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Flourishing Development

The successful transition from repair to manufacture and the completion of the First Five-year Plan ahead of time tempered the working force, and gave them more confidence to construct aviation industry in a better way. From 1957 to 1960, the production of the aviation industry saw a rapid and flourishing development. This was mainly reflected in the following aspects: production of Chinese made aircraft was increasing rapidly; more and more types of aircraft were produced; missile production capability began to be established; civil production was developed very fast and capital construction had been extended to the inland. A Chinese aviation industry began to take shape.

With support from basic industries, aviation industry organized batch production of J-5, CJ-5 and Y-5 immediately after the trial production of these three types of aircraft. 17 aircraft of the J-5 were manufactured in the same year of their trial production (1956), 142 aircraft in 1957 and 429 in 1958. Production of Primary Trainer CJ-5 and Y-5 was doubled in succession. Aviation industry delivered to the Air Force 1,086 aircraft by 1960, among which 767 were fighters, 278 trainers and 41 transporters. Hence, the aircraft supply source of the Chinese Air Force and the Navy air force had started an important strategic change from mainly depending on imported aircraft to mainly depending on the Chinese made aircraft. From then on, the Chinese aviation industry had become a powerful backing to the Chinese Air Force.

The Chinese-made J-5 aircraft quickly became one of the main weapons of the people's Air Force, which was quickly sent to the front line air base in Fujian to join the fight against Kuomintang aircraft invading the Mainland. 216 aircraft were also provided to China's civil aviation by the aviation industry during this period of time, among which 199 were transport aircraft and 17 trainers. Y-5 aircraft was very soon operated on domestic short distance routes and services were provided to agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. Aviation industry had provided more than 1,300 aircraft to constructions of national defence and economy in just 6 years since the first aircraft was in the air in new China. Such a big progress was not possible in old China.

At the same time of increasing aircraft production, more types of aircraft were actively developed. Starting from the Second Five-year Plan, trial manufacture of MiG-19 supersonic jet fighter and Mi-4 multi-purpose helicopter was carried out by aviation industry according to design drawings and technical documents supplied by the Soviet Union. These two aircraft were designated as J-6 and Z-5 respectively. The Shenyang Aircraft Factory and Shenyang Aero Engine Factory began the trial manufacture of MiG-19P all weather intercepter and its engine in the first half of 1958. Except the design drawings of aircraft and engine which were provided by the Soviet Union, the preparation of process documents and manufacture of production tooling were all accomplished by themselves. The first trial produced aircraft lifted into the air at the end of the year and batch production of it started the following year. According to the urgent need of the Air Force, the factory developed a derivative MiG-19C on the basis of MiG-19P fighter in 1959 and its test flight was undertaken in the same year. At the same time, MiG-19P and MiG-19M fighters and their engines were manufactured in the Nanchang Aircraft Factory and Zhuzhou Aero Engine Factory. Test flight of the jet aircraft was a turning point of these two factories from piston type product to jets.

By 1959, two types of fighters, one type of trainer, small transport and helicopter were already trial manufactured by the Chinese aviation industry; the Chinese designed JJ-1 and Primary Trainer CJ-6 had also flown. There appeared a prosperous scene of production and trial manufacture of aircraft and engines of more types. But people also understood that all aircraft produced were small size aircraft and efforts should be made to manufacture larger aircraft with greater take-off weight, especially bomber aircraft, which was put in the development program by Premier Zhou Enlai in the initial stage of the aviation industry construction. Great concern was also shown by Defence Minister Peng Dehuai.

When the First Five-year Plan was completed ahead of schedule in 1956, the aviation industry began to prepare for the construction of bomber aircraft factory. In 1957, agreement was reached with the Soviet Union regarding introducing Russian manufacturing technology of Tu-16 Bomber. But the newly built bomber aircraft factory lagged behind its schedule because of the change of construction site. To fill in the gaps in China's bomber aircraft, Harbin Aircraft and Engine Factories actively undertook preparations for Tu-16 trial production. Sample aircraft, drawings and part of technical documents were introduced at the' beginning of 1959. The first Tu-16 aircraft assembled with Soviet made parts and components was flight tested before National Day (October 1) of 1959, which provided a good and effective practice for the later trial manufacture. This bomber was designated H-6.

