Under the shade of the lush green trees of the Peanut Liao community in Linhe Street, Tianhe District, there is such a statue: dressed in a simple flight suit, wearing a flight hat, standing tall and upright, with bright eyes, looking firmly into the distance... Pedestrians who come and go always have to stay here for a moment, looking carefully and remembering the great man and the magnificent aviation history. Next to the statue, there is a stone stele with the inscription engraved in thick italics: Feng Ru crashed. When it comes to the inventors and manufacturers of aircraft, everyone will invariably think of the Wright brothers in the United States, but they do not know that a Chinese student living in the same era as them also designed, manufactured and flew the first aircraft in Chinese history, he is the father of Chinese aviation - Feng Ru.
On August 25, 1912, Feng Ru publicly performed an air show in Yantang, Guangzhou. Feng Ru flew a homemade aircraft up into the air, about 36 meters high and about 8 dry meters southeast. The plane was functioning normally and maneuvering freely, with applause and cheers. Suddenly, he saw two children frolicking on the runway in the distance, and an unfortunate event was about to happen. Just at this urgent moment, Feng Ru pulled the joystick, stepped on the accelerator, the plane was like a crazy eagle, suddenly rushed into the sky, a sudden disaster occurred, due to Feng Ru's excessive force, the plane lost its balance, in the shaking, some parts were damaged, the plane suddenly fell on the grass, the plane was damaged and injured.
The hospital rescue was ineffective, and Feng Ru was martyred at the age of 29. On the occasion of his death, Feng Ruyu encouraged his assistant: "Do not hinder his enterprising spirit because of my death, you must know that this is a necessary stage." This aviation pioneer still remembered the aviation industry of the motherland until his death. His short life fell like a meteor here in Tianhe, but his heroic soul rose here like the rising sun, illuminating the way forward for the development of China's aviation industry. That period of history hanging high in the sky was the first appearance of China's national aviation industry to the world. With reverence in mind, let us look back on Feng Ru's short but magnificent life, and see how the enthusiastic teenager fearlessly led generations of people's dream eagles into the sky.
Feng Ru was born in 1884 to a poor peasant family in Enping, Guangdong Province. At that time, China was being humiliated by the Western powers, and China's toiling masses were struggling in the heat of semi-colonial and semi-feudalism. From an early age, he was skillful and quick-witted, and he also liked to make various small toys such as kites and cars and boats, and he was full of yearning for mythological stories, especially flying stories. His neighbors boasted that he would be very successful in the future. In 1894, his uncle, who was doing a small business in San Francisco, returned home to his relatives and saw that Feng Ru's family was living in difficulty, so he took Feng Ru to the United States to earn a living (one said to be his father), and soon arrived in the western city of San Francisco in the United States.
In 1880, anti-China demonstrations broke out in San Francisco
When he arrived in San Francisco, he studied English while working. He has worked as an apprentice in a shipyard, a power plant and a machinery manufacturing plant, and has learned some manufacturing and scientific and technological knowledge in his work, and has realized that mechanical manufacturing is of great significance to the strength and rise of the country. Six years later, Feng Ru moved to New York, where he studied machine building. He studied very hard, and in order to explore a problem, he often studied it until he forgot to eat and sleep. Despite the difficult living conditions, in order to learn more about the development of Western science and technology, the saved costs of food and accommodation are often purchased into newspapers and books. In order to pay the tuition, Feng Ru also used his spare time to work part-time. Even so, Feng Ru's academic performance is still at the top of the class. The school saw that Feng Ru studied so hard, coupled with excellent grades, and decided to waive his tuition. At the end of the study, Feng Ruoran has a wide range of mechanical manufacturing knowledge, he is familiar with 36 kinds of machines, but also made some pumps and piling machines, he designed and manufactured radio transceivers because of their good performance by the user's popularity. At that time, Feng Ru had become a well-known machine builder.
The United States at the end of the 19th century was in a period of technological and capital explosions
At this time, two major events occurred in the United States. One is that in 1903, the Wright brothers in the United States pioneered the successful flight of powered manned aircraft, thus laying the foundation for the practical application of the aircraft. The great inventions of the Wright brothers changed human transportation, economy, production, and daily life, as well as military history; the other was the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, when two imperialist countries, Japan and Russia, fought a dog-bite-dog war on Chinese soil for the privilege of our northeast. At the mediation of the United States, in September 1905, the two countries concluded the Treaty of Portsmouth, which stipulated the transfer of Lushunkou, Dalian and the nearby waters at the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan; the railway from Changchun to Lushunkou was also handed over to Japan.
