Y-10
The Shanghai Y-10 was a four engined commercial passenger jet aircraft developed in the 1970s by Shanghai Aircraft Manufacture Factory (now known as Shanghai Aviation Industrial Company, or SAIC). The Y-10 designation stands for Yunshuji ("transport") model 10. The plane carried 178 in high-density, 149 in economy, or 124 in mixed-class. The flight deck had room for five crewmembers: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator, and radio operator.
After a thaw in relations with the West in 1972, China had acquired a Boeing 707 fleet but decided to forge ahead with its own jetliner that was free of dependence on foreign parts, except for the American engine. The aircraft used Pratt & Whitney JT3D-7 turbofan engines, which were spares belonging to CAAC's small fleet of Boeing 707 aircraft. Shanghai had intended to use a Chinese-built Shanghai WS8 turbofan, but the Pratt & Whitney engine was selected before the WS8 could reach certification.
There persistent suggestions are rumors that the Y-10 was a reverse-engineered design of the Boeing 707 Model 120 with some minor differences, while other sources, the designers and the personnel of Boeing denied that the Y-10 was the copy of its Boeing 707, and claim it was an indigenous design. Often dismissed as a Chinese 707 copy, in reality, this aircraft looks about as much like a 707 as a DC-8 does. The aircraft was entirely designed by Chinese engineers; only the engines are spares from the CAAC 707-3J6 fleet. In dimensions, the aircraft is actually closer to the Boeing 720. The Shanghai Y-10 looked generally like the B-707-320C, except for a few minor issues. For example, the Y-10 did not have the famous Boeing style "eye brow" windows, or the "stinger" style HF radio antenna atop the fin.
The external shape was similar, but so was the IL-62 compared to VC-10, as aircraft design during the 60's period came from the same aerodyamic principles. However, internally the Y-10 was quite different than the B707. Every systems onboard were not the same as that of the B707, and the structure was vastly different. That is why both Boeing and China refer the Y-10 as a different aircraft to the B707.
The Y-10 made it's first flight in 1980 but the only flyable Y-10 made 130 flights before being retired in 1983. Another airframe was used for static testing. Only two of the Y-10s were built. China’s domestic airlines refused to buy the plane. The plane never entered commercial production, and the Y-10 program was halted in 1985. One Y10 is now in an air force museum, and it was suggested that the Chinese would move it to the aviation museum in Beijing.
China’s attempt to build its own indigenous large passenger aircraft ultimately failed. The major problem with the Y-10 was its weight, plus with a very small CG shift limit, making it not save for civil application. It was extremely heavy compared to the Boeing 707, with high fuel consumption and a very limited range. The test models were, reportedly, only able to fly for around half an hour at a time.
Some sources suggest that politics were heavily involved in the project, which was reportedly spearheaded by Wang Hongwen [Wang Hung-wen]. It is claimed that as he, and the Mao era, fell out of favor, so did enthusiasm for the Y-10, which was increasingly seen as a throwback to the days of isolationism.
The Gang of Four is a term used by the post-Mao leadership to denote the four leading radical figures -- Jiang Qing (Mao's fourth wife), Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen -- who played a dominant political role during the Cultural Revolution decade (1966-76) until Mao's death in September 1976. Their "antiparty" deeds are often linked with Lin Biao, an early leader of the Cultural Revolution, who also has been discredited.
The "Shanghai Mafia," had all come to political power as a result of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-69; the four had enjoyed close access to Chairman Mao and promoted the most radical of the Great Helmsman's policies. Using their control over China's propaganda machinery, the radicals had constantly heated up the political atmosphere, unsparingly urging the masses to attack the "revisionists," the "capitalist readers," and other "ghosts and monsters" who, they said, were hiding in the very nooks and crannies of the Communist Party itself (and who often were the radicals' personal enemies).
Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. The long-expected struggle for power — or at least this momentous phase of it — was waged so quickly that it was over before any outsiders even knew it had begun. Former Minister of Pubic Security Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four."
After extensive deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. Deng then led the effort to place government control in the hands of veteran party officials opposed to the radical excesses of the previous two decades. The new, pragmatic leadership emphasized economic development and renounced mass political movements. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee), the leadership adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting direct foreign investment into China.
Afterwards, Shanghai in many respects was kept on a tighter leash by Beijing than many other parts of China, because the power base of the Gang of Four and the whole Maoist clique that attempted to usurp power was Shanghai. Zhang Chunqiao was one of the Four, and Wang Hongwen, and all three were from Shanghai, and Jiang Qing herself had been an actress in Shanghai. So Shanghai for a long, long time was viewed with a certain distrust, and there were a lot of hangovers and holdovers from the earlier period.
After the conclusion of the Y-10 program in 1985, the Ministry of Aviation devised a ‘three-step take-off plan’, from the MD-90 assembly MD-90 to jointly design and manufacturing the AE-100 with Airbus to the ultimate goal of self-design and building a 180-seater plane by 2010. One by one each of these objectives fell by the wayside. The termination of the MD-90 programme and the AE-100 program were perceived outside China to ‘deal a severe blow to China’s nascent aviation industry’ and ‘throw into doubt its plans to become a substantial aircraft manufacturer’. Many people in the Chinese aircraft industry felt that it had been let down not only by Boeing and Airbus, but also by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), which had refused to order either the MD-90 or the planned AE-100.
