the ROC Air Force's "Top Gun" base, its finest school for fighter pilots.

Taiwan's "Top Gun" air force base owes its existence to the USAF's experience during the Vietnam War.

US aircraft in the Vietnam War were often outclassed by MiG fighters' clever dogfighting techniques, so the Americans studied communist air force tactics and drew up "hypothetical enemy" training procedures to givetheir airmen more experience in dealing with the enemy through practical training at the "Top Gun" air base.

Taiwan's hypothetical enemy squadron was set up in 1985 using Chih Hang air base's 46 squadron with retired USAF instructors to teach Soviet air tactics, and outstanding fighter pilots from all ROC Air Force units were selected for training. In 1988 this squadron became the Air Force Tactical Training Center.

Simulation is made as realistic as possible, so although no real guns or missiles are fired in the air these aerial battles are no less hairraising and demanding than the real thing.

"No real warheads come towards you, but if the instructor's radar locks on to you, you're a goner," says trainee Ning I-tung. He's damaged the capillaries in his elbow due to maneuvering his aircraft too sharply, and has almost injured his neck twisting round to track the enemy.

"When we get back from a mission, instructors and trainees alike are exhausted and their flying suits are drenched in sweat," says the training center's commandant Chuang Chung-i.

"Here the main difference from other training is the emphasis on skill in actual combat," he explains. So "our course training takes pilots from one-to-one aerial defense, through two against two and four against four, up to full-scale air battles involving even more aircraft. Pilots are expected to accurately assess how to maneuver their aircraft in the heat of battle and how to assist each other to down hostile fighters."

But as in mastering any skill you need good material to start with; to get into one of the ten places on each training course you must meet minimum requirements of at least 1,000 hours flying time and experience leading a two-aircraft detachment, and these can only come with five or six years of consistently outstanding service after graduating from the Air Force Academy. The sole exception among the present intake is Tseng Yu-chang, who only graduated from the academy four years ago, but who won last year's air force bombing marksmanship competition.

To be an instructor you have to complete your training with flying colors, which entitles you to be placed on a list of those to be selected on some future occasion.

Compared to the confident, handsome trainee pilot played in the film by the American star Tom Cruise, the ROC students and instructors at the tactical training center, while just as confident and dashing, seem to have a slightly more restrained and thoughtful air.

"The chaps who come here feel pretty proud of themselves, but they grow more modest as time goes on." Tseng Fan-wei, delighted to have been posted here from Hualien air base as an instructor last December, puts the center's unique atmosphere in a nutshell.

With so much talent at its disposal, the center's rigorous training procedures and demanding course work forces pilots hitherto only too conscious of their superiority to draw their horns in and knuckle down to their studies.

"The center basically makes very tough demands, and unless you come up to scratch you're out on your ear." Supervisor Chou Ming-lu stresses that even though his students are hand-picked from their units, in each intake of ten there are always one or two who drop out.

A large white board hangs in the corridor outside the classrooms with the students' marks clearly shown in red. These cover everything from physics and principles of mechanics to comparing the power and capabilities of armaments and aircraft.

"The pass mark is 85 percent." Chuang Chung-i recalls that nerve-racking time when his own name was up on the board, "you could even take reference books in with you for certain exams, but more than half the students still failed to make the grade."

"A 45-minute flying lesson requires an entire day of 'homework,'" says student Ning-I-tung, pointing to a desk strewn with reference material and notebooks. It's no easy matter to take highly skilled instructors on at their own game, and besides working things out on paper and getting all your flight course data down to a tee, you need a wide range of experience as well.

On every flight an on-board tape recorder keeps track of their wireless communications and everything they say during mock combat, and these recordings are an unbeatable way of exchanging experiences and coping with tricky instructors. Come the evening prep hours these pilots, such enthusiastic flyers by day, settle down in their rooms to do their homework, listening to their walkmans and busily taking notes.

"From day one you worry about whether you'll make it through the course." Student Cheng Yao-hsiang admits he was pressured by both the academic and the tactical courses, but fear of losing face made him pull his weight. "I even dreamed of being chased by enemy aircraft and would think of evasive measures in my sleep," adds Ning I-tung.

But no matter how good they are in the air, few pilots get through without stumbling when their instructor asks them to describe the engagement back on the ground. "Every-thing happens so fast, your mind's a blank when you try to remember the details of a ten-minute dogfight," admits one student. The instructors expect them to describe and analyze every maneuver that took place before their eyes, a great imposition for such habitually carefree, happy-go-lucky flying officers.