The Japanese army in the Russo-Japanese War
The corrupt and incompetent Qing government ignored this. Feng Ru was ashamed of the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government and saddened by the misfortune of the motherland. Feng Ru vowed to use his skills to serve the motherland. The occurrence of these two events further stimulated Feng Ru's patriotic heart of fist and fist, and also made him more clear about the direction of his future struggle. In 1906, Feng Ru swore: "Yes (referring to the manufacture of machines) is not enough to save the country, I have heard of military sharp weapons Mo Aircraft Ruo." Vows to be the initiative of the body, to become a masterpiece, in order to return to the motherland. If you don't succeed, you'd rather die. He also said: "If China is strong, it will use all aircraft in the air, such as ships on waterways." Feng Ru was not only the first Chinese to put forward the idea of saving the country through aviation and fighting for it all his life, but also the earliest military aviation thinker in modern China. Feng Ru said firmly: "I swear to use my life's energy to develop an aircraft for the country." If you don't succeed, you'd rather die! ”
The biggest difficulty encountered in the development of aircraft is the lack of funds. Feng Ru sold all his gold, silver and jade and some valuable belongings, but he still couldn't solve the problem. Therefore, he went to the local Chinese overseas Chinese to raise funds. The local compatriots were very touched and supportive when they heard that Feng Ru wanted to build an airplane to save the country, but the vast majority of people felt that it was impossible to build an airplane by Chinese their own strength alone. Feng Ru did not give up and stepped up propaganda work among his compatriots. In the end, only Huang Qi, Zhang Nan, and Tan Yaoneng were willing to provide assistance. Feng Ru raised more than $1,000 to start Chinese's first aircraft manufacturing company.
The second major difficulty is weak technology. In September 1907, Feng Ru and his assistants, patriotic overseas Chinese Zhu Zhuquan, Zhu Zhaohuai, and Situ Biru, rented a factory building in the Wulun area and began research and development work. At that time, the Wright brothers' plane had just taken off, and in order to maintain a monopoly, they blocked all the information, resulting in no information and information from the outside world. Feng Ru they can only rely on their own knowledge of aerodynamics, drawing design drawings from scratch. In order to understand the development of aircraft in various countries at that time and to learn from the strengths of others, Feng Ru bought all the money he saved in his life into newspapers and magazines in order to collect the latest information and information. They got up early and went dark, studied day and night, and overcame one technical difficulty after another. After half a year of hard work, the first aircraft was finally made. Looking at the aircraft he developed, Feng Ru was so excited that he shed tears of excitement.
Feng Ru No. 1
In April 1908, Feng Ru conducted a test flight in the wheat garden in Auckland, and with the sound of the booming motor, the plane left the ground. When it rose to several feet high, a tilt was made and the plane suddenly fell to the ground. The first attempt ended in failure.
But Feng Ru was not discouraged, but encouraged his assistants: "It seems that we have to start from scratch again." Feng Ru and his party returned to Wulun (Auckland), who knew that at this time their factory building was reduced to ashes in a fire. The drawings they had worked so hard to draw for months had been wiped clean by the fire. In the face of the flying disaster, Feng Ru did not waver in his original intention, and he firmly said to his assistants: "Still that sentence, if you have no success, you would rather die!" At this moment, he received a letter from his parents from afar, writing that his mother missed her son in a foreign country and hoped that Feng Ru could immediately return to China and reunite with the whole family. After Feng Ru read the letter, in the face of the motherland on the other side of the ocean, he resolutely chose to give up his small family for the motherland's aviation cause. Feng Ru painstakingly raised a little money again, re-purchased tools and equipment, set up tents in the wheat garden in Auckland, and developed them day and night. They collected a great deal of information and collected it and bound it into a book. After rigorous calculations, the parts production drawings were designed again, and the wings, rudders, propellers, internal combustion engines and other components were carefully produced, and after careful assembly, a brand new aircraft was born!
