A Manchurian factory reborn

Harbin’s aircraft works stands on borrowed ground. When State Factory 122 opened on 1 April 1952, one of the People’s Republic’s first six major aircraft plants, it moved onto the site of the old Manchuria Airplane Manufacturing Company, the Manshu factory of Japanese-ruled Manchukuo. At first it only repaired aircraft. In December 1953 it was expanded into a bomber plant, and in 1957 it took a cover name, the Weijian Machinery Factory. For years the outside world knew it, if at all, only by its number; it was not until 1978 that Factory 122 was opened to foreigners as the Harbin Aircraft Factory.

The first helicopter, the first bombers

The Soviet alliance gave Harbin its start. In 1958 it began building copies of Soviet aircraft, and on 14 December 1958 the Z-5, a Mil Mi-4, made the first flight of a Chinese-built helicopter. In September 1959 a Tupolev Tu-16 assembled there from Soviet parts flew as the first H-6, China’s first jet strategic bomber, and according to Chinese sources it was a Harbin-built H-6 that dropped China’s first air-delivered atomic bomb on 14 May 1965. After the Sino-Soviet split, Harbin put the Ilyushin Il-28 into production as the H-5 without a licence, redesigning the wing structure along the way; more than 319 were built, plus 187 HJ-5 trainers.

A hundred a year

By 1971 the factory was turning out 100 Z-5 helicopters and 100 H-5 bombers a year, a record it still celebrates. It also built 558 Z-5s in all, some of which still fly with North Korea, and in 1976 flew the SH-5, a big four-engine amphibious anti-submarine bomber of its own design, of which only seven were made. The H-5 had a dramatic afterlife too. In 1965 a crew defected in one to Taiwan, and on 25 August 1985 another landed in a South Korean rice field out of fuel, killing its navigator and a farmer on the ground.

The little transport that passed the FAA

The aircraft that made Harbin’s international name was modest. The Y-11 utility twin of 1975 led to the turboprop Y-12, which first flew on 14 July 1982 and in December 1985 received the first type certificate ever issued by China’s civil aviation authority for a domestic aircraft. In March 1995 the Y-12 (IV) became the first Chinese-designed aircraft certified by the US FAA. Around 300 have been delivered, many to small airlines and air forces in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the redesigned Y-12F added EASA approval in 2023.

Helicopters, cars and the Z-20

Harbin made its fortune in helicopters. From 1980 it built the French Dauphin under licence as the Z-9, more than 200 of which serve the Chinese forces, and it codeveloped the EC120 and the AC352, the Chinese twin of the Airbus H175. It ran a joint venture with Embraer from 2003 building the ERJ 145, and its Hafei car division was sold to Changan in 2009. Its most important product today is the Z-20, a ten-tonne utility helicopter in the Black Hawk class that first flew on 23 December 2013. In 2023 the group was placed under AVIC’s listed helicopter company, Zhongzhi.

Factories

• Factory 122 · Pingfang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang — Former Manchuria Airplane Manufacturing Company site; main works since 1952
• Harbin Embraer Aircraft Industry · Harbin — Joint venture with Embraer founded 16 December 2003 for the ERJ 145 and later Legacy 650

Records and firsts

• First helicopter built in China: Z-5, 14 December 1958
• Y-12 II received the first CAAC type certificate for a Chinese-built civil aircraft, December 1985
• Y-12 IV the first Chinese-designed aircraft certified by the FAA, March 1995