Born of an Italian deal

The story of Nanchang begins with an unlikely alliance. In December 1934 the Chinese Nationalist government and Mussolini’s Italy set up the Sino-Italian National Aircraft Works at Nanchang, with factories at Sanjiadian airfield. It did not last. After Japan invaded in 1937, Chinese officials concluded that Italians were helping guide Japanese bombers, and on 9 December 1937 Chiang Kai-shek confiscated the Italian shares. The works fled to Chongqing and returned to Nanchang in 1947. When the Communists re-founded it in 1951, they named it after Hongdu, the ancient name of the city.

Mao’s letter

Its first great moment came on 3 July 1954. Pilot Duan Xianglu took off in a licence-built Yakovlev Yak-18, designated CJ-5: the first complete aircraft manufactured in the People’s Republic of China. On 1 August Mao Zedong wrote to the factory to praise it, calling it a good start for the aircraft industry and urging the workers to master technology and improve quality. Nanchang built 379 CJ-5s before production ended in 1958, and between 1957 and 1968 it also turned out 727 Y-5 biplanes, the Chinese version of the Antonov An-2.

Three thousand trainers

The CJ-6 that followed is often mistaken for a Yak-18A, but it was an all-Chinese design, worked up in Shenyang by engineers including Cheng Bushi and Lin Jiahua and transferred to Nanchang in May 1958. It first flew on 27 August 1958. A production run estimated at more than 3,000 trained generations of PLA pilots and went to Albania, North Korea, Bangladesh and others. Six decades on, it is a favourite of warbird owners in the United States and Australia, and in 2019 it finally received a Chinese civil type certificate.

The Fantan

In August 1958 the PLA asked for a jet attack aircraft. Chief designer Lu Xiaopeng took the MiG-19 (built locally as the Shenyang J-6), stretched it, moved the intakes to the sides, area-ruled the fuselage and added an internal bomb bay four metres long. Politics cancelled the project in 1961, but a small team kept it alive, and the Q-5, NATO name Fantan, flew on 4 July 1965. About 1,300 were built. Some were modified to carry a tactical nuclear bomb, a programme the Central Committee halted in March 1979. The Fantan served the PLA until 2017 and was exported as the A-5.

Karakorum friendship

Lu also designed the J-12, which first flew on 26 December 1970 and was one of the lightest jet fighters ever built, at 3,172 kg empty. It never entered service. Nanchang’s next success was diplomatic as much as technical. In 1986 China and Pakistan agreed to build a jet trainer together; at the suggestion of President Zia ul Haq it was named Karakorum-8 after the mountains between the two countries. The K-8 flew on 21 November 1990, and more than 500 had been built by 2010. In March 1998 the company took the name Hongdu Aviation Industry Group.

Factories

• Qingyunpu airfield works · Nanchang, Jiangxi — Former Sanjiadian airfield of the Sino-Italian works; test flying until 2018
• Nanchang Yaohu airfield · Nanchang Aviation Industrial City, Jiangxi — New flight-test airfield opened 16 August 2018

People

• Lu Xiaopeng · chief designer — Designed the Q-5 and the J-12
• Duan Xianglu · test pilot — Flew the first CJ-5 on 3 July 1954
• Cheng Bushi · engineer — Co-designer of the CJ-6 trainer
• Shi Ping · chief designer — Led the Chinese team on the K-8

Records and firsts

• First complete aircraft built in the People’s Republic of China: CJ-5, 3 July 1954
• J-12 one of the lightest jet fighters ever built, 3,172 kg empty