International Intrigue with Google Earth

Tue, 06/14/2005, 12:02
Google Earth, formerly called Keyhole, is probably one of the most fun and useful pieces of software I've ever used. How fun? Besides Half-life, it's the only software I've ever bought.

Anyhow, I was flying around various points in Taiwan today, and found Ching Chuan Kang (CCK) Air Base, home to a bunch of Taiwan's IDFs. Really neat facility to look at on keyhole, with a lot of planes on the tarmac. Well, in the GlobalSecurity article I linked to just now, it mentions that, "In May 1999 it was reported that China had built a replica of Ching Chuan Kang AB at a site near Dingxin airport".

Whaaa? Well, since I have the capability now, I had to see it for myself. Looking online on google, I couldn't really find coordinates for the mentioned Dingxin Airport, but this page mentions that the airport is 80km southwest of the Jiuquan satellite launch site (41.21 N, 100.21 E). Well, sure enough, the airport is roughly where it should be... and slightly east of the airport...


Taiwan's Air Base on the left, Chinese attack mockup on right.

Looks like it's been scratched out in the desert with earthmovers or something, but it's a full-scale replica of the Taiwanese airbase, complete with aircraft bunkers! A nickle says that if resolution was better, you could see bomb craters.

Open Chinese belligerence, at its best.

Try it out yourself:
CCK Original: 24.264353 N, 120.624340 E
Clone Facility: 40.376895 N, 99.886154 E
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