In 1985, Ma Fengshan, a famous aviation expert in the mainland, was focusing on his work, but at this time a news suddenly came:
"Immediately stop all research work on the Y-10 airliner."
This made Ma Fengshan stunned, he spent his life to finally develop the mainland's first large jet airliner, and it was obviously a successful test flight before, but it was ruined by a miscalculation.
The mainland has paid a huge price, and a generation of space superstars has become depressed, and even died of hatred only five years later, and before his death, he still thought about the future of the Y-10 passenger plane, but he has long been unable to return to the sky.
So, what really happened back then? How did Ma Fengshan get involved in the work of the Y-10 airliner?
The source of this article comes from the official media [The Paper], and the specific link is repeated at the end of the article, but in order to improve the readability of the article, the details may be polished, please read sensibly, for reference only!
The birth of an aviation genius
In 1929, Ma Fengshan was born in a rural family in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. When he was young, his family was poor, and when his father went to the city to do the cake dumpling business, the family's conditions were better, and several children also had the opportunity to go to school.
In that turbulent era, Ma Fengshan witnessed the indiscriminate bombing of Japanese planes.
Shells fell mercilessly on the land of China, and the smoke of gunpowder, artillery fire, wreckage, and the helpless cries and screams of the surrounding people were deeply engraved in Ma Fengshan's mind.
He also deeply understood the truth that if he was backward, he would be beaten, so after he was successfully admitted to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Ma Fengshan chose the Department of Aeronautical Engineering without hesitation, and he wanted to make China's own aircraft!
During his time in school, Ma Fengshan was very good at every subject, he seemed to be born with a good understanding of the various structures of airplanes, even if he had never been on an airplane, but he could instantly understand and apply the knowledge in books.
In the end, he graduated early because of his excellent grades, and was arranged to the Harbin Aircraft Factory to further learn various technologies for manufacturing research and development.
After learning something, Ma Fengshan caught up with the mainland's project to develop the H-6 bomber. At that time, in order to learn the advanced technology of the Soviet Union, the mainland also specially sent Ma Fengshan and others to study at the aviation school of the Soviet Union.
Although there was an accompanying interpreter on the public assignment at that time, Ma Fengshan taught himself Russian to cope with special situations, and he was able to listen more clearly in class.
At that time, the Soviet teachers also "thoughtfully" said that they did not need to take notes, and after all the courses were over, someone would sort out all the knowledge and relevant materials and send them to China.
Some students are quite happy because it is already exhausting to pay attention to the lecture during class, and sometimes they don't have time to take notes.
But Ma Fengshan thinks that a good memory is not as good as a bad pen, only by recording this knowledge can it be easy to review after class, and many students also have the same idea.
During class, Ma Fengshan listened very carefully, and after class, he would hold his notebook and ask the professor some questions about small details.
After the course, Ma Fengshan and his party returned to China, but the Soviet Union did not send the materials at that time. By this time, Sino-Soviet relations were on the verge of rupture. The Soviet Union simply could not have given away its technology in vain.
Later, Khrushchev tried to meddle in the mainland's national defense and development, but of course such an unreasonable demand was resolutely rejected by the mainland, but he did not expect that the embarrassed and angry Soviet Union directly took away all Soviet experts and corresponding scientific research materials in China, and Sino-Soviet relations broke down completely.
At this moment, the notes in the hands of Ma Fengshan and those classmates are very important. Not only that, Ma Fengshan also took out a copy of the Soviet bomber's drawings, which provided tremendous technical support for the manufacture of mainland fighters.
Later, Ma Fengshan took the initiative to ask for help and was transferred to Xi'an Aircraft Factory as the deputy chief of the design department. devoted himself to the research of the H-6 fighter, leading all researchers to soak in the laboratory day and night.
Unexpectedly, only eight years later, China successfully developed its own fighter jet, shortening the aviation technology of China and other countries by more than ten years, and the world was shocked.
But Ma Fengshan did not stop his scientific research, and he set his sights on the large passenger plane again.
The birth of the Y-10
After the breakthrough of China's bombers, China's civil aviation is still facing the dilemma of buying foreign civil airliners, especially the Boeing Company of the United States, which has already made a lot of money.
So in 1970, the state gave the Shanghai Aircraft Factory the task of developing the Y-10.
In fact, soon after the successful development of the H-6, Ma Fengshan had physical problems due to overwork, but for the development of China's civil aviation, he once again took over this arduous task.
Compared with bombers, the mainland's research on large passenger aircraft is even more blank, and Shanghai's aviation industry base is also very weak, before the 70s, it only had the ability to repair small and medium-sized aircraft, and did not participate in the manufacturing process at all.
The technical personnel transferred from aviation systems across the country basically only have experience in the design of small and medium-sized aircraft. This is also the first time that the mainland has sprinted from a 10-ton aircraft to a 100-ton class.
At that time, when Western countries heard that China was going to build large passenger planes, they even threatened that only three countries in the world could build large passenger planes.
But Ma Fengshan ignored the arguments of the outside world, and he took out the design drawings of the H-6 fighter and compared it with the data of some large passenger planes, hoping to find common ground from it.
Unexpectedly, Ma Fengshan really found a breakthrough point, and then Ma Fengshan led the researchers step by step from the material to the overall layout to the structure and system selection, and finally successfully handed over the design plan.
Even due to the influence of the current situation at that time, Ma Fengshan was officially appointed as the chief designer in 1979, and he did not even have a formal position before that.
Even so, in the face of great difficulties and pressure, Ma Fengshan was stunned to successfully develop China's first large jet passenger aircraft, the Y-10 aircraft, in less than ten years.
In 1980, the Y-10 passenger plane independently manufactured by the mainland successfully flew to Beijing, Harbin, Guangzhou and other major cities in China, and even flew to Lhasa seven times, proving that the performance of the Y-10 passenger aircraft absolutely met the design requirements.
Not only that, the birth of the Y-10 marks a direct shortening of the mainland's civil aviation industry and the world's advanced level by 15 years. In the process of developing passenger aircraft, Ma Fengshan also led the preparation of relevant regulations for China's aviation industry, which made China's self-designed and manufactured aircraft have airworthiness standards.
The British Reuters news agency even commented on this: "China can no longer be regarded as a backward country." ”
However, just when Ma Fengshan was looking forward to the early commercial production of the Y-10 passenger aircraft, the Y-10 project was suddenly forced to come to a standstill. The first Y-10 passenger plane could only be put in the warehouse to eat ashes.
The fall of the Fortune 10
It turned out that at that time the country was in a difficult economic situation, and there was simply not enough money to mass-produce the Y-10. And Western countries are even more eyeing and do not want Chinese aircraft to enter the passenger aircraft market.
Ma Fengshan was also admitted to the hospital because of overwork.
Later, in order to reduce manufacturing costs, Continental was forced to cooperate with international airlines, and after careful investigation and comparison, Continental finally chose the American company McDonnell Douglas.
Ma Fengshan dragged his sick body and personally led a team to McDonnell Douglas Company in the United States to participate in technical cooperation research, and insisted on working in the United States for three years.
However, the bad news came again, due to a mistake in judgment, our chosen partner McDonnell Douglas was finally unable to compete with Boeing due to technical defects, so it could only declare bankruptcy and go out of business, and finally it was directly acquired by Boeing.
And the nearly one billion yuan of funds and production lines we invested in the early stage have not been compensated. The Y-10 project was again forced to stop.
At this time, Ma Fengshan was also terminally ill and was sent to the hospital again. But what he was thinking about was the Y-10 passenger plane, and even when he was sick, he asked his superiors for instructions more than once, hoping to resume the development and manufacturing of the Y-10.
It's a pity that until 1990, Ma Fengshan died of illness and could not see the Y-10 reappear in the world, and a generation of aviation geniuses died with hatred.
Nowadays, the Y-10 passenger aircraft has become an industrial heritage, and it reminds us all the time of Ma Fengshan's contribution to the mainland's aerospace industry and the spirit of the first batch of aviation people who never gave up.
In 2019, Ma Fengshan was selected as the "Most Beautiful Struggler", and in May of the same year, on the 90th anniversary of Ma Fengshan's birth, a large number of aircraft designers gathered at the COMAC Design and R&D Center to erect a bust of Ma Fengshan.
We will always remember this great designer.
Resources:
Surging News: "The Most Beautiful Struggler" Ma Fengshan, he ran the first stick for the large aircraft industry
"The most beautiful struggler" Ma Fengshan, he ran the first stick for the large aircraft industry
Global Network: A close look at domestic large aircraft: from Y-10 to C919, step by step to realize the blue sky dream
A close look at domestic large aircraft: from Y-10 to C919 Step by step to realize the blue sky dream