Taiwan’s navy intends to build a dedicated tactical-drone airfield at the Hongchailin camp in Sanxing township, Yilan County, giving its Ruiyuan II unmanned aircraft a base in the north-east, closer to the waters east of the island where Chinese carrier groups, warship formations and military aircraft have been operating with growing regularity.
According to Ministry of National Defense budget documents for 2027 reported by the Liberty Times defence desk, the navy has set aside NT$991,596,000 (roughly US$31 million) for the project. The plan covers six facilities: a runway, an operations apron, a readiness building, a drone assembly-and-test hangar for aircraft maintenance, a garage and a generator room. The 2027 budget carries NT$6.755 million for early planning and project management. Design and construction follow from 2028, with acceptance scheduled for 2030.
The budget justification is explicit about the operational logic. The new field is meant to “shorten transit and increase loiter and patrol time,” allowing the navy to build a faster picture of maritime activity and respond to PLA grey-zone harassment and joint military operations at sea. It is also intended to support joint sea-control operations by identifying targets and passing targeting information for strikes in near-real time. In wartime, the site would serve as a dispersal location to preserve the drone force.
Today, Taiwan’s military drones in the east operate mainly from the Taimali drone field in Taitung, which has supported testing and training of the Ruiyuan I and II by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology and the armed forces. Taitung’s Zhihang base also hosts a publicly designated military drone training route, and military drones have been recorded flying from the Hualien air base. The Liberty Times notes that there is no public record of a dedicated field for the navy’s tactical drones in Yilan.
The project fits a broader reorganisation. In July, the navy stood up a Littoral Combat Command that brings shore-based anti-ship missiles, maritime surveillance and drone units under a single command, and it plans to acquire 32 Ruiyuan II aircraft to strengthen maritime search, target identification and the passing of strike data. The Hongchailin field’s surveillance and targeting role lines up directly with that command’s job of linking sensing to sea-control fires.
At this stage, the airfield is a budgeted plan, not a facility. Funding depends on legislative approval of the 2027 defense budget, and the infrastructure is not due until 2030.
Still, the plan shows Taiwan treating unmanned maritime surveillance as a sustained, basing-dependent capability: drones need nearby runways, maintenance and dispersal options as much as they need airframes if they are to keep watch over the eastern approaches.
Sources
Tu Chu-min, “軍用無人機可望在宜蘭起降了！國軍投入9.9億選址紅柴林建新基地” [Military drones expected to operate from Yilan: Armed forces commit NT$990 million to new base at Hongchailin], Liberty Times (自由時報) Defense, November 8, 2026. https://def.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/5633335