Harbin Aircraft Industry (Group) Co., Ltd. (HAIG)
Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (HAMC)

Harbin Aircraft Industry Group is a scientific research and manufacture base of helicopter, light and general-purpose aircraft, and regional aircraft in China, and it is also the unique company in China that produce helicopter and general-purpose aircraft at the same time. The Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Company is China's main plant for manufacturing helicopters. The Harbin Aircraft Industries Group is the parent organisation of the Hafei Aviation Industry Company, and it is not always possible to tell these two companies apart.

The company had more than 18,000 employees in 1998, and occupies an area of 5 million square meters. Its assets amount a total of 7.92 billion Yuan (RMB) and its fixed assets is about 1.33 billion Yuan (RMB). By now it owns four major series of products: Y 12 light general-purpose aircraft, Z 9 series helicopter, HC120 helicopter, ERJ145 jet regional aircraft and dynamic triangle. The company has passed the ISO9000?ISO14000 and OHSAS18000 authentication.

Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (HAMC) is a major Chinese airframe manufacturer. It has since its establishment designed and developed, and/or produced light bombers, different types of helicopters, large flying boats and light general-purpose aircrafts, thereby having made significant contributions to China's national defence and civil aviation undertakings, and produced a large number of aircraft components for overseas airframe manufacturers as well.

The Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation produced the H-5, a redesign of the Soviet Il-28 Beagle, which has been retired. Along with the Xian Aircraft Company (XAC) Harbin produced the H-6 (Badger) under a licensing agreement from the Soviet Union, and continues to upgrade this aircraft. HAIG has gone through a development course from repairing, copying, independent development and international cooperation with hard work for more than 50 years and has manufactured and sold more than 1,600 different types of aircraft. It has made significant contributions to national defense and economic constructions.

HAIG has now built up multi-families and multi-types of aeronautical products, including the Y12 serial light and general-purpose aircraft, H425 serial civil helicopters, Z9 serial military helicopters, HC120 helicopters, and the ultra-light ERJ145 regional jet airplane through cooperation with EMBRAER Brazil. By the end of September 2009, HAIG had total assets of 3.33 billion yuan, rising 16.02 percent year-on-year. The company achieved 1.05 billion yuan of business revenue and 43.45 million yuan of net profit in the first nine months of 2009.

Harbin Aircraft Industry (Group) Co., Ltd. (HAIG) under AVIC II was founded in April 1952. It was one of the 156 major projects during the "First 5-year Plan" period of China. This major Chinese airframe manufacturer with more than 16,000 employees is the sole Chinese builder of light helicopters and general aviation aircraft. The company's facility located in Harbin, Heilongjiang produces helicopters, flying boats, and light general purpose aircraft. The Y-12 is a light multipurpose plane designed and built by Harbin Aircraft. Development of the plane began in 1980; Type I was used chiefly in exploration; Type II is a passenger plane with 12 seats. Gas turbine engines produced by Pratt & Whitney Canada, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation of Hartford, Connecticut, power the Y-12 aircraft.

The Harbin Z-5 is a Chinese copy of the Soviet Mil Mi-4 piston engined helicopter. It was produced in the city of Harbin, China. In February 1958 - in accordance with the blueprints and technical data for the Mi-4 heiicopter ~ which were provided by the Soviet side at that time ~ it began to make a copy of this helicopter. The first test flight of which took place in December of that year. The code name of this helicopter at that time was "Xuanfeng [Whirlwind]-25."

The "Xuanfeng-25" is a single-rotor helicopter. The diameter of its rotor is 21 meters. The helicopter's takeoff weight is 7,200 kilograms. It has one piston engine (a copy of the Soviet Ash-82)~ and the engine's rated power is 1,250 kilowatts. In its early stage~ the Mi-4 helicopter's blade was a composite structure of metallic tubular beams and wood. In the sixties ~ the company developed on its own a metallic blade of aluminum alloy with girders carrying a honeycombed back-forged piece. Thus in rotor technology level it caused a generational replacement.

Following complete manufacture in China of the copy of the Mi-4 helicopter and the improvement of its blade, the helicopter was named in China the "Zhi-5." In 1959, after state authentication, it was put into batch production, but serial production was delayed and didn't start until the mid-1960's. From this time on, China's helicopter production technology began gradually to develop. China has produced a number of unique variants, and the Z-5 is still in use with the PLA, PLAAF and PLANAF, although it seems to be no longer in production. China also exported a number of Z-5 to client states. The Zhi-5 helicopter has developed into models for passenger transport, rescue, aerial survey, and lifesaving at sea. Up to 1979, when production was stopped, more than 500 had been produced, and they played a very big role in the national economy and in national defense construction.

During the course of producing the Zhi-5, the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Company test-built several other helicopter models. Among them a fairly successful one, which was developed in cooperation with another unit, was the Zhi-6 helicopter. The Zhi-6 was developed on the basis of the Zhi-5. It has a redesigned airframe and is fitted with a turboshaft engine. The engine's axial rate if 618 kilowatts, and the aircraft's takeoff weight is 7,600 kilograms. In 1968, the Zhi-6 made its first test flight, and was then put into test-production.

