Aviation special :Innovation propels China's aviation sector to fly higher

No one interested in Chinese aviation history is likely to forget that, at the ceremony for the founding of New China on Oct 1, 1949, only 17 aircraft were available for a flyover in Beijing - all of them captured from enemy forces during the war.

But, 60 years later, at the National Day parade in the same city, the flyover featured 151 warplanes, from the latest fighters to early warning aircraft - all of them ingeniously developed.

Thanks to this progress, Lin Zuoming, president of the Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), has vowed to "straighten the back of aviation through independent innovation".