Chinese Training Aircraft 1937-40 (1 Viewer)

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Popeye53

Airman
13
11
Feb 8, 2022
Guangqiu Xu, in his book War Wings: the United States and Chinese Military Aviation, 1929-1949, mentions the manufacture of several hundred "Fuxing" training airplanes between July 1937 and December 1940. I can find no other mention of this name, can anyone identify the aircraft in question? I'm assuming that he is referring to a foreign design (probably US given the time frame) that was locally manufactured, but that is only a guess at this point. Thanks!
 
Guangqiu Xu, in his book War Wings: the United States and Chinese Military Aviation, 1929-1949, mentions the manufacture of several hundred "Fuxing" training airplanes between July 1937 and December 1940. I can find no other mention of this name, can anyone identify the aircraft in question? I'm assuming that he is referring to a foreign design (probably US given the time frame) that was locally manufactured, but that is only a guess at this point. Thanks!
Ed Nash's Military Matters (or Forgotten Aircraft) channel as a video on those planes.
 
I finally found the book, "A History of Chinese Aviation - Encyclopedia of Aircraft and Aviation in China until 1949" by Lennart Andersson.

The closest I can find is on Page 238. It mentions a Fu-hsing (Revival) AP-1 designed and produced by the Shiukwan Aircraft Works.

It was a 2 seat trainer whose first flight occurred on May 20th, 1936. However the dates differ. Delivery of the first 5 was made by January 1937 when production was suspended and resumed that September. Work on a revised version (AP-2) began in April 1940 when a total of 4 were produced. Around 20 AP-1s were produced, 15 armed with a single gun or 2 x guns and bomb racks.

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Here is the #3 aircraft delivered on Dec 17, 1936 to the 30th Squadron.

Hopefully this is the one you are looking for.
 
Thanks to all for their assistance! I think Viking Berserker has identified the aircraft.

Now all I need to do is to try and reconcile the numbers provided in "War Wings". In it Guangqiu Xu states that from July 1937 to December 1940 the Shiuchow Aircraft Works (renamed the 1st Aircraft Factory in January 1939 after moving to Kunming) manufactured "about 500 Fuxing training airplanes and Hawk III pursuit airplanes." If Andersson's book is correct, and only 24 AP-1 & 2s were built that would mean the factory completed around 475 Hawk IIIs. That is far more than the number of Hawk IIIs the sources I've read say were delivered to the Chinese Nationalist Air Force. Any ideas?
 
Page 231: "In 1936 a complete but uncovered Hawk III pattern aircraft and supplies for another 29 had arrived and the first Hawk was assembled and test flown on 1 June 1937........Thirty Curtiss H-75M Hawks were delivered and assembled during the summer of 1938."

Page 232: "It seems that a total of 44 Hawk IIIs were assembled (16 in 1937, 22 in 1938 and 6 in 1939). If this is correct, a number of aircraft must have been built from scratch. Another source mentions 26 Hawk IIIs built in little less than two years, manufactured from materials"

It then goes to mention other aircraft produced such as at least thirty Chung 28 Yi (redesigned copy of the Russian I-15) nine indigenous designed XP-0 and possibly thirty Vultee V-11s assembled from components from the US.

If the 500 number is correct it has to include the ones they assembled from components received from foreign sources but the factory looks like it only had 300 people working.
 
According to what I have been able to find: The first Hawk III was delivered in March 1936. Eleven more were delivered between May and July 1936. Sixty more were delivered between May and August 1936. The last thirty were delivered between April and June 1938. For a total of 102 Hawk IIIs delivered to China. The sources agree that the Chinese had a license to produce additional Hawk IIIs, but I have not been able to find any information on how many were produced. Your number of 26 sounds right considering the circumstances.

Thirty Curtiss Hawk 75M were delivered between May and August 1938, as well as 82 kits for local production. The kits were sent to the CAMCO Factory at Loiwing, and some sources say as many as eight were assembled before the Factory was bombed in October 1940 and a number of the partially completed aircraft were damaged/destroyed. After that, production stopped, and by January 1942 most of the remaining kits had been sent to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Factory in Bangalore. Where up to five were completed before production was halted.

Don't see any way that factory would have been able to produce around 500 aircraft.
 
I think the saddest part of China's trying to build up it's defenses was the easy several countries using it the same way they used the Spanish Civil War. They dumped on China many of their rejects or used it to test out products. Russia extensively used China to train pilots and test equipment. They also have China high performance (at the time) aircraft without really training the unlucky pilots on the planes before just letting them try to fly and fight. The number of deaths that resulted was almost crippling in and of itself for China's air forces aircraft. Part of the reason China was so desperate for planes, purchasing them even at exorbitant prices. I'm glad that the US at least did our best to help out with aircraft and trainers both for pilots and assembly of the planes.
 
One of the biggest issues was when the Italians were training and supplying them. Pilots were promoted based on their status in society versus skill. One pilot was asked to perform a task that he took great offense to and took up one of their new bombers and proceeded to intentionally wreck it. He was promptly escorted to a field and executed. Once you have a culture like that it takes a bit to weed it out.
 
One of the biggest issues was when the Italians were training and supplying them. Pilots were promoted based on their status in society versus skill. One pilot was asked to perform a task that he took great offense to and took up one of their new bombers and proceeded to intentionally wreck it. He was promptly escorted to a field and executed. Once you have a culture like that it takes a bit to weed it out.
That's truly sad. The English had to learn that blood doesn't mean ability, as well as the French and every monarchial or feudal system. Plus the Italian trainers weren't exactly top of the line either and shortened training curriculums constantly. At least the Russians really tried, at least for a while. Too many examples of the same My-Honor-Has-Been-Insulted kind of ended that. It's true many young Chinese really tried to learn. And I'm very impressed with that, but without an aptitude many simply ended up dead too soon. Chennault did his best to put together a thorough training regimen and really pushed as much as he could long before the Famed Flying Tigers were even a concept. He respected Chiang Kai Shek (I think that's how it's spelled) and the fight he put up to save his country from the Japanese invasion. Worked together long hours to help the fledgeling Chinese really Air Force. I'm impressed with how they did that.
 

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