Pioneering designer of JH-7 fighter-bomber dies

Chen Yijian, chief designer of China's JH-7 fighter-bomber and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, died on Monday in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province. He was 96.

Born in June 1930 in Fuzhou, Fujian province, Chen grew up amid the flames of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and completed his primary and secondary education in his home province.

In interviews prior to his death, Chen said when Japanese forces invaded his hometown of Fuzhou, he was forced to move with his father to Nanping county. With no air-raid shelters available, he and his family would often flee into the mountains whenever Japanese warplanes carried out bombing raids.

Chen explained that the Japanese pilots were so brazen that they flew extremely low — so low that people on the ground could clearly see their faces.

After graduating from high school in 1948, he applied to Xiamen University in Fujian, listing the newly established aeronautical engineering program as his only preferred choice.

"I was determined to study aviation and build aircraft — if we had no planes of our own, we would continue to be bullied by others," he said.

Three years later, following a nationwide restructuring of university departments, Chen and his classmates in the aeronautical engineering department were transferred to Tsinghua University in Beijing to continue their studies.

After graduating in 1952, the young engineer was assigned to the State-run No 122 Factory in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, now known as Harbin Aircraft Industry under the Aviation Industry Corp of China.

At the time, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53) was underway, and a number of damaged Chinese aircraft were rushed to aircraft factories in Harbin, Shenyang and other cities for repairs. Upon reporting for duty at the factory, Chen joined the repair work and gradually acquired the knowledge required for aircraft design.

In late 1956, Chen was selected to join the People's Republic of China's first aircraft design office, the predecessor of the Shenyang Aircraft Design and Research Institute in Liaoning province. It was there that his career in aircraft design took off.

He participated in the early development of several models, including the JJ-1, New China's first domestically developed aircraft, the CJ-6 trainer and the Q-5 attack aircraft.

In 1961, the Shenyang institute was formally established. That same year, Chen was promoted to head of fuselage design at the institute.

In 1964, Chen was transferred to the Xi'an Aircraft Design and Research Institute, now known as the AVIC First Aircraft Institute, where he was mainly involved in the development of the Y-7 transport aircraft and took part in modification work on two bomber models.

During the mid-1970s, Chen took the lead in exploring the development of a next-generation tactical bomber. Their proposal was accepted by the government and military in 1977, resulting in the launch of the H-7 bomber project.

In 1978, Chen was appointed deputy chief designer of the Xi'an institute. In 1982, he was named chief designer of the new aircraft, which by then had been renamed the JH-7 "Flying Leopard" fighter-bomber.

With no prototype or reference model to draw on, Chen broke with convention and, despite considerable pressure, made the decisive call that the new jet's design standards would be brought in line with international norms.

In his 50s, Chen taught himself to write simple aircraft design software. The JH-7 became one of the earliest aircraft models in China to use computer-aided design.

In December 1988, the long-troubled JH-7 finally made its maiden flight, followed by a decade-long flight-test phase. It underwent more than 1,600 test flights before receiving design certification in August 1998.

In 1999, the JH-7 received the top-grade prize in the national science and technology advancements awards. Chen was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in December that year.

After stepping away from aircraft design, Chen served as a professor of aeronautical engineering at several domestic universities and took part in feasibility studies for China's domestically developed large aircraft.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn