The No.1 Group Corp of China Aviation Industry announced Thursday that the first jet-engine designed by China herself and of her own intellectual property rights has made its appearance.
Named "Kunlun", the engine, of advanced technology and reliable in performance, has passed the examination and appraisal of the state for designing as fixed model and is up to the standard for equipping the Chinese airforce.
The sci-tech result has after all placed the Chinese jet-engine onto the historical stage for self-development, marking China to become, after the USA, Russia, Britain and France, the fifth country in the world that is able to design and manufacture independently the jet-engine.
Therefore, it has put an end to the long history in which China could only copy, improve or remodel the engines of others, but was unable to produce jet-engine of her own.
The successful design and manufacture of the "Kunlun" jet-engine symbolizes a "landmark" in the development of the Chinese Aviation Industry. In the process of research and manufacture almost 40 new technologies, new materials and new workmanship have been used.
Scores of such technological problems as unmatchable pressures of high and low compressors, causing the breaking of vanes have been overcome, thereby solving hundred such problems as exposed in the ground experimentation and trial flying in the air.
The "Kunlun" jet-engine is the one self-studied and designed by Shenyang Jet Engine Research Institute of No.1 Group Corp of China Aviation Industry and manufactured jointly by factories and institutes concerned.
It is the jet-engine in which China has traversed over the first and whole course of research and development. It is the turbo-jet engine of medium thrust, so far the most advanced of its kind in China and enjoys a bigger potential for development in performance and duration of life. The engine with its developed type is able to meet the needs of the Chinese airforce for turbo-jets of medium thrust or even a bit over.
(People's Daily May 31, 2002)
