"We must have a very good plane." He devoted his entire life to the J-10!

On March 23, 1998, the first scientific research prototype of the J-10 took off into the sky. This was the first fighter jet designed entirely by China in its military aircraft development history.

At the test flight site, Chief Designer Song Wencong and Chief Engineer Xue Chishou hugged each other's shoulders tightly. Their elderly backs and the new strength of the Air Force formed a strong visual impact.

On this day, China became the fifth country in the world capable of independently developing third-generation fighter jets.

This day is Mr. Song’s birthday. We review his life dedicated to China’s military industry and pay tribute to him.

“I’m very angry

Why can't we hit the Japanese planes?"

On February 10, 2010, the results of the 2009 "Moving China" Person of the Year selection were announced, and Song Wencong was selected as one of the top ten "Moving China" Person of the Year 2009.

The award speech reads: "As a young man, he was in pain, but he had the ambition to save the country; as a middle-aged man, he worked hard, and he had the ambition to make the country strong. Now, his blood has flowed into the steel eagle. The young horse gallops towards the clouds, and the old horse walks leisurely in the mountains. He has a dream of thousands of miles, and he is still on the road."

In the interview, he told the reporter that his earliest memories of airplanes were not good ones. Song Wencong spent his childhood in the midst of air raid sirens and the smoke of war, and what impressed him most was the endless bombing of Kunming by Japanese planes.

"Air defense alarm, what's it warning about? - The Chinese planes have run away, and the Japanese planes are coming. We have no resistance!" Song Wencong lamented. If a country is backward, it will be beaten endlessly.

My daily life was almost always filled with air raid sirens and Japanese planes flying overhead. People were killed every day. At that time, our weapons could not hit those planes, and I was very angry. Why couldn't we hit them? At that time, I kept thinking that I should invent some kind of bullet that would hit the target with one shot. "

"We must have a good plane." The dream sprouted in his heart like a seed.

50 years of hard work

The emergence of the J-10 has made China the fifth country in the world to independently develop a third-generation fighter jet. This is the result of 20 years of hard work by tens of thousands of developers and is also Song Wencong's lifelong pursuit.

Song Wencong was born in Dali, Yunnan on March 26, 1930 in Kunming, Yunnan. In May 1951, he participated in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, serving as a mechanic and chief mechanic of the 27th Regiment of the 9th Air Division. He was awarded the second-class merit once and the third-class merit twice.

In 1986, 56-year-old Song Wencong was appointed as the chief designer of the national key aircraft by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. In the following 20 years, he devoted all his energy and efforts to the development of my country's new fighter jets.

Song Wencong has participated in the development of many aircraft models including the Dongfeng 113, J-7, J-8, J-9, and J-10. He has served as the chief designer of two national key models, the J-7C and J-10 aircraft, and has achieved a series of major creative results.

On March 23, 1998, the J-10 fighter jet made its first successful flight. On that day, Song Wencong insisted on changing his birthday to March 23, the day when the J-10 made its first successful flight.

Created a spirit

Trained a team

According to Luo Ronghuai, the former on-site commander of the J-10 project, the J-10 development team had a "nightclub" because they always had meetings every night, which lasted until 12 o'clock. As a leader and chief designer, Song Wencong always stayed on the front line.

Yang Wei, deputy chief engineer of AVIC, and Song Wencong are teachers and students, friends, and close friends regardless of age. He met Song Wencong on his first day at work. He said: "Everyone says that Mr. Song is very kind, but he works very seriously. When he gets serious, he is not as easy to get along with as imagined."

Mr. Song attached great importance to the cultivation and reserve of talents. He once tried to retain the current chief designer, Yang Wei, who was about to go abroad. Yang Wei recalled: In 1990, I had already applied to go abroad and got my passport. The only thing left was to apply for a visa. Later, Mr. Song said, "Don't leave," and kept me.

Song Wencong's serious and rigorous attitude towards work also influenced the entire J-10 team. Until now, the story of "three drops of oil" is still circulating among AVIC staff.

Two weeks before the first flight of the J-10, the staff found three drops of oil under the aircraft. Most people think that these three drops of oil are completely negligible, but the J-10 team spent a whole week checking all systems until they found out where the three drops of oil came from and solved the problem before carrying out the first flight.

"Bean sprouts" become J-10

Overcoming numerous challenges

According to Yan Xiang, the former deputy chief administrative officer of the J-10 project, the J-10 project did not even qualify for an invitation to participate in the demonstration at the beginning. "Although they were not invited at the beginning, he brought a group of people to introduce the plan. However, the plan was refreshing and brightened the eyes of all the participants. They thought that our future third-generation fighter jets could be like this and could compete with the world, so it attracted a lot of attention."

Yan Xiang recalled, "Some people once said that you wanted to climb the Great Wall for five cents, but you couldn't even afford the train ticket. Others said that your new technology exceeded 60%, which was bound to fail in aviation history. These were all words we heard with our own ears. At that time, the J-10 was like a small bean sprout, which would fall over if the wind blew and would be trampled to death if you were not careful."

This was the environment when the J-10, which attracted worldwide attention, was unveiled. In this environment, Song Wencong's ability and wisdom as the chief designer were reflected.

During these long years, Song Wencong, as the chief designer of this aircraft, has to endure a lot of pressure. In addition to technical difficulties, there is another major difficulty in developing the J-10 - "funding".

Since the mid-1980s, with the further deepening of reform and opening up, due to the financial difficulties of the country, it was proposed that military industrial units should "combine the military and civilians" and "support the military with civilians", and military and operating expenses were sharply reduced. Many scientific research institutes and factories in the military industry system needed to "have enough food and clothing" by themselves. At that time, jokes such as "those who make atomic bombs are not as good as those who sell tea eggs" and "those who hold scalpels are not as good as those who hold razors" were widely circulated in society. It was in this context that the J-10 was developed by borrowing money and "delaying" and "enduring", and the 611 Institute led by Song Wencong completed the preliminary design of the aircraft ahead of schedule in 1987.

In June 1994, Song Wencong organized the designers of the 611 Institute to make full use of the integrated software system for design and calculation. After nine months of hard work day and night, they issued the structural production drawings and system production drawings and completed the strength calculation report. By the end of the year, the ground equipment production drawings were issued. At this point, the design work of the production drawings of the new fighter prototype was completed.

In August 1995, the middle fuselage of the new J-01 aircraft was riveted at Factory 132. On June 2, 1997, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the final assembly and delivery of the first new J-1 aircraft was held at Factory 132. Vice Chairman of the Military Commission Liu Huaqing and other central leaders attended the ceremony. Song Wencong reported on the development of the new J-1 aircraft, and Liu Huaqing happily cut the ribbon for the final assembly and delivery of the aircraft to the test flight station.

First flight test

At this point, after more than ten years of design and development, the prototype of the J-10 aircraft has emerged. What awaits it will be a more severe challenge and test - the first flight.

The development of the new J-10 fighter jet was doomed to a difficult fate from the very beginning. Just as the first aircraft had been assembled and delivered, and the engine was about to be tested on the ground, bad luck struck it again.

Something went wrong during the first test run: the engine was started from slow to fast and the thrust was gradually increased. Ignition and refueling, the engine made a huge roar, and the thrust was slowly increasing. After the thrust reached 90%, the suction force of the air inlet was already very strong, and the air was drawn into the engine in a white vortex. At this moment, an accident happened. When the test run reached the rated thrust, it slowly stopped at the signal of the commander. After a while, the maintenance personnel went into the air inlet to check and came out to report: "The engine blades are damaged in many places!"

The engine blades were damaged in many places! Everyone present was shocked - what was the reason? How could there be extra material? The engine was repeatedly cleaned and inspected by technicians and workers, and only after confirming that it was correct did they apply for the start-up test! Finally, after repeated inspections and quality analysis, it was proved that the judgment that there was extra material was correct.

After the first failure, after careful inspection and cleaning, it should be fine. However, the result of the second start-up was that "the aircraft air intake was damaged and the engine blades were still slightly damaged..." This was destined to be a very difficult period. The 611 Institute issued more than 20 design drawings to block the compartment connected to the air intake; the 132 Factory started from the sub-assembly, then the final assembly, and then to the flight test station, and conducted a carpet-style inspection. The third start-up test was finally successful.

The first flight of the J-10 aircraft was scheduled for March 23, 1998.

March 23, 1998 was a landmark day in my country's aviation history, and of course it was also the most important day in Song Wencong's life.

On March 23, 1998, the first scientific research prototype of the J-10 took off into the sky. "From today on, my birthday is March 23!" Song Wencong, the father of the J-10, changed his birthday to the day of the first flight.

In 2006, the J-10 fighter jet became combat-ready and appeared in the 2009 National Day military parade, attracting worldwide attention. This is a new generation, high-performance, all-weather fighter jet independently developed by my country and at the world's most advanced level.

Kept secret from family for decades

Song Wencong has been engaged in aircraft research and development for decades, but due to confidentiality, his parents and brothers do not know what he has been doing all these years.

Song Wencong said that one year, his younger brother Wenhong came to Shenyang to visit his family. No one in the family would talk about what Song Wencong did. Seeing that his brother didn't talk about it, Wenhong didn't want to ask. At his brother's house, he accidentally saw a few medical books read by barefoot doctors in the bookcase. After returning home, he told his family that his brother might have changed his career to become a doctor.

It was not until the J-10 aircraft was partially declassified that Song Wencong's younger brothers saw Song Wencong's photos in newspapers and magazines, calling him the "Father of the J-10". Only then did they suddenly realize: it turned out that their brother had been engaged in the development of fighter jets for decades!

In his eighty years of ups and downs, Song Wencong witnessed the hardships of the Chinese nation in its struggle for survival and the difficulties of the rise and take-off of the Republic's aviation industry; in his fifty years of dedication, he was calm and worked silently, always maintaining a steady demeanor and innovative pace.

The three words "Song Wencong" will shine in the glorious history of the rise of China's aviation industry together with the J-10 aircraft.

On March 22, 2016, Song Wencong passed away due to illness, just one day before the J-10's 18th birthday.

He used to have a wish: "We must have a very good airplane."

The current J-10 has developed into the J-10A, J-10B, and J-10C series of fighters, and has laid a solid foundation for the development of fighters such as the J-20.

A wish turned him from a high-spirited young man into a white-haired old man. Look, Mr. Song, your wish has come true.

In remembrance of this, forever.

Source: Communist Youth League Central Committee

Editor: Li Sirui

Proofreading丨Li Zhiyuan

Proofread by Jia Wencheng

On-duty editor: Liu Fei