Thunder Tigers History
The aerobatic display team of Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) in Taiwan is formed in 1953 in Tianan airbase, under the name Thunder Tigers Technical Flying Corps. On 14 Aug 1954 they made its first public display at the Air Force Celebration Day, flying with four F-84G Thunderbird (this is the name in Taiwan) planes.
In 1956 they receive a statute of Flight Technical Corps of China Air Force Thunder Tigers and year later begin to fly with nine planes.
In 1959 Thunder Tigers begin to fly with 11 F-86 Dagger (again this is the name in Taiwan).
In 1967 the team begins to fly with F-5A Freedom Fighter planes, replaced in 1975 with F-5E Chung Cheng (Taiwanian name).
On 1 Nov 1988 Thunder Tigers transit to the new Taiwanian built jet training plane AT-3. These time pilots of the team become the instructors of Air Force Academy in Tianan. At the beginning they fly with six planes, but on the next year the planes increased to its present count - seven. Then they receive its present paint scheme in white, blue and red colors and begin to use same colors for smoke generators.
On 27 June 1997 during four-ship barrel roll in training flight in Kang Shan airbase, the leader of the team crashed and died.