On September 21, 1908, Feng Ru flew again in the city of Corinth. Under his control, the plane took off and flew more than 2600 feet before slowly landing on the lawn. The plane was measured to fly at a distance of 2,640 feet, 1,788 feet farthest than the Wright brothers' first flight record. A few days later, a San Francisco newspaper published a hype about the test flight. The title is: "Chinese's Aviation Technology Surpasses the West." From design to successful sea trial, it took only one year and two months. Feng Ru won the supreme honor for Chinese with his outstanding genius, rich creativity and unremitting efforts. Feng Ru's achievements have greatly encouraged the Chinese people who are being enslaved by the Western powers, making them realize the power of the Chinese people and establishing the self-confidence of the Chinese people.
After the success of the first flight, Feng Ru became famous. In 1910, Feng Ru designed and built a better-performing aircraft in the United States. The plane has wings 29.5 feet long, 4.5 feet wide, an internal combustion engine of 30 horsepower, and a propeller that turns 1,200 revolutions per minute. In October of the same year, San Francisco hosted an international flying competition, and Feng Ru flew his newly designed aircraft to compete, breaking the world record for the first international flying competition held in France in 1909 with a flight altitude of more than 700 feet and a speed of 65 miles per hour, winning the first international flying competition in France. At that time, Feng Ru had become a universally recognized aircraft designer, manufacturer and aviator. As Feng Ru's reputation grew, more and more foreign companies hired Feng Ru at great expense. At that time, all countries realized the great significance of the air force to the country, and in order to compete for air supremacy, European and American countries were in full swing to develop aviation, and at the same time, they were desperately recruiting professionals in aviation. But Feng Ru was bent on developing China's aviation industry, so he categorically refused to be hired by various countries and accepted the invitation of the Qing government to contribute to the motherland's air force.
In February 1911, Feng Ru and his assistants Zhu Zhuquan, Zhu Zhaohuai, and Situ Biru, carrying two of their homemade airplanes and the machines used to make them, embarked on a voyage back to China. But as the revolutionary climax approached, the Qing government became increasingly uneasy about Feng Ru, and they not only canceled the plan for the air show, but also sent people to monitor Feng Ru's actions. The fainting and corruption of the reactionary government made Feng Ru very disappointed and felt that there was no way to serve the country. Just as Feng Ru was in extreme distress and confusion, the Xinhai Revolution broke out.
Feng Ru resolutely joined the revolutionary army and threw himself into the revolutionary torrent of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and establishing a republic. The Revolutionary Army appointed Feng Ru as the commander of the army aircraft and authorized Feng Ru to prepare to organize a flying reconnaissance team to cooperate with the Northern Expeditionary Army in carrying out air raids on the Qing Dynasty stationed in the north. After Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of the Nanjing government, he attached great importance to the development of China's aviation industry. The attention of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the support of the people of the whole country have greatly encouraged Feng Ru and others, and he deeply feels that the responsibility on his shoulders is more arduous, because he sees that the development of China's aviation industry is not an overnight thing, but a long and arduous task. After China's first air flight exercise in February 1912, Feng Ru and his colleagues continued to design and build better-performing aircraft.
Feng Ru died in an accident on August 25, 1912. The Provisional President of the Republic of China ordered feng ru to be praised for his contribution to the founding of the China flight, publicized his deeds to the National History Museum, and allocated 1,000 yuan to his family. Feng Ru's descendants and his aircraft assistants followed his will and buried his body in Huanghuagang.
Feng Ruxiang on the Beihang campus
Feng Ru's life, although short, was a brilliant life of striving for the rise of China, and he devoted his life to China's aviation industry. In praise of his elegance, he once wrote: "It is very easy to martyr the society, but it is especially difficult for the martyrs, and when the plane crashes, the Aozuka can bury the great man; the success of the matter is commendable, the defeat of the matter can also be rejoiced, the thousand autumns stay in practice, and the yellow flowers see the weeping autumn wind." He created the "six firsts" and put forward the theory of aviation strategy, which had a far-reaching impact on the aviation industry of the Chinese nation and the development of the people's air force. It is well-deserved to name feng Ru, the great patriot and forerunner of China's aviation industry, to the "Father of Chinese Aviation".