Sky Sword II
guided missile
The Sky Sword II, Tien Chien II, or TC-2 (Chinese: 天劍二; pinyin: Tiān Jiàn Èr; Wade–Giles: Tʻien1 Chien4 Êrh4) is a Taiwanese beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. It has an inertial navigation system, a data-link for mid-course guidance and active radar homing for terminal guidance, beyond visual range. It also has ECCM capability and can engage multiple targets. According to Su Tzu-yun, chief executive officer at the Center for Advanced Technology at Tamkang University, they are a cost-effective design which can perform a key role in Taiwan's defense strategy, and substantially offset China's air superiority. Some details of its design were revealed for the first time at the Paris Air Show in 2015. The pulse doppler radar seeker reportedly has a detection range of 9.3 km (5.8 mi).
Development
Development of the Sky Sword II family began during the 1990s.
Service history
In 2017 a Sky Sword II launched by a F-CK-1 during a training exercise failed to ignite and fell into the sea. In 2019 TC-2 was among 117 missiles fired during a training exercise off Taiwan's west coast.
Variants
TC-2N
A ship-launched, surface-to-air version was later developed and designated TC-2N. Its development began in 1994, and a ground-based test was first carried out against a low-flying drone in 1997.
“Sky Sword II” enters the record as guided missile. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sword, guided and missile can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sky Sword II” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sword, guided and missile provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q707942. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2017, 2019 and 1994.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sky Sword II”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sky Sword II primary sources, Sky Sword II archive and Sword research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sky Sword II”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sky Sword II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.