"There's no fixed model in aerial combat, the reason we ask them to do this is to get them to think coolly and analytically so that if anything happens they can describe the situation clearly and accurately to the control tower and give orders." An instructor here for nearly three years, Tsai I-lung says this is a big test for the students, but "you just have to develop your powers of expression."

"The age of the solo aerial combat hero is over, the tendency in the modern air force is towards group tactics requiring a high level of coordination between friendly aircraft." Commandant Chuang Chung-i goes on to explain that the students' most common mistake is not giving clear enough instructions, so that an advantage only ten seconds away is lost through delay. "In a real combat situation, that would mean being shot down and killed."

"We also need to get away from the instinctive approach where people act without knowing why, and adopt more accurate scientific methods. This is the only way to improve the caliber of our men," Chuang Chung-i adds.

To boost its scientific base, the training center bought an American aerial combat monitoring station three years ago as a teaching aid.

This set of scientific equipment presents radar images of aerial combat on a screen so that students sitting in the monitoring room can follow the action from afar, while military assessors give their criticisms and determine the result. A panorama is presented of the whole situation in the air, also showing up each person's good and bad points.

Ground radar controllers also come within the training center's scope. "At the start of an air battle, pilots are totally dependent on radar information supplied by ground controllers, so coordination between the two is extremely important." According to radar instructor Hsiung Ching-hui, an experienced radar controller knows how to guide a pilot to the most advantageous position for superiority over enemy aircraft.

"They can take a lot in, and they're quick to react," is how Chou Ming-lu assesses the younger generation of airmen. "They've got an excellent grounding, and they're plucky with it." When this batch of warriors return to their units after completing their rigorous modern training, they will be seed instructors responsible for enhancing the ROC Air Force's overall combat capability.

Although air forces on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have not really tangled since 1958 and there's no way of measuring the ROC Air Force's true capabilities, occasional contacts with foreign pilots gives the tactical training center the chance to compare flying skills.

In 1976 an American Vietnam war hero who had downed three MiGs came to the center to challenge the squadron, and was well and truly worsted.

Three years ago, instructor Wang Mu-tseng went to America for training at the "Top Gun" base with some of the best pilots anywhere in the world. Flying an F-5E fighter he beat an F-15 fighter with far superior capabilities and firepower, he came out top in the flying skills course, and he also averaged over 90 percent in his academic courses.

"Taiwan pilots are at least as good as American airmen in terms of aerial interception, engagement and attack," is how Wang Mu-tseng sees ROC pilots' superiority, based on his own experience, but "we are slightly outclassed when it comes to air-to-ground bombardment."

"Of course, America's a big place with plenty of target zones for pilots to practice to their heart's content," Wang Mu-tseng continues. Taiwan is not just a small island, "but the public are demanding that air bases be resited because of excessive noise, so what hope is there of acquiring target zones for bombing practice?"

"In fact, our most important hypothetical enemy is still ourselves," says instructor Han Yu-cheng. "With the War of Resistance against Japan, the 1958 Kinmen bombardment and the U2 Black Cat squadron, our predecessors in the air force have carved out a glorious record in world history, and if our performance in any future war cannot excel theirs, other people may be able to forgive us, but we will never forgive ourselves."

Living up to the ROC Air Force's glorious history is a mission these warriors of the air have set themselves, and their honorable pledge is constantly before them.

[Picture Caption]

Before daybreak, tactical training students on Chih Hang base, Taitung, are about to take off on hypothetical enemy practice.

Waving to show all is ready as the aircraft prepares to take off.

Instructors in the control tower closely watch how their students take off and land.

Pressures of training keep students at their homework late into the night, working out how to deal with their instructor's attack maneuvers.

After inspection by ground maintenance personnel is completed, these F-5E fighters will take off on a simulated combat mission.

Instructors of 46 squadron are superb pilots hand-picked from units throughout the air force.

F-5Es are the aircraft type used for training with the hypothetical enemy squadron.

Waving to show all is ready as the aircraft prepares to take off.

Pressures of training keep students at their homework late into the night, working out how to deal with their instructor's attack maneuvers.

Instructors in the control tower closely watch how their students take off and land.

After inspection by ground maintenance personnel is completed, these F-5E fighters will take off on a simulated combat mission.

Instructors of 46 squadron are superb pilots hand-picked from units throughout the air force.

F-5Es are the aircraft type used for training with the hypothetical enemy squadron.