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Chinese Aviation History - "Third Line" Inland Construction of China's Aviation Industry

Old China almost had no production capability for airborne equipment. Due to the fact I that the complexity and importance of airborne equipment were not fully understood and the country was in short of money and technology during the initial stage of new China's aviation industry, the issue of constructing airborne equipment factories at the same time with aircraft rand engine factories had not been brought for discussion during China's first negotiation with the Soviet Union on their assistance to China's aviation industry in 1951. When this problem was realized later, 5 airborne equipment factories were listed in the First Five-year Plan projects constructed with the Soviet assistance in 1953. But some of these projects were located in coastal area and due to strategic considerations were moved to inland not long after they started =production, which delayed the advancement of factory construction.

That happened at the time when China's aviation industry was in the transition period from repair to manufacture. Very heavy task of aircraft repair was there, and completion of production task was greatly affected due to frequent shortage of instrumentation and special equipment, which could not be provided by the Soviet Union. Though some local state-run factories and private factories were replenished and reconditioned to meet the urgent need, production capability was after all limited, far from meeting the needs of the development of aircraft and engine. In manufacturing, the -critical technology needed for the manufacture could not be tempered since the repair of airborne equipment at that time was mainly limited to inspection and simple parts manufacturing. And this also increased the difficulty of the transition for airborne equipment from repair to manufacture.

To change this situation, the Bureau of Aviation Industry decided to turn their attention to the construction of airborne equipment factories after completion of six aircraft and engine factories construction in June 1955. At the same time, the original special equipment workshops in aircraft and engine factories were reconstructed and expanded into factories although they still trial produced some accessories for aircraft and engines. Measures were also adopted to accelerate training of technical personnel for airborne equipment factories. By this way, 11 airborne equipment factories of instrumentation, accessory and electrical systems etc. were constructed or almost constructed at the end of the First Five-year Plan, and they batch produced 80% of 245 items of airborne equipment needed by J-5 aircraft and its engines; a number of precision and complicated products, such as fuel pumps, gyros and micro motors were trial produced too.

Hence, the problem of auxiliaries and accessories production not in proportion to aircraft and aero engines production was alleviated. With the increase of aircraft types, the complexity of airborne equipment was increasingly higher and the proportion of their manufacturing hours in that of aircraft and engine was rising rapidly. But the construction projects listed in the Second Five-year Plan were far from meeting the actual requirement, lack-ing lots of disciplines, and this made the problem of airborne equipment not matching with the development of aircraft and engine outstanding again.

Bearing this in mind, aviation industry actively practiced "filling gaps and setting up complete set of systems" during the three years of adjustment after 1960. Apart from constructing new factories, some local factories and abandoned schools were replenished and reconditioned, hence, a number of factories of aeronautical instrumentation, electrical system and accessory, including armament factory, propeller factory, high altitude cockpit equipment factory, oxygen instruments factory, aeronautical magneto factory, filter screen factory and high altitude compensating suit factory etc., which filled up gaps of many disciplines in China and basically formed a fairly complete set of balanced system of aircraft, engine and airborne equipment. Product design departments were set up by factories one after another.

There were 832 items of good quality airborne equipment trial produced and manufactured within two years of 1961 and 1962. At the same time, factories of airborne radar, communication, navigation, electronics, optical equipment and airborne weaponry were newly built or reconditioned by industries of machinery, electronics and weaponry according to the state unified plan. Construction of these complete set of airborne equipment factories created good conditions for the development of aircraft, engine and missile.

At the beginning of 1964, Minister Sun Zhiyuan requested the industry to realize the strategic objective of " five aircraft, three missiles" within two years ( five aircraft: J-6, Z-5, Y-5, J-5A and Primary Trainer CJ-6; three missiles: ground to air, air to air and ship to air), which was a forcefull impetus to the improvement of a balanced system of aviation industry. To reach this objective, the shortage of 60 items of airborne equipment became the bottle neck of batch production of aircraft and missile of various types. Chen Shaozhong, Director of the Airborne Equipment Bureau led people to the factories to provide guidance on the spot and quickly solved these critical problems. Except a few items not yet certified, airborne equipment needed by batch produced aircraft of different types were manufactured and provided in China by the second half of 1965. Airborne equipment, therefore, had entered into a new stage of independent system gradually.

