Chinese the development process of the people's liberation army air fighter, from purchase to imitation, from improvement to domestic production, along the way through ups and downs, many times have faced extremely difficult situations, in the early eighties of the last century in order to enhance the combat capability of air fighters, many fighters began to update and improve,
However, the main fighter at that time, the J-7, almost lost the opportunity to enhance its combat effectiveness due to financial problems. How did the Chinese side solve this matter, why did it say that the Arab country of Jordan sent "god assists", and what was the development process of the Chinese fighter J-7.
After the end of World War II, the world aviation industry entered a period of rapid development, especially in the Korean War in the 1950s, which gave birth to jet fighters instead of propeller fighters, including the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and other world powers have stepped up the development and production of more advanced supersonic fighters.
The Soviet MiG-21 fighter, which began to equip troops in 1958, was the leading one, a second-generation supersonic fighter designed by the Soviet Mikoyan Design Bureau. In 1960, out of strategic considerations and the intention of easing the increasingly tense Soviet-Chinese relations, the Soviet side conveyed the opinion of the Soviet government to Premier Zhou Enlai through the Soviet Embassy in China, that is, the Soviet Union could provide China with MiG-21Ф-13 aircraft if China needed it.
In February of the following year, Soviet leader Khrushchev even sent a letter to Chairman Mao, further expressing the Soviet Union's willingness to transfer the right to manufacture the MiG-21Ф-13 aircraft and hoping that China would send a delegation to negotiate the matter. Naturally, the Chairman was keenly aware of the initiative of the Soviet side, and was sure that there was a reason for the incident, or that additional conditions were attached. Sure enough, in December of that year, the Soviet government said that it was planning to sell a batch of MiG-21 aircraft to Indonesia in consideration of the strategic layout of Asia, and negotiated with the Chinese government to request that the aircraft be transferred to Indonesia through China.
The Chairman took into account that although the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations is inevitable, the development of China's air force and aviation industry is equally important, and this opportunity cannot be easily missed. Subsequently, the Chinese government sent a negotiating delegation headed by Liu Yalou, commander of the Air Force, to Moscow. After many rounds of tense negotiations and in the face of difficulties on the Soviet side, our representatives adhered to principles and argued on the basis of reason, and finally achieved successful negotiations. China's introduction of advanced second-generation fighters not only breaks the technological blockade and embargo imposed on China by the Western world and the Soviet Union, but also wins a rare opportunity for China to catch up with the world's advanced level.
But the conclusion of the negotiated contract does not mean that China can immediately get an increase in air force. The subsequent delivery of aircraft parts, design drawings, and translation work faced great challenges for Chinese personnel. Previously, due to the sudden withdrawal of aid personnel in China by the Soviet Union, this time the MiG aircraft, we simply refused the Soviet Union's request to send advisers.
The MiG-21Ф-13 is a single-seat, light, super 2 times the speed of sound daytime front fighter of the Soviet MiG-21 series, with triangular wings and full-motion horizontal tails, with good high-altitude and high-speed performance. According to the provisions of the agreement, since August 1962, the relevant technical data of the aircraft have been transported to the Chinese aircraft factory, and all the data has reached a weight of 13 tons, and the translation and proofreading workload is very large.
But what is even more fatal is that the Soviets actually "lacked two pounds" and failed to submit a total of 256 technical information, especially the lack of key technical information. Not only that, but the purchased MiG-21Ф-13 aircraft prototype and 15 components, equipment and related equipment of this type were also unable to be used at all due to problems such as rough packaging, and the experts and technicians at that time overcame great difficulties and risks to complete the assembly of the MiG-21Ф-13 aircraft.
On March 31, 1964, the first MiG-21Ф-13 aircraft was assembled according to the scheduled plan, and a month later, our military's ace pilot Ge Wenyong successfully completed the first test flight, Chinese relying on his own strength, assembled the first second-generation fighter with the bulk pieces sent by the Soviet Union, and its performance indicators met the original design requirements, and in November 1964, the model was officially changed to the J-7 aircraft.
The J-7 aircraft has a complex structure, with more than 20,000 parts and nearly 200 new structures, new processes and new materials. Aircraft designers and technical experts, dare to innovate and overcome difficulties, and have compiled more than 18,000 copies of the whole machine process specifications, 21,600 sets of self-designed and manufactured process equipment, and 177 test equipment. After the successful test flight, the next step is to complete the formal mass production of the aircraft, which was handed over to the Shenyang Aircraft Factory, which Premier Zhou personally inspected and issued instructions that "we must pay attention to the quality of the products."
