China's first aeroplane, 1909

M. Vallon was a French aviator who had the honour of being the first person to fly an aircraft to, and in, China. His planes, Sommer mono- and bi-planes, caused a sensation in Shanghai when he conducted exhibition flights there in 1909. On his last flight, he took off from a site in Kiangwan, but the wings collapsed while he was demonstrating the plane over the central racecourse. Track management were later criticised for continuing the races after Vallon was carried away.

As a minor consolation, the French named a street in their Concession after him.

The China Yearbook for 1929-30, edited by H.G. Woodhead, has the following to say on the history of aviation in China. Like other sources, Mr Woodhead failed to discover M. Vallon's first name:

AVIATION

The history of aviation in China begins with the exhibition flights at Shanghai in 1909, given by a French pilot named Vallon who was subsequently killed in a flying accident. The following year Chinese interest was further stimulated by flights over the Legation Quarter in Peking by a Russian in a Bleriot monoplane and in that year (1910) the General Staff attempted to establish a small plant near Nanyuan for the manufacture of aeroplanes. Nothing of value was produced.

During the Revolution in 1911 the Southern leaders planned to attack Peking by air and purchased two Etrich monoplanes in Austria which did not arrive until the end of 1912 when they were put in charge of a British returned student, a Mr Z.Y. Lee. During the same year an American returned student, Mr Feng Yu, did exhibition flying over Canton but was killed in an accident.

In 1913, Mr Lee, with his two Etrich planes was moved to Nanking, and then to the Nanyuan field where Tsao Kun was then garrison commander. Interest in flying was greatly stimulated by Mr Lee's arrival and General Tsao Kun, through Vice-President Li Yuan-hung, then acting Chief of Staff to Yuan Shih-kai, raised $300,000 for the purchase of 12 Caudron biplanes and the equipment of workshops and a school. Two French and two Chinese instructors, and two French mechanics, were employed. During the Great War supplies were difficult to obtain and there was no increase in equipment, but about 100 student pilots were graduated from the school and the planes saw a little service in the White Wolf and Mongolian expeditions, while one was used in July, 1917, in a most spectacular fashion, to bomb the Imperial Palace during the Chang Hsun restoration.

In 1916 experiments commenced at Foochow in the manufacture of seaplanes, but were discouraged by the collapse of the machine because of engine trouble while in flight and were finally abandoned about 1921."

More aviation info, kindly provided by enthusiast, walking aviation encyclopaedia and Robert Short hagiographier, Nathan Sturman:

In December, 1928, the Ryan Brougham monoplane "Guangzhou" stopped at Shanghai on one of the last legs of its historic flight from Guangzhou to Shenyang and return, via most of China's major cities. This was a great event of the times. At Nanjing, leaflets were dropped proclaiming "Aviation Will Save China" and welcoming banners proclaimed "Liezi Yufeng" and other slogans, and the Guangzhou flew in formation with another aircraft called the "Shanghai." On the return, the Guangzhou joined her sister ship, the Brougham "Pearl River" at Shanghai. Souvenir Airmail was postmarked Shanghai for the flight and put aboard for the leg to Guangzhou. The pilot was "China's Lindbergh," General Zhang Huichang (Chang Hui-ch'ang) of the Guangdong Aeronautical Bureau, a flier (Guangdong Zhongshan native) who earned his FAI pilot's license at the Codie School of Aviation in 1917 when he sojourned in the U.S. and distinguished himself in heroic military exploits after his return to China (in Guangdong-Guangxi fighting 1920, etc.). He held many aeronautical posts, first in Guangzhou and then with the Central KMT government. Ambassador to Cuba, member of legislative Yuan for Zhongshanxian, Guangdong. Zhang arrived in Shenyang two months after the assasination of Zhang Zuolin and was warmly greeted by the Young Marshall Zhang Xueliang, as the flight was an important symbol of China's new unity, like the flying of the central government flag over Dongbei, and was angrily snubbed by the Japanese who hated any symbol of KMT rule in what they called Manchuria.


A Chinese Air Force I-152, a Russian-built aircraft, flipped over after a bad landing. Location and exact date unknown, but presumably the late 1930s.

And finally, a comment from Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, quoted in the Shanghai Evening Post of 12 March 1937:
"Of all the inventions that have helped to unify China perhaps the airplane is the most outstanding. Its ability to annihilate distance has been in direct proportion to its achievements in assisting to annihilate suspicion and misunderstanding among provincial officials far removed from one another or from the officials at the seat of government."

For more information on aviation in Old China, see also August 14, 1937, and Robert Short.

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