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Chinese Aviation History - From Copy Production to Independent Design and Development

Development of China's aviation industry can be divided into the following stages: repair stage - before the successful manufacture of the Primary Trainer CJ-5 in 1954; copy production stage - in the late 1950s; attempting independent design of aircraft in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the new stage of independent development after the Soviet Union broke off the contract. Independent design and development of new types of aircraft were carried out fairly smoothly during the early 1960s, but were hindered during the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution", detail work in this period included: partial design in connection with copy production, reference design, improvement and modification and independent design.

The newly developed aircraft in this period were: the high altitude high speed fighter J-7, light jet bomber H-5 and the medium range jet bomber H-6. They were not manufactured by pure copying, but with some improvement and / or partial design.

Through analysis, test, research and calculation of the existing sample aircraft and then to carry out reverse design to obtain systematic data and reliable conclusion and then on that basis design and development of new types of aircraft was started, which was one of the methods adopted in China for the development of new aircraft. Medium and short range passenger plane Y-7 and medium range transport Y-8 were developed in this way.

In October 1966, Premier Zhou Enlai and vice Chairman Ye Jianying approved to develop Y-7 passenger plane. Soon after, a design team of more than 300 people was formed, which consisted of mainly people from the Xi'an Aircraft Factory and Aircraft Design Institute plus people from the Nanchang and Harbin Aircraft Factory, Aeronautical Material Research Institute and Manufacturing Technology Research Institute. Various kinds of necessary data were obtained on the basis of actual measuring and analysis and lots of tests, with which complete set of drawings, technical conditions, test and calculation reports and manufacturing process documents were, designed and prepared; complete production tooling and fixtures were designed and manufactured and, various new technology and process were adopted. Consequently this 50-seat Y-7 passenger plane successfully flew in December 1970.

Flying of Y-7 aircraft filled the blank of medium size transport aircraft and also trained a technical team of design, process and manufacture working coordinately. It was also this team that continued to work with the Air Force No.1 Institute and NPU, they formed an even stronger force for the development of Y-8 aircraft, a transport with about 60 tons of takeoff weight, in October 1969. Its first test flight took place in December 1974 after 5 years efforts. By then the Xi'an Aircraft Factory and Aircraft Design Institute had successfully developed three aircraft - H-6, Y-7 and Y-8, which helped China's aviation industry enter into the field of developing large and medium size aircraft, one more step towards developing new types of aircraft independently.

Derivation and modification were performed on the basis of the existing types of aircraft t improve structure and performance, prolong life and derive new types in order to meet the requirement of more applications, which was widely used in the world due to less investment, less risk and cost effectiveness.

During the initial development stage, aviation industry concentrated its efforts on copy manufacture. Modifications and derivations were started no sooner than the beginning of the 1960s, when the Harbin Aero Engine Factory had difficulties to provide many different types of engines for many different aircraft under repair. They started with the derivation and modification of the original Z-5 power plant - a piston engine HS7 as a sample engine; a modified piston engine HS8 was developed in 1963, which was certified by the Aero Products Certification Commission. This new type of engine could be used on the Soviet Tu-2 bomber, 11-12, 11-14 transport aircraft and U.S. C-46 transport, realized " one engine for four applications" . About one hundred imported old aircraft, which had been grounded due to lack of engines, were rescued. The aircraft high altitude performance was also improved by using this engine. It met the requirement of flying to Tibet.

Derivations and modifications in other field were performed in succession as well. The day time fighter J-5 aircraft was modified successfully to J-5A in 1964; J-5, H-5 and J-6 were modified to JJ-5 trainer, HJ-5 bomber trainer and JJ-6 in 1966, 1972 and 1973 respectively; modification of bomber reconnaissance aircraft HZ-5, and JZ-6 were also carried out. Modifications of these aircraft were realized by overcoming defects of the original design, and fitting more advanced equipment for various needs. These modified aircraft had achieved very good results in practice. The outstanding achievements further encouraged people and pushed forward the work of modification and derivation.