On November 28, 1965, the domestic J-7 no. 0002 aircraft was finally assembled, and in early January of the following year, the first test flight of the domestically produced J-7 arrived, and the pilot Ge Wenyong, who has rich experience and superb technology of our army, served as a test pilot. The whole test flight process and various technical actions are very smooth, on April 13, all subjects were tested, and the test results showed that the stability and maneuverability of the aircraft were good, and the technical and tactical performance of the aircraft reached the design requirements, and some performance even exceeded the level of the MiG-21Ф-13 prototype.
On December 28, the Aviation and Military Products Finalization Committee approved the finalization of the J-7 and put it into mass production, and in the finalization report of the J-7, it was written that "it can provide training and combat use of air force and naval aviation units." The successful trial production of the J-7 aircraft marks a historic leap forward in China's aviation industry. China's aircraft industry has closely followed the world's advanced level and stepped into the sequence of second-generation fighters, which has greatly improved the level of air combat of our army.
However, the follow-up development of China's air force fighters has fallen into a "dilemma", due to the impact of domestic unstable factors, the subsequent improvement and design of the J-7 fighter has stagnated, until the end of the 1970s, the relevant improvement design began to recover, and in this period of time, including the Soviet Union and Western countries, many fighters have completed more advanced equipment updates, and the problems facing the Chinese Air Force are very large.
J-7 fighter as China's last generation of MiG fighters imitated from the Soviet Union, with the Sino-Soviet breakup in the seventies and eighties, the two sides no longer have military weapons exchanges, not only in order to defend against the possible invasion of this northern power, China's heavy industry development began to shift to the southwest region of the country, and the J-7 manufacturing work was also transformed from Shenyang Aircraft Factory to Chengdu Aircraft Factory, as for the future development of the J-7, it embarked on a "magic reform" road, its improved model renovation, dazzling.
As the most advanced fighter in China at that time, the J-7 had been included in the directory of foreign military aid when it first began trial production, which was also based on a consideration of the national diplomatic strategy at that time, and the J-7 prototype of that year began to be manufactured in Shenfei in 1967 and stopped production in 1970, and a total of 39 aircraft were delivered.
After the reform and opening up, China's relations with the Western social countries eased, especially the Middle East Arab world wars continue, but also promoted the export of Chinese weapons, the third Middle East war at that time, the Arab world suffered heavy losses, and Egypt, which directly borders Israel, is even more seriously injured, urgently need to replenish new air force equipment, Egypt's relations with the Soviet Union also began to stalemate, can not buy Soviet-style weapons, it will turn its attention to China, the Egyptian government in January 1979 to China to provide assistance to the air force equipment request, In April of the following year, the two sides signed a cooperation amounting to more than 200 million US dollars, and the Chinese side needed to export 60 J-7 fighters and related equipment to Egypt.
Egypt purchased the J-7 to the Chengdu Aircraft Factory, and improved on the basis of the previous model, and named the J-7A fighter, in the 80s J-7A fighters were exported to Egypt 90, Albanian 12, Tanzania 16, and later according to the requirements of Egypt, further changed the low-safety belt-away catapult system to a normal cap-throwing ejection system, improving the reliability of pilots to eject escape.
But after all, the J-7 fighter as a second-generation aircraft, and the United States, the Soviet Union led by the top military powers still have a certain distance, Cheng Fei later improved the aircraft, J-7II. became the main fighter of the Chinese Air Force in the early eighties, its export type is the J-7B fighter, in addition to replacing the catapult seat, but also used the French "Magic" R500 short-range air-to-air missile, replaced with a life extension type turbojet 7B engine, and modified airborne electronic equipment and cockpit instruments, the overall life of the aircraft was also extended, The J-7B was initially sold to Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan and Iraq, and was widely praised by these oil powers.
The reason why the J-7 can have so many improved models and exported to many countries in the follow-up is that the changes in the international situation, at the end of the 1970s, the country vigorously promoted reform and opening up, and exchanges with Western countries led by the United States have been greatly improved and enhanced, taking this opportunity for the Chinese side to fully understand the development of foreign fighters, but we were surprised to find that foreign fighters have developed to the third generation. According to the experience of foreign wars, the new generation of fighters no longer emphasize high-altitude high-speed, but pay more attention to the mobility of low and medium altitudes, compared with the J-7 has lagged behind the development of world fighters, and the improvement of the follow-up J-7 is also focused on improving the performance of low and medium altitudes.
