Not Much of an Engineer

by Stanley Hooker

  This, then, was our introduction to the Orient, and we soon settled down to their polite and civilised way of life. Our ambassador told us that the treatment we were getting showed that our visit was regarded as very important.

  On Monday morning we were taken to Er Li Co, the headquarters of the Machinery Corporation, and conducted to a large room packed with our audience, who all stood as we entered. Having been introduced to the senior people, we went to the places reserved for us at a central table, while the audience sat in serried rows. I had no idea who was who, because everyone was dressed like everyone else and I might have been talking to a tea boy or a general. There were a number of ladies present, one of whom acted as interpreter. She did a magnificent job, translating technical matter all day without rest. I discovered her name, Chou Hi Ping, means Chou calm sea, and that is what she became to us. At the final banquet at the end of this visit I caused her embarrassment by leading her into the centre of the room while our party all applauded her.

  On this first working morning we set up our projector, and I opened proceedings by repeating the Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture which I had lately given to the Royal Aeronautical Society. It was soon clear that many in the audience understood English, because they would stop the interpreter and argue in Chinese, at which she would turn to me and ask ‘Did you mean so-and-so?’ Our teacups were kept filled, and after a brief break at 10.30 we began a question and answer session. It was soon clear that some in the audience had been briefed to cover some particular topic, such as manufacturing, or turbine performance. At 11.30 we returned to our hotel for lunch. Then at 2.30 Alan Newton lectured on VTOL developments, and with more questions that kept us busy until 5.30.

  I had arranged that I would concentrate on the overall scene, Alan Newton on VTOL and the Spey, Trevor Powell on the Olympus 593 and Viper and John Oliver on the Dart, keeping to civil engines only. Naturally, during the questions military applications arose. I had decreed that we would answer all questions to the best of our ability in a general way, and if we had to illustrate on the blackboard we would rub it out immediately. I have long experience of explaining technical things in a simple way, but it was impossible to tell how far the audience followed everything. They seemed delighted, and I think their ‘need to know’ would have over-ridden their great politeness and made them pursue a difficult point further.

  Anyway, on the Wednesday we were bidden to rest, and at 8 am we were collected by our hosts and set off with picnic lunches on an official tour of the Ming tombs and Great Wall at Bada Ling some 60 miles away. We set off along the road to Ulan Bator, beside the railway which, hundreds of miles to the north beyond Inner Mongolia, connects with the trans-Siberian line. At first the countryside was flat, and highly cultivated. Everything was