In August 1958 the People’s Liberation Army began shelling Kinmen, and PLA Air Force MiG-15s and MiG-17s contested the Taiwan Strait. Under a programme later known as Operation Black Magic, the US Navy modified some ROCAF F-86 Sabres to carry the new AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared missile. The 2nd Wing, based at Hsinchu, flew them.

The wing’s official history says that on 24 September 1958 its pilots achieved “the first air-to-air kill using AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles,” destroying nine enemy fighters and damaging three. English Wikipedia gives a larger figure for that day, 25 MiGs downed by Sidewinders among 32 F-86s and about 100 MiGs, and 31 MiGs shot down for two F-86s over the whole crisis. Those figures derive from ROC and US sources; a PRC count was not found in the sources checked, so each should be read as a claim.

One Sidewinder lodged in a MiG-17 without exploding, according to Wikipedia; it was recovered and reverse-engineered into the Soviet K-13 missile. The United States also sent the 26th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron to Hsinchu during the crisis.

The Black Bat Squadron was a joint operation with the CIA. The Taipei Times, reporting the opening of its exhibition in 2012, says the unit was set up in 1952 at Taoyuan under the cover name Western Enterprise Inc., moved to Hsinchu in 1953 and became the 34th Squadron in 1958. At first it dropped leaflets, supplies and agents; from 1956 it flew electronic reconnaissance, reaching as far as north-east China, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan, and south into Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.

The cost was heavy. The Taipei Times puts losses between 1952 and 1972 at 15 aircraft and 148 men, including five of seven P2V-7U reconnaissance aircraft shot down with 68 crew. English Wikipedia, following Chris Pocock, counts 838 missions from 1953 to 1967; Taiwan News says more than 800 and calls the 148 dead the highest toll of any of the air force’s special operations squadrons. The first loss Wikipedia records was an RB-69A that hit a hill near Kunsan, South Korea, on 25 March 1960, killing all 14 on board.

The squadron’s dormitory in Hsinchu, built in the style of the US Military Assistance Advisory Group quarters, became the Black Bat Squadron Memorial Hall on 22 November 2009, with models of 13 aircraft types and the story of its crews. Taiwan News dates the completed memorial and the adjoining Dongda Flight Park to 2018; its leader Chao Chin died in July 2020 aged 97.

In 1992, the year the United States agreed to sell F-16s, Taiwan also bought 60 Mirage 2000-5s from France. The first arrived at Hsinchu in May 1997, and the 41st Squadron was fully equipped by 1 December 1997; the 41st and 42nd Tactical Fighter Squadrons replaced the 11th Group on 11 November 2004. Taiwan News says the Mirages are responsible for protecting northern Taiwan.

They have been expensive to keep flying. Taiwan News reported in 2022 that eight Mirages had crashed since 1999, killing five pilots, and in 2023 that parts and maintenance cost more than for the F-16 or the Ching-kuo. The ministry considered extending the life of the nine two-seaters by 20 years, pending a Dassault evaluation due in July 2026. In June 2026 the air force signed a five-year NT$926.47 million support contract under which Dassault technicians work at Hsinchu; 53 of the 60 jets remained.

The Mirage link with France is not only commercial. From mid-October to 3 December 2024, according to Taiwan News, six Mirage 2000-5s — five single-seaters and one two-seater — took part in an air combat training exchange that began at Hsinchu and moved to Chiashan in Hualien, with two to three French pilots in the contingent. All three of the air force’s fighter types took part: F-16Vs of the 17th Squadron flew as aggressors, and Ching-kuo fighters came from Tainan and Ching Chuan Kang.

Taiwan News put the annual cost of the Taiwan–France pilot exchange at nearly NT$50 million. For a fleet whose replacement had not been chosen by 2026, such exchanges and the 2026 Dassault support contract are what keep Hsinchu’s wing current: the jets date from the 1990s, and in 2023 the ministry said the two-seaters had worn faster than the single-seaters because of their training use.