And our story also begins with the most important improvement of the J-7, Tu Jida is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, an aircraft design expert, who was the chief engineer and chief designer of the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Company of the China Aviation Industry Corporation, and it was he who participated in the design of a large number of J-7 fighter improvements, and this time Tu Jida's task was to negotiate with foreigners.
In 1979, Tu Jida rushed to Beijing to participate in negotiations with Britain on the introduction of avionics equipment such as head-up displays for the modification of the J-7. As mentioned earlier, due to the improvement of China's relations with Western countries, the Western world has greatly relaxed restrictions on the export of advanced technology, especially military technology, in order to win China over the Soviet Union.
In November 1978, the then Minister of Aviation Industry Led more than 20 experts to Western Europe to investigate, and decided to first import electronic fire control equipment from Western Europe to improve the level of China's avionics technology, and then the Ministry of Aviation Industry invited the British Marconi Avionics Company to China to negotiate, causing relevant avionics equipment, and planned to modify the J-7II fighter aircraft in Chengfei, and this mission of Tu Jida's general division was the case.
At that time, the application of fighters produced in China, or the old gyro sight, as a product of the cannon air combat era, its effective range of action is small, especially when the missile with off-axis attack capability appeared, the gyro sight can not meet the requirements of the current air combat, the importance of the emerging head-up display to the current fighter is self-evident. On the one hand, the object of this meeting is the British, the Chinese representative who is accustomed to dealing with socialist countries, and in the face of this old and vicious capitalist country, it is inevitable that differences will arise, and the negotiation process will be full of unknowns.
On the other hand, In the face of modern avionics equipment, Master Tu Jida himself did not know much, and he could even be said to be a "layman". Marconi sent a huge delegation of 12 people led by the managing director and his assistants, including experts in radar, radio, and flat display in the company's subordinate business, which shows that the British government attaches great importance to this large arms sales order with China.
On March 3, 1979, the first round of negotiations at the Beijing Hotel began, and sure enough, as Tu Jida expected, only three days after the negotiations, he felt that many things did not conform to our original idea, one is that the Chinese side hoped to buy ready-made products, and began to modify the aircraft that year, but in fact it was impossible to start so quickly;
Second, we want to introduce the British pulse Doppler radar technology, the British side after listening to our introduction to the J-7, said that the nose of the J-7 air force is too small, and the radar technology needs special approval from the British government, but also needs more relevant matters to be notified; third, we want to introduce inertial navigation technology, the British side believes that J-7 aircraft do not need, can not reach a consensus;
Fourth, we hope to take the equipment to try to change first, and the aircraft is changed to order again, and the British are equally reluctant. In addition, our personnel also faced the problem of technical and business level disadvantage and language barriers, and the progress of the negotiations was very slow, starting from March 1979 to the contract signed in June 1980, which lasted 16 months, not counting the activities of the leadership, and the two sides negotiated a total of ten rounds before finalizing the contract.
Later, this contract transitioned to Chengfei, where Tu Jida's chief division was located, and began to implement, in accordance with the requirements of the superior, a total of 100 modified J-7 aircraft were equipped for the Air Force, the introduction of equipment plus 20% of the spare parts, the aircraft modification was designed by Chengfei, and the test flight after the equipment was installed was jointly responsible for both China and britain.
A month after the signing of the contract, China and the United Kingdom issued each other a document approved by the government, the contract officially came into effect, the aircraft modification work, marconi development work, how to cooperate negotiations between the two sides, the introduction of production lines of specific terms negotiations are immediately promoted. However, just after the J-7 variant began to be launched, the situation changed, which surprised Tu Jida's chief division.
On December 29, 1980, he suddenly received a call from the Ministry of Aviation Industry, asking him to rush to Beijing to discuss urgent matters. Tu Jida immediately rushed to Beijing by plane, rushed to the office of the leader of the Ministry of Aviation Industry on the morning of the 31st, there were also several technical leaders in the ministry, he was told that "the superior decided to cancel the Marconi introduction project", Tu Jida's brain buzzed, this is the Ministry of Aviation Industry and Cheng Fei and his party for more than a year of efforts, how did it suddenly change?