To raise the technological level of China's helicopters, in October 1980, with the approval of the Chinese and French governments ~ the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation signed a contract with Aerospatiele of France and the Tourbomeca Corporation for the transfer of the manufacturing rights for the SA 365 N/Nl "Dauphin" [Dolphin] helicopter and its engine, under which the Chinese side would assemble and produce 50 helicopters and 100 engines.

The Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Company became the main helicopter plant, and was responsible for the tasks of producing, assembling and test flight of helicopters. In China this helicopter was designated the Zhi-9, and by 1986 more than 20 of them had been assembled and produced. All of them have been cosigned to the Civil Aviation Administration of China [CAAC], military units, or the China Maritime Helicopter Company. Through the import of technology, the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Company and other relevant factories were carrying out a series of technological transformations in order as fast as possible to make China's helicopter manufacturing technology attain the level abroad at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s.

The Harbin Z-9 is a Chinese military utility helicopter. It is a license-built version of the French Eurocopter Dauphin, and is manufactured by Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation. The first Z-9 flew in 1981, and was built in China from components supplied by Aerospatiale, but by the early 1990s the Z-9B was being built from over 70% indigenous Chinese components.

By 2000 there were about 200 helicopters operating in China's military fleet, far fewer than would be expected. India, whose army is about half the size of China's, had about 540 military helicopters. Chinese aircraft manufacturers, led by the Harbin Aircraft Industry Group, are participating in development and production of the EC-120B Colibri helicopter, a joint venture between AVIC II, Eurocopter, and Singapore's Technologies Aerospace. Harbin is responsible for designing and producing the fuselage, fuel system, and operating system for this aircraft.

Since 1979 the company has produced components for foreign manufacturers, including doors for the BAe 146, wings sections for the Shorts 330 and 360 and helicopter doors for the Dauphin. Harbin Aircraft is negotiating with Boeing company to co-produce 234-model helicopters. The company's plans to manufacture the PW5, a competition sailplane suitable for club, training, and sport soaring, appear to have fallen through.

After failed negotiations with Boeing and Airbus, a group of six Chinese aerospace companies decided in late 1998 to build a regional passenger jet with either 58 or 76 seats and a range of up to 3,200 kilometers. The six companies are Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing, Xian Aircraft Industry Group, Shanxi Aircraft Co., Shanghai Aviation Industrial Corp., Shanghai Aircraft Research Institute and the Xian Design and Research Institute.

China Aviation Industry Corp II (AVIC II) signed an agreement with the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer to jointly produce 30- to 50-seat ERJ145 turbofan regional jets. The first plane has already come off the assembly line. According to the agreement, Embraer will establish a joint venture with Harbin Aircraft Industry (Group) Co Ltd and Hafei Aviation Industry Co Ltd - two companies under AVIC II - in Harbin. The newly formed company, called Harbin Embraer Aircraft Industry Co Ltd, involves an equity investment of US$25 million. The joint venture will be capable of producing up to 24 aircraft annually. Between June 2004 and January 2005, HEAI delivered the first six locally produced ERJ 145s to China Southern Airlines.

HAIG, based in Heilongjiang province, is the country's largest manufacturer of composite materials for commercial airplanes and helicopters. On 28 February 2011 the Harbin Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Centre (the Manufacturing Centre), a joint venture between Airbus and its Chinese partners, was inaugurated in Harbin, China by Tom Enders, Airbus President and CEO, Chinese government officials and partners. The new facilities will mainly be used to manufacture composite parts for the A350 XWB, Airbus' latest aircraft program. The 33,800-square-metres state-of-the-art facilities opened today are the first of what will be an 80,000-square-metres manufacturing compound, comprising production, technical support, office areas and other services. The construction started in June 2009. Harbin Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Centre is a joint venture between Airbus China and a group of Chinese partners comprising Harbin Aircraft Industry Group Corporation Limited, Hafei Aviation Industry Company Limited, AviChina Industry & Technology Company Limited and Harbin Development Zone Infrastructure Development Company Limited. The joint venture is 80 percent controlled by HAIG, while Airbus owns the rest of the stakes. It started production of A320 elevators, rudders and Horizontal Tail Plane (HTP) spars in December 2009. Chinese companies contribute five per cent of the A350 XWB airframe work packages.

Since China started its drive to reform and open up, HAMC has designed and developed a large number of commercial products which are competitive on the market, and set up production lines for its staple products, namely, aircaraft products, small motor vehicles and medicine packaging machines in series. Several of its products have won China's national awards for science and technology advancement, significant technical equipment and excellence of quality, and our products are well received by our customers both home and abroad. Quality is always an eternal subject for an enterprise to address, we are trying all the time to work to international standards to make our quality assurance system perfect.

Following the policy of quality first, customer is always right, and try to survive competition by improving quality and achieve business expansion by increasing products variety, HAMC have made it the responsibility of each and every employee of the company to put quality of products under tight control in the whole process including design, construction, inspection, testing and after-sale service and provide customers with quality products and servces. HAMC has a strong team of experienced engineers and skilful operators and all the facilities necessary for research and development and production of aircraft, and practise total quality control and quality after-sale service.

HAMC is updating the operating system to make it a modern enterprise, and taking an active part in competitions for markets both home and abroad. It has established economical and technical cooperative relations with more than 20 countries and places, HAMC would like to serve people in all the walks of life both home and abroad with advanced technologies, reliable quality, good credibility and quality service. HAMC is ready all the time to cooperate with friends both home and abroad wholeheartedly to create a bright future.