At the same time of constructing complete production system, inland construction was carried out with great efforts by aviation industry in view of national defence and industrial distribution as a whole. Inland construction of aviation industry started as early as in the First Five-year Plan period and was developed in the Second Five-year Plan and three years of adjustment. At the Working Meeting of the CCCPC in May and the Meeting of the Central Secretariat in August 1964, Chairman Mao Zedong proposed to divide China into one, two and three lines; factories in the first line should be moved and the third line should be strengthened as a rear base in case of war; factories should be divided into two parts and quickly move one part to inland.

Afterwards, inland construction of aviation industry was carried out in large scale. At the beginning of 1965, the Ministry of Aviation Industry made the decision to thoroughly stop and slow down first and second line construction projects and move enterprises situated in large cities in the first and second line to the third line in a planned way according to the requirement of adjusting the first line and concentrating on the third line in the "Guide lines for defence industry in 1965" approved by the CCCPC. All the first and second lines enterprises worked out plans of moving to the inland. In the same year of making the decision, the moving of 6 airborne equipment and avionics factories making lamps, parachutes and engine accessories in coastal area was completed and, another 9 factories and 3 institutes started their construction in third line as well.

At that time, workers and staff of aviation industry were very enthusiastic on the construction of the third line. After dividing factories into two parts with moving tasks, preparation management for new factory construction started intense work immediately, some of them departed their relatives and friends for the third line even without bringing their belongings. About two thousand workers and staff of aviation factories in Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing moved to Guizhou by orders, with equipment completely moved and installed for production within less than half a year.

Large scale third line construction started in the late 1960s, focussing on the construction of a complete set of Guizhou bases, and auxiliary factories and institutes were also constructed in North-west, South-central and South-west areas. The 1970s saw the construction focus on aircraft factories in Shaanxi, Jiangxi and Hubei Provinces. Most of these construction projects were located in poor and remote mountainous areas. The hardships were imaginable when the large scale construction project was to be carried out in mountainous areas near the Hanjiang River and Guizhou mountainous areas of " the place without three consecutive fine days and three yards of flat ground".

But in order to prepare for a sudden war and for the development of aviation industry, workers and staff in the third line cooperated with construction engineering army and civilian people with great enthusiasm. They dined and slept in the open area, repaired bridges and roads, crossed mountains and rivers to find out water source; they suffered great difficulties during construction of factories. After their hard struggle and efforts, a number of factories were at last constructed, equipment installed and associated living facilities set up in these remote barren mountainous areas of the third line. Some plants were even built in the large mountain tunnels formed billions of years ago. Outstanding achievements were witnessed on the third line construction through people's hard and arduous struggle.

Third line investment of aviation industry during the Third Five-year Plan period was 93.4% of its total investment, 83.2% during Fourth Five-year Plan period. Large number of factory plants were constructed in the third line during those ten years. A group of enterprises and administrative organizations including aircraft and engine factories, accessory factories, special factories and design institute, warehouse, hospitals and schools were set up in the remote strategic Guizhou area and mountainous area in south Shaanxi Province. Up to that time China's aviation industry not only had possessed good production systems of aircraft, engine and airborne equipment in North-east, North-China and East-China areas, but also established a complete set of production capability of manufacturing fighters, bombers, transports and helicopters in South-central, South-west and North-west areas. A great change of distribution of aviation industry had taken place.

Marching into the third line, aviation industry had brought water, electricity, transportation, school, department stores and modern information of economy, technology and culture to remote areas, supported remote area construction and hence, accelerated the change of situation in those industrially and economically weak areas.

It is obvious that the "leftist" influence and lash of "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" had created a lot of problems in the construction of aviation industry in the third line. But the hard work and great efforts of the workers and staff for the construction of the third line in creating a material foundation for the development of aviation industry is everlasting.