The leaders of the ministry introduced that the State Council wanted to adjust the development of the entire national economy, and at the meeting chaired by Vice Premier Zhang Aiping on December 23, it was decided to "stop the project, cancel the contract, and stop negotiating" the project introduced from the British Marconi.
The reason why the state made such a decision was closely related to the general environment at that time, when China had to give way to the national economy in order to reform and open up and enhance the development of the national economy, even the national defense and military industry was no exception. At that time, China's national defense military development was very difficult, in order to solve the problem of the maintenance and development of the army, even the state acquiesced to the military business, and at that time, China's foreign arms sales business was also very frequent.
But this time the order is not easy to negotiate, but to default, which makes It difficult for Tu Jida to accept, at that time with Marconi Company and Smith company two contracts, the reservation fee has been paid, the bank's credit insurance, handling fees, guarantee fees have also been paid, domestic aircraft modification and other costs have been issued, if the contract is withdrawn, the reservation fee can not be recovered, about 6 million pounds, plus domestic costs, the loss will reach 40 million yuan.
But for Tu Jida in addition to the economic account, the technical account is also critical, fighter equipment head-up display is a big leap, is the world's mainstream trend, including the Soviet MiG-23 and MiG-25 fighters are still sights, J-7 can not easily be equipped with the United States F16 to start using digital computers for fire control calculations to achieve rapid hotline shooting, no heads-up display technology, it is a pity, this time missed, do not know when to wait.
Later, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it also expressed different views, which held that in China's international military trade, China's leaders do not count their words, and they have signed contracts and breached contracts, and their international credibility will be damaged in the future. However, China's financial shortage at that time was a major reality, and how to solve this matter, the Ministry of Aviation Industry and Cheng Fei were in trouble.
However, "the sky is the way to no one", this matter dragged to 1981 but suddenly ushered in a turnaround, the previous mention of China and Jordan's military, Jordan is very interested in China's J-7 fighter, not short of money Jordan is very anxious to introduce Chinese fighters, to expand military strength, against Israel.
However, we decided to promote to Jordan the modification of the J-7 with Pingxian and so on, but could not provide a prototype, and could only explain it in the form of text. The following month, the Jordanian side formally replied and agreed that the contract was signed quickly in June, and the advance payment from Jordan in August was "received".
On September 10, the top level of the Central Military Commission came to Chengfei and specially held a meeting on the research and development and production of the J-7 improved type, and established the models of the J-7B and J-7M. In fact, the improvement of the J-7 this time is very arduous, which is the only way to save the contract, and to reach an export contract, it must meet the progress and technical requirements of the Jordanian side.
These two improved models must be successfully tried at one time, and there is no room for error. Within 16 months of the export contract, that is, in 1982, 20 J-7B fighters had to be delivered, and the J-7M was a set of advanced science and technology, and to introduce a full set of avionics equipment and equipped with infrared fighting missiles, it was necessary to inherit the improvement results of the J-7II.A and J-7B, and other improvements were carried out according to the contract.
In March 1984, the Chinese side received the first set of production equipment in the United Kingdom, which was delayed by 11 months from the scheduled schedule, and only one month later, Cheng Fei completed the assembly of the first complete J-7M fighter. After the completion of the test flight, the first batch of aircraft was successfully packed and shipped for export in July of that year, the first 30 aircraft were exported in the same year, and by May 1985, all 60 J-7M fighters had been shipped, an astonishing speed backed by any major step to ensure a successful, intense organizational work and technical work to ensure quality.
The J-7M was born under severe conditions, which not only preserved China's international reputation, retained the introduction contract and the export contract of more than 200 million US dollars, but also broke out of the fiercely competitive international market and China's market share. In 1986, the first batch of J-7M aircraft that can be mounted with domestic Thunderbolt-8 air-to-air missiles were delivered to China's Air Force, and in 1988, the J-7M aircraft won the National Quality Gold Award, which became an extremely important milestone in the history of aircraft development of China's Air Force.
Reference: Tu Jida's "Light Ink Collection - Aircraft Designer Tu Jida's Self-Description"
Wu Jinyuan "Record of The Export of The Seven Fighters"
Xu Bingjun, "China Introduces the Second Generation Fighter J-7"