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Building the First Batch of Backbone Enterprises

The aviation industry worked out the practical target and detailed plan of transition from repair to manufacture while organizing repair of aircraft urgently needed by the front line. In December 1951, Premier Zhou Enlai himself presided over a meeting discussing the plan and the decision was made at the meeting.

The aviation industry was requested to implement a plan of trial production of the Soviet Yak-18 primary trainer and MiG-15bis jet fighter and then the batch production of them within 3 to 5 years. Several meetings were held to discuss plans and arrangement of construction of aviation industry by leaders of the Central Committee, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yun, Nie Rongzhen and Li Fuchun in spring and summer of 1952. Li Fuchun stressed that prerequisites needed for the transition from repair to manufacture should be created actively. He said the prerequisites would include: complete set of technical documentation, complete technical facility, necessary production area, ensured supply of raw material and the development of cooperation between relevant industries.

Chen Yun pointed out: aircraft factory was, strictly speaking, the precision machine manufacture factory. The objective law of development was from backwardness to advanced stage and from simpleness to complexity. Haste would do no good. Aircraft was built with parts and components and good foundation should be laid for producing them, otherwise the progress would be slower instead of quicker. More haste, less speed. He repeatedly stressed that there could be no principle mistake to put the construction of aviation industry on top priority.

Nie Rongzhen presided over a meeting of the Military Commission of CCCPC in May 1951 and worked out a "Resolution on the construction of aviation industry," which spelled out plans of major tasks during the stage of initial construction. In July 1951, Premier Zhou checked out the more than one year's work of aviation industry, during which he reiterated the development policy, the principle and the capital construction plan of aviation industry and made further arrangement for constructing a light bomber aircraft factory.

In order to strengthen the leadership of national defence and aviation industry, the CCCPC and the central people's government in August decided to set up the Second Ministry of Machine Building, i.e. the Ministry of Defence Industry, Zhao Erlu was appointed the Minister and Concurrently Director of the Bureau of Aviation Industry, Wang Xiping, First Deputy Director and Secretary of the Sub-Party Committee of the Bureau of Aviation Industry. All those series of major decisions and careful planning formed construction outline of aviation industry in the First Five-year Plan, which paved the way for marching towards manufacture from repair.

Repair and manufacture are in two different levels in terms of technology and management. The former is to perform routine repair according to different regulations and requirements of depot maintenance, field maintenance and organizational maintenance and conduct trouble shooting to aircraft ( including engine and airborne equipment). Only the depot maintenance takes place in a special repair factory. Each aircraft has different problems, therefore, the corrective actions should be different. The latter is to precisely organize workers and technical persons to coordinately carry out high quality mass production of parts, assemblies, final assembly and test according to the approved technical drawings, documents, equipment and tools. Transition of high standard manufacturing from low level to high level manufacture is a qualitative leap of aviation industry. Aviation industry would not be able to meet the requirement of development until large scale capital construction is carried out, repair factory is modified into aircraft manufacture factory and new factories are constructed according to the need of the formation of a complete system.

The China and the Soviet governments signed an agreement in May 1953 to assist China by USSR in 143 major projects ( later increased to 156 projects), among which 13 projects were for aviation industry, including aircraft factory, aero engine factory and airborne equipment factory. These projects formed the first batch of backbone enterprises of aviation industry and were the key projects for large scale construction in the First Five-year Plan of aviation industry.

The construction of the 13 projects was carried out according to their different priorities so that the schedule of aircraft manufacture could be ensured and the investment effectiveness could be brought into play as soon as possible. The Nanchang Aircraft Factory (producing piston trainers) was first constructed in 1953, then the Zhuzhou Aero Engine Factory (producing piston engines), the Shenyang Aircraft Factory (manufacturing jet fighters) and the Shenyang Aero Engine Factory (manufacturing jet engines) were constructed. Except the Shenyang Aero Engine Factory was newly built with the support of old factories, the others were reconstructed and expanded on the basis of repair factories. After construction of these aircraft and engine factories, construction focus was shifted to the necessary accessory factories starting from 1956. Those accessory factories were: the Xi'an Aircraft Accessory Factory and Engine Accessory Factory, the Xinping Aviation Electronic Factory and Wheel Brake Accessory Factory and the Baoji Aviation Instrument Factory in Shaanxi Province.

All these factories were equipped with advanced technology and good equipment, being China's high precision machining enterprises. The government paid special attention to the construction of these due to heavy investment and great difficulties. Capital construction investment of aviation was adequately ensured during the period of First Five-year Plan and complete sets of equipment were basically bought from the Soviet Union. The whole country, from the Central Government to local governments, were all concerned about the construction of aviation industry, offering full support at any time. As for the urgently needed equipment that could not be bought from abroad, the aviation industry was given special permission by Bo Yibo, Vice Chairman of Finance and Economic Commission of the Central People's Government, to select in the state warehouse. The Shenyang Aero Engine Factory picked 553 equipment at one time.

