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Preparation New China's Aviation Industry

Even before the founding of new China the Chinese communists had paid great attention to the role of aviation in the revolutionary cause and actively carried out preparations for new China's aviation cause under severe conditions. As early as in 1924 the Chinese Communist Party, cooperated with Kuomintang headed by Dr. Sun Yatsen and supported by the Soviet government, set up the Huangpu Military Academy and a military aircraft school and some students were sent to study aviation in the Soviet Union. After the failure of the Great Revolution, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party decided to transfer Chang Qiankun, Wang Bi and Tang Duo who were already in the Soviet Union, to the Soviet Rookovsky Air Force College for further study.

During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Invasion, 44 cadres were selected by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to learn flying and maintenance in Xinjiang Aviation Team, where an aviation training class was also set up to train more aviation personnel. A mechanical engineering school (aviation school) was set up in Yan'an in 1941, and it was called the engineering team of the Military and Political University of Resistance Against Japan when it was merged with the university where personnel were trained and gathered for the development of aviation cause.

After the surrender of Japan, Yan'an Aviation Team of the Military Commission of CCCPC, together with aviation cadres coming from all other places, went to Northeast China with the armed forces to take over Japanese aviation facilities and equipment. An aviation station belonging to Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei provinces was set up in September 1945 in Zhangjiakou to take over from the Japanese forces the airport and aviation equipment and to train personnel. An Air Force team of the Northeast Democratic United Forces was established in December of the same year and in March 1946 an Aviation School of the Northeast Democratic United Forces was set up, where a group of cadres who studied aviation in Xinjiang and in the Soviet Union together with insurrectionary air force personnel of Kuomintang and the Japanese aviation technical personnel who stayed in China, were gathered.

The school educated more than 500 aviation personnel in different professions. In the school a repair factory, a mechanical factory and a material factory were set up and a number of aircraft and engines left over by the Japanese were repaired. In November 1948 the Maintenance Department of the Northeast Aviation School was stationed in Shenyang. They took over factories and warehouses of Kuomintang Air Force. These factories together with the original 3 ones of the Northeast Aviation School were reorganized into 6 factories and one equipment and material warehouse.

The take-over working group of the aviation school went down to the south with the armed forces in 1949 and took over in succession the Nanyuan airport and its repair factory in Beijing, the airport and an aircraft component manufacture factory in Nanjing, the Shanghai airport and the Supply Command of the Kuomintang Air Force and air force airports and repair factories in south-central, northwest and southwest areas in China. All senior engineers and technical persons inside China then were organized by the East China Military Region and based on these people the East China Aviation Engineering Research Department was established. More over, the aviation sections of the East China and Northwest Military Regions mobilized students who just graduated from the Departments of Aviation Engineering at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Nanjing Central University and Northwest Polytechnic College to take part in the aviation construction in China. These activities and preparations had laid a good foundation in persons and material for establishing the new China's Air Force and aviation industry.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the people's government, on the "poor and blank" basis, aviation industry of the P.R. China has established a combined system of research, development and manufacture as well as education of aircraft, aero engine, airborne equipment and missile through efforts of more than 30 years. China's aviation industry has already become an important part of the national economy with the support of the relevant industries. New China's aviation industry had experienced arduous struggle and setbacks and gained progress continuously.