The Chinese aviation industry concentrated on the development of aircraft and simultaneously considered trial production and regular production of missiles during this period of time. The missile development was included in China's 12 years science and technology development plan formulated in 1956. In April 1956, Premier Zhou Enlai presided over a special meeting to discuss China's missile development.

Development of missiles and rockets in industrially developed countries was progressing very fast. More over, there was a popular opinion in favor of missile instead of aircraft. There were three opinions to the issue of handling development relations between aircraft and missile in China: some held to carry out development and trial production of missiles in China with every efforts; others insisted on the simultaneous development of aircraft and missile and still others said missile development first in first five years and then came back to aircraft development again. After repeated discussions and demonstrations by well-known aviation experts of Qian Xuesen, Wang Bi, Xu Changyu, Shen Yuan, Gao Fangqi and Ren Xingmin, the second opinion was endorsed.

It was held that both aircraft and missiles had their strong points and weak points; it was not correct to bias against any of them. The theory was further proved by the long coast line of China in terms of national defence. In consideration of transportation, agriculture, forestry, measuring, exploration and ambulance, aircraft played even bigger role and was in urgent need. In the national scientific development plan, therefore, jet propulsion and rocket technology were listed as important development projects.

The Fifth Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence, a rocket and missile research institute was established in October 1956 ( hereinafter called the Fifth Institute). One aircraft factory was assigned to the Fifth Institute to be reformed as a missile trial production base according to the unified plan. Since missile and aircraft were similar in technical process, trial production of missile was started within aviation industry. Air to air, surface to surface , surface to air and sea defence missiles were trial produced in 1958 while facilities were constructed. By 1959, trial production lines of tactical missiles and rocket engines were basically set up in Shenyang and Nanchang; trial production work was proceeded in full swing in the associated missile design institutes. Cooperative relationship was established between lots of aviation factories and missile trial production factories. This was the beginning of China's missile industry.

With the increasing development of manufacturing capability of the aviation industry, the combined production of military product and civil product had become major subject for discussion. Chairman Mao Zedong mentioned the production of military product and the civil product as well at the Supreme Meeting of State Council at the beginning of 1956. He also pointed out: "to learn two sets of skills, i.e. the skill of producing civil products in military industry, and the skill of producing military product in civil industry. This is a good method and we must do it in this way" when he was at a briefing about the Second Five-year Plan in April. To implement this instruction, civil production management organization was set up by the Second Ministry of Machine Building; plans and measures of civil production were formulated under the leadership of Vice Minister Liu Ding.

A meeting. on civil production was held at the beginning of 1958 by the Bureau of Aviation Industry and, the policy of "production of both military and civil products simultaneously on the basis of ensuring the fulfilment of military production and gradually raising the level of technology" was adopted. Many civil products like metal cutting machine tools, generators, steam turbines, automobiles, tractors and motorbikes were manufactured that year. The value of civil product in the total value of production of the whole industry was increasing extensively, which was more than 40% in 1960. Civil product manufacture showed initial success, reflecting the great technical superiority and production potential of the aviation industry, which could serve the national economy widely.

Large quantities of new aviation factories were constructed one after another to meet requirements of production development and increased variety of aircraft. Construction plan at this time had some changes compared with previous one. In his "Report on the Second Five-year Plan for developing the national economy", Premier Zhou Enlai pointed out: " In order to reasonably distribute the production force in China, promote economy development in all areas and to let our arrangement of industry suit our natural resources and national defence conditions, some new industrial bases must be constructed in inland of the country in a planned way."

With this principle, the stress of aviation industry construction during the Second Five-year Plan period was shifted to inland, except a few airborne equipment factories built in coastal area. Main factories for manufacturing aircraft and engines were specially constructed in inland. To speed up the construction, the method of letting the old coastal factory contract to build the new inland factory with fixed investment was used. By the year of 1960, a set of aircraft and engine factories were established both in Chengdu and in Xi'an; aviation instrument factory, electric factory, electric motor factory and accessory factory were set up in Lanzhou, Beijing and Changchun. Some old factories were also reconstructed and expanded including Harbin Aircraft and Harbin Aero Engine factories, and Nanjing Aero Hydraulic Accessory Factory. After this period of construction, the scope of aviation industry was further expanded; aviation industrial bases were established in south-west and north-west inland areas, starting to change the situation that main aviation factories were situated in the coastal areas.