Tu Jida

Tu Jida was born 11 December 1927 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, Republic of China.

[1][2] When he was ten, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out and Shaoxing was bombed by Japanese warplanes.

[3] To seek refuge from the war, his mother brought him and his brother to live in the Shanghai International Settlement.

After the end of the war, he was admitted to the aeronautical engineering department of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1946.

[3] After graduating from university in 1951, Tu was assigned to work for the Harbin Aircraft Factory.

It was the main trainer used in Chinese aviation schools, and more than 15,000 pilots received their training in the aircraft.

It was the only Chinese-made warplane that was competitive in the world market, and Tu was hailed as the "father of J-7" in official Chinese media.