Shao Shiping, Governor of Jiangxi Province and Jiao Ruoyu, Party Secretary of Shenyang City organized construction of aviation factories in their own places by themselves. Shao Shiping was also the Chief of Construction Committee of the Nanchang Aircraft Factory, while Jiao Ruoyu called meetings many times to check, supervise and coordinate construction schedule. For instance, in order to ensure the construction schedule of a runway for aircraft flight test in the Shenyang Aircraft Factory, the Shenyang municipalities had cut one third of its work amount of that year's city construction. The leaders' care and support at each level from the Central Committee to local governments were the fundamental guarantee for the smooth progress of construction of aviation industry.

Advantages were fully utilized during the construction of these backbone enterprises. Most of the factories were located in large and middle size cities; geological and hydrological conditions were known; transportation was convenient; products to be manufactured were defined and drawings and technical documentation were approved, which helped the practice of construction and production at the same time of design. Once the construction of the part of the factory was finished that part was checked and accepted for the production and the same principle was adopted for installing equipment. Civil engineering and installation of almost all large plants were carried out in crisscross with production and, construction force had close cooperation with factory leaders, technical persons and workers, working day and night. Construction cycle was effectively shortened thanks to the method of the old bringing up the new, i.e. old factory took full responsibility for the construction of a new one, which improved the investment results and speeded up the forming of production capability.

The most typical factory constructed among them was the Shenyang Aero Engine Factory, which was built on the basis of a nearby old repair factory. In order to realize construction while carrying out production, the factory adopted the method of "One Director for two factories" , i.e. Director of the old factory was also the director of the new factory, for the unified management and, so was the Chief Engineer and Managers of every functional department. Each new functional department, therefore, was bred and fostered from the relevant department of the old factory and then divided into two after its ripeness. The old factory started trial production of parts and components of jet engine at the same time of constructing the new factory. Once the construction of a workshop of the new factory was finished, the workers, together with their equipment and new products moved to the new one, so that the immediate trial production could be carried out in the new workshop.

This practice of carrying out construction in crisscross with production gained time and efficiency. The total investment of this new factory was 210 million RMB with 230,000 square meters production area, 2,000 equipment and 13,000 employees. It only took one and half years from construction to production and the date of finishing construction was the date of acceptance of the trial produced new jet engine, which was one year ahead of the original plan and which realized high speed of constructing China's first jet engine factory and trial production of new engines.

This was not only the case with aircraft and engine factories, but also with the construction of airborne equipment factories. For example, Shenyang and Baoji Aviation Instrument Factories, Shaanxi Xinping Aviation Electrical Factory and Xi'an Aircraft Accessory Factory were all bred and derived from old factories in Shenyang, Tianjin, Taiyuan and Xinxiang. This practice played an important role in mitigating the obvious situation of airborne equipment lagging behind aircraft and engine at that time.

Besides, inviting a complete range of Soviet experts to assist China in designing and constructing aviation factories was also an important factor for the fast construction of the first batch of aviation factories. There were lots of advantages in so doing compared with the method of conducting design drawing abroad and bringing the design back for the construction. This method greatly reduced circulating time for site surveying, document collection and drawing, design, and facilitated issuing design documents in batches, and helped solve problems on the spot, hence the construction time was greatly shortened by more than one year. The most important of all was that the Chinese had the opportunity to learn from the Soviet experts a complete range of professional knowledge and skill "On the Job". The capital construction design force of China's aviation industry were almost capable of working independently at the end of the First Five-year Plan. Starting from January 1958, design work of capital construction was changed from the system of the Soviet experts responsibility to the system of the Soviet consultation.

Construction of the aviation industry achieved fruitful result during the First Five-year Plan thanks to the concern and correct policy of the government and the marching forward of the construction of national economy. The five years witnessed construction of 42 organizations and enterprises with more than 8 projects each year, among which there were 17 factories, 19 schools and 4 warehouses. The capital construction plan originally scheduled for five years was completed one year ahead of time. Among the 13 state key projects constructed, 8 projects were completed one to one and half years ahead of time and 4 were completed on schedule. Quality of all the completed projects were all up to "Good" condition after acceptance by the state.

Immediately after completion of the factories, production was started, and the utilization of fixed assets investment reached 82.7%. By the end of 1957, aviation industry possessed 3.55 million square meters construction area, 11,160 sets of metal cutting equipment- 5.5 times of that in 1952, and 100,000 employees - 3.3 times of that in 1952. All of these greatly changed the material and technical foundation of the aviation industry, i.e. from a small business only capable of repairing aircraft to a newly emerged industry capable of mass production of piston trainers and jet fighters, being an important high standard precision machine building business in the country. This was a great achievement in the economic construction at the initial stage of the founding of new China.