A hangar, a war and six billion jin of millet

On 19 July 1956 a test pilot named Wu Keming took off from Shenyang in an aircraft serialled Zhong 0101. It was a MiG-17, but it had been built in China, and it was the first jet fighter the People’s Republic ever made. The factory behind it was five years old. It had been founded on 29 June 1951 out of a hangar serving Chinese troops fighting in Korea, and the young state paid for it in grain: an investment of 6 billion jin of millet, then worth about 600 million yuan. It had no name, only a number, State Factory 112, and by 1955 it had about 10,000 workers. Its former general manager Tang Qiansan, who joined in 1952, later recalled that the country could not yet build a car.

Kits, copies and 108 young designers

The J-5, as the Chinese MiG-17 became, began as a kit. In 1955 China obtained the plans along with two complete pattern aircraft, 15 knocked-down kits and parts for ten more, and Soviet specialists stood beside the assembly line. Factory 112 built 767 single-seat J-5s and J-5As before production ended in 1969. But it also tried to think for itself. In 1958 a design team of 108 people with an average age of just 22 — only three of them had ever designed an aircraft — produced the JJ-1 trainer under chief designer Xu Shunshou. It flew on 26 July 1958, the first jet aircraft designed in China. Only two flew, and the type never entered production, but its deputy designer, Huang Zhiqian, would go on to lead Shenyang’s first home-grown fighter.

The disposable MiG

Then came the MiG-19. Shenyang’s first attempt at it, from 1958 to 1960, went badly: the aircraft were sub-standard, the air force refused them, the jigs were scrapped and production restarted from scratch with Soviet help. The proper J-6 flew on 30 September 1959 and went on to become one of the most numerous fighters of the Cold War — more than 4,500 including trainers. The air force treated it as disposable, planning only 100 flight hours before overhaul. In Vietnam, J-6s with three 30 mm cannon fought American F-4s; on 2 June 1972 one became the first jet fighter recorded shot down by cannon fire at supersonic speed. Its airframe also fathered the Q-5 attack jet, designed at Shenyang and built at Nanchang. Meanwhile more than 20,000 Shenyang workers were sent off to found plants elsewhere in China.

A fighter built almost in secret

China’s first fighter of its own design was born in chaos. The J-8, a twin-engined scaled-up MiG-21, was approved in May 1965 with Huang Zhiqian as chief designer — and that same month Huang was killed in an air crash. The factory’s chief engineer died; his successor was dismissed in 1966 as the Cultural Revolution swept through. The two prototypes were built almost clandestinely, and the first flew on 5 July 1969 with Yin Yuhuan at the controls. Then the programme stalled again: in ten years the prototypes logged only 663 flight hours, and the design was not frozen until 31 December 1979. The redesigned J-8II followed in 1984, and in 1986 the United States agreed to fit it with American avionics under Peace Pearl, a deal that collapsed in 1990 after Tiananmen.

Flankers, licensed and otherwise

With Western doors shut after 1989, China turned to Moscow and bought the Sukhoi Su-27. In 1996 a deal worth 1.2 billion US dollars allowed Shenyang to assemble 200 more from Russian kits as the J-11. The first two, completed in December 1998, were so poorly assembled that Russian engineers had to help rebuild them. Within a few years Shenyang was making its own airframe parts, and then the J-11B appeared with Chinese engines and avionics — which Russia regarded as a breach of the licence. Talks to buy the carrier-borne Su-33 collapsed, so Shenyang developed its own naval Flanker, the J-15, drawing on an unfinished Su-33 prototype bought from Ukraine in 2001. The two-seat J-16 strike fighter followed, and by 2026 the air force had more than 400 of them.

The day the J-15 landed

The J-15 first flew on 31 August 2009. In November 2012 the programme reached its climax aboard the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier: navy pilots made their first arrested landings, and on 25 November state media announced that the J-15 had taken off and landed on the ship. That same day Shenyang’s chairman and general manager, Luo Yang, a 51-year-old engineer who had led production of the J-15, suffered a heart attack and died. He had been under heavy pressure to make the carrier landings succeed. A memorial service was held in Shenyang, the city of his birth. The J-15 entered service in 2013, and a catapult-capable J-15T followed in 2024.

The stealth fighter nobody ordered

Shenyang lost the contest for China’s first stealth fighter to its rival Chengdu, whose J-20 won the air force’s backing. Instead of giving up, Shenyang kept going with its own money. Its privately funded FC-31 demonstrator, aimed at export buyers, flew on 31 October 2012. The navy took an interest, and a redesigned version with folding wings and a catapult bar flew in October 2021 as the J-35. On 3 September 2025 the J-35 and land-based J-35A flew over Beijing’s Victory Day parade, and on 22 September the navy released footage of a J-35 being catapulted from and recovered aboard the carrier Fujian. In December 2024 a tailless Shenyang prototype, nicknamed J-50 by analysts, had already been seen in flight testing.

Fábricas

• Shenyang airframe plant · Shenyang, Liaoning — Main assembly and flight-test site since 1951
• Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute (601 Institute) · Shenyang, Liaoning — Design bureau behind the J-8, J-15 and J-35

Pessoas

• Wu Keming · test pilot — Flew the first Chinese-built J-5 on 19 July 1956
• Xu Shunshou · chief designer of the JJ-1 — Led a team of 108 with an average age of 22
• Huang Zhiqian · chief designer of the J-8 — Killed in an air crash in May 1965
• Gu Songfen · vice chief, later chief designer of the J-8 — Promoted to chief designer when the design office was re-formed in 1979
• Luo Yang · chairman and general manager — Led J-15 production; died on 25 November 2012 after the Liaoning landing trials
• Sun Cong · chief designer of the J-15

Recordes e pioneirismos

• First jet fighter built in the People’s Republic of China, J-5, 19 July 1956
• First jet aircraft designed in China, JJ-1, 26 July 1958
• China’s first carrier-based fighter, J-15, first carrier landings November 2012
• First stealth fighter to complete electromagnetic catapult launch and recovery at sea, J-35, announced 22 September 2025