On September 26, 1980, the first domestically produced large jet passenger aircraft, the Y-10, made its first successful flight in Shanghai, and finally landed smoothly after nearly half an hour of flight.
In the following months, the Y-10 also flew in Beijing, Harbin, Guangzhou and other places, fully demonstrating its excellent performance.
Although the Y-10 project was eventually shelved for a number of reasons, in the field of aviation, Ma Fengshan's contribution cannot be ignored. His talent and innovative spirit have laid a solid foundation for China's aviation industry.
However, a miscalculation caused China to pay a huge price, leaving Ma Fengshan with a grudge. In war, the importance of air supremacy is self-evident, and it can often determine the outcome of a war.
Since the birth of the People's Republic of China, our country has always regarded the development of the aviation industry as a top priority. In the history of China's aviation industry, Ma Fengshan is an unavoidable name.
Ma Fengshan was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province in 1929, and as the first generation of aircraft chief designers trained in China, his life has almost witnessed the development of China's aviation industry.
In the year of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Ma Fengshan graduated from high school, when he was 20 years old in his youth. From a modern point of view, he only graduated from high school at the age of 20, which may be a bit old, but we need to remember that Ma Fengshan was born in 1929, at a time of social turmoil.
At that time, it was not easy to get a formal education, let alone keep it until he graduated from high school.
On the occasion of graduation, Ma Fengshan did not hesitate to choose the Department of Aeronautical Engineering of Jiaotong University, determined to systematically study aviation technology. His love for aviation stems from an experience he had as a teenager.
During those war-torn days, he witnessed the brutality of Japanese planes and the wanton killing of innocent civilians. These experiences left a deep imprint on him and strengthened his determination to learn aviation technology.
Ma Fengshan knows very well that if a nation and a country want to avoid being bullied, it must have a strong national defense force, of which aircraft manufacturing is an indispensable part.
During his studies at Jiaotong University, he studied hard for three years, graduated early in 1952, and was assigned to work at the Harbin Aircraft Factory. At that time, New China had just been founded, and the technical level needed to be improved.
Although the Harbin Aircraft Factory is called an "aircraft repair factory", it cannot manufacture aircraft independently.
After Ma Fengshan joined, the situation began to change. He is practice-based and at the same time improves himself in practice. Soon after, he led the Harbin Aircraft Factory to successfully achieve a breakthrough from zero to one.
In 1958, he served as the chief designer of the design department of the Harbin Aircraft Factory, and participated in the design of the Heping 401 short-range jet airliner and the No. 402 turboprop airliner.
Due to his outstanding work performance and performance, Ma Fengshan was given the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union in May 1959. He spent four months on an internship in Kazan, the "aviation powerhouse" of the Soviet Union, at the production plant for the Tu-16 aircraft.
However, his journey to stay abroad was interrupted in September 1959, and he had to return to China early.
The internship experience of Ma Fengshan and others in Soviet aircraft was full of twists and turns and helplessness. All this stems from the sudden change in the international situation in the mid-50s of the last century. The hostile relations between China and the Soviet Union and the rapid deterioration of relations have made the military and diplomatic antagonism between the two countries increasingly obvious.
Against this background, Soviet experts in aiding China withdrew from China, and Chinese students studying abroad could not continue their studies in the Soviet Union. Under these circumstances, Ma Fengshan and others were forced to return to China.
However, when they were interning at a Soviet aircraft production plant, Ma Fengshan and others remembered a strange request from Soviet experts during class, that is, they did not let the students take notes.
Although the Soviet Union promised to provide all the content and materials taught in the classroom to China, they failed to fulfill their promises when the students returned home, delaying the distribution of materials. The Chinese side had made representations with the Soviet Union through diplomatic channels, but the Soviet side refused to provide such information on the grounds that "these materials did not belong to the contract for the Tu-16 aircraft."
Those who are observant can see through at a glance that the Soviet reason was only to fool us, and the real motive was actually because of the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. It may be that these students believed in the Soviet Union too much, listened to the lectures with one heart and one mind, and did not have the habit of taking notes.
As the proverb goes, "a good memory is better than a bad pen", it seems impossible for these students to memorize everything they learned in the Soviet Union. However, Ma Fengshan is an exception.
Before going to the Soviet Union, he found time to study Russian, and during the lectures, he secretly used his notebook to write down the content of the lectures and some of the materials.
A notebook contains detailed information about the Tu-16 aircraft, including structural details, strength data, and flight test records, which are of high reference value for China's aerospace scientific research.
It is worth mentioning that this information was once classified as "top secret" and was only recently declassified and made public.
In 1961, Ma Fengshan was promoted from a first-class technician to an associate engineer with his outstanding technical ability, which was already a very high technical position at that time. At this time, China was developing the "H-6" project, which is one of the largest aviation projects in our country.
It is worth noting that the development of the H-6 was not completely autonomous, but was borrowed from the Soviet Tu-16. In this process, Ma Fengshan's "top-secret notes" played an important role.