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Development of New Generation Aircraft

The purpose of enhancing scientific research and educating qualified personnel was to speed up the design and development of new generation aircraft. In early 1978, the State Council and the Military Commission of CCCPC asked the defence industry to put scientific research ahead of production and to devote major efforts to developing new equipments.

The principal policy of aviation equipment was to improve the air force's territory air defence capability centered on strategic points defence and to improve support capability to land and sea battles. According to this requirement, aviation industry learned lessons from history, especially the lesson of developing too many types of new aircraft at the same time, reviewed the speech by Vice Chairman Ye Jianying delivered at the aviation report meeting in 1972, i.e. " aircraft development should be realistic, attention should be paid to continuity, i.e.: one generation after another, because a son is nowhere if there is no father."

In March 1983, Yang Shangkun, Vice Chairman of the Military Commission of CCCPC and deputy Secretary-General Yu Qiuli, Yang Dezhi, Zhang Aiping and Hong Xuezhi delivered important speeches regarding development of modern equipments at a working meeting of the Commission of Defence Science, Technology and Industry. They pointed out that efforts should be made to develop and improve the aviation industry and that new weaponry must be developed step by step, according to the actual capability and scientific procedures. Zhang Ai-ping required: " to contract the battle line, concentrate on key points, pay more attention to scientific research and to speed up the development of new generation aircraft," and " to recondition tooling, improve manufacturing process, raise quality and reduce cost."

According to these instructions, aviation industry rearranged its types of aircraft into three generations in the order of importance.

The first echelon, i.e. the generation being produced included J-7, J-8 (day light and all-weather types), Y-7, Y-8 and Q-5 I aircraft. All these types of aircraft had been developed for quite a long period of time, the only problem was that some critical technical problems and auxiliary or accessory problems still remained. Only when the best manpower being concentrated on tackling them and having them certified for production, could the new generation of equipment be used to equip the military services. J-7 I aircraft was not loved by the Air Force because its ejection life saving system unit was not safe. The Chengdu Aircraft Factory improved and successfully developed a zero height, low speed, safe and reliable ejection life saving unit. With this new ejection seat and a new engine of bigger thrust the aircraft became J-7 II , which was certified and released for production in 1979. As for the J-8 day light aircraft, Shenyang Aircraft Factory, after making great efforts on it, solved the long outstanding problems of engine shut-down in the air and high temperature on the rear fuselage, hence ended its 13 years development and had its design certification in 1979 as well. After the pilot flew J-8 aircraft and completed the flight program, he said with excitement: " we welcome the aircraft designed by ourselves. We love it, this is the way to reinforce our air force." After entering into the 1970s and 1980s, J-711 and J-8 had been batch manufactured and were the major new types of aircraft to equip the Air Force and the Navy. During this period, Q-5 I and its modified types of I A, II and III were simultaneously certified in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Because technical difficulties of Q-5 series aircraft and J-8 day light and all-weather aircraft were solved and because of their success, these two types of aircraft had been awarded the State special-class prize for science and technology progress.

The second echelon, i.e. the generation of aircraft under development, was mainly J-8 II aircraft with better performance. J-8 II aircraft was technically more difficult. It was the aircraft for the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The participants in the project included aviation industry and more than ten other relative industries with the aviation industry in charge of system engineering. A system of chief designer, administrative manager, chief accountant and quality control was set up. And the contracting system of development expenses was implemented. In the course of development, the achievement of advanced research had been utilized promptly and technical reconditioning had been carried out to those factories and institutes which shared the task. Engineers, technicians, leaders and skilled workers worked very hard to speed up the development of J-8 II aircraft and they ensured the development program to complete on schedule with good quality. The first flight took place on June 12 1984. It only took three years and one month from the go-ahead to the first flight. The factory only spent 17 months for the trial manufacture and final assembly, which was much shorter than that for J-7 and J-8 prototype aircraft. About 115 newly designed or improved airborne equipments needed by the aircraft were all delivered on schedule, which reflected that the technical and management level in developing the advanced aircraft had been greatly raised.

The third echelon, i.e. the generation of aircraft being explored, was mainly to unfold advanced research and development in sophisticated aircraft for the 1990s and the year of 2000. Major efforts were also made on improvement and modification of aviation products while the above mentioned development of the three different generations were carried out. New technology and equipment could be used on aircraft through modification and improvement, which was an effective method not only for improving aircraft performance, extending application and elongating service life, but also was one of the effective ways to develop new aircraft.

The period from 1979 to 1986 was one of the most fruitful periods in the history of the Chinese aviation industry. During these eight years, 5 types of new aircraft and 2 special purpose aircraft had been certified for production, 15 different types of aircraft had been modified, improved and retrofitted, and 7 types of super-light aircraft had been developed. Development of aero-engines also witnessed outstanding progress with 3 types of engines newly developed and 7 types improved and modified. There were four series of WP6, WP7, WP13 and WJ5 engines available. Turbo shaft engine had also been successfully developed and been used in operation. There were about one thousand new products of airborne equipment being certified for production or fitted on aircraft. In the field of missile, 2 types were newly developed and 3 types were successfully improved. Among these successfully developed new types of aircraft, some were the results of continued work from previous development and some were developed completely fresh, both of which were much better either in variety or in performance.

A number of certified batch manufactured aircraft had been delivered to the People's Air Force, Naval air force and CAAC, among which fighter aircraft included J-7 II , J-8 (day light and all weather type), Q-5 I and missile bomber; transports included Y-12 I , Y-12 , Y-7, Y-7-100 and Y-8, from small to large with different tonnages; and Z-9 multi-purpose helicopter.

The new types of aircraft filled some blanks in aircraft types, for instance, RPV5 unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, H-6 electronic counter-countermeasure aircraft, Y-8 sea patrol aircraft, high manuverability target drone, super-light aircraft and small RPV. Exported aircraft also increased in variety. Some high performance aircraft like J-7 III , J-8 II , Z-8 large helicopter and JJ-7 trainer etc. had been developed and flight tested one after another.

Production of new aircraft also changed the structure of aircraft production and the percentage of new aircraft increased rapidly. In the Sixth Five-year Plan period (1981-1985), 75% of the batch produced 20 types of aircraft were newly developed and certified, or modified and improved. The percentage of production of new aircraft in the total production in 1985 was up to 66%.

During a large scale military exercise in north China by PLA in September 1981, the Air Force undertook tasks of air superiority, air reconnaissance, ground support, air supply, rescue, occupying key position by parachuting, air mining and electronic countermeasures. The Air Force used 114 batches of aircraft with 838 sorties. All those fighters, attack aircraft, bombers, transport aircraft and helicopters were manufactured in China. Each fleet finished its mission by arriving punctually, shooting and bombing accurately, landing accurately, in good cooperation and safety, reflecting very strong fighting capability. In the military parade celebrating the 35 anniversary of the National Day in 1984, formation flight of 94 aircraft of fighters, attack aircraft, bombers and trainers precisely passed over Tiananmen to receive inspection by the State leaders and masses.

These aircraft embodied the sweat and blood of the workers and staff of the aviation industry. Designers, engineers, specialists, professors and workers who took part in these aircraft design and manufacturing all worked very hard and devoted their every effort to the work and to the motherland: But those people were unknown to the public because of security reasons in the defence industry. The government highly praised contributions made by those people and 20 representatives of those seldom known people from the Ministry of Aviation Industry and the Ministry of Weaponry Industry were received by the State leaders Zhao Ziyang, Yang Shangkun, Hu Qili, Li Peng and Fang Yi on January 24 1986. Among the 20 specialists 10 of them were specialists from aviation industry. They were Lu Xiaopeng-aircraft designer, Gu Songfen - aircraft designer, Zhou Yaohe - professor of North-west Polytechnic University and a Casting specialist, Zhang Qishan-professor of Bei¬jing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and inventer of the telemetry system of array separation, Lu Qingfeng-RPV designer, Cai Yunjin - aeroengine compressor specialist, Yang Yanshen - aero accessory specialist, Liu Xiashi - finite element specialist, Zhou Tianxiao - finite element specialist and Xu Peilin - aircraft designer.

In his speech during the meeting, Premier Zhao Ziyang praised all workers and staff of defence industry for their great contributions and pointed out that great development had been achieved and good foundation of China's defence industry had already been laid, and a good team of science and technology workers had been established, but with more potential to be tapped. He asked the defence industry to make greater contributions to the four modernizations of the whole country. This would not affect the modernization of our national defence but on the contrary this would further ensure it, enterprises would be more flourishing and working forces would be more vigorous. The state leaders' remarks showed clearly the direction of further progress of the defence industry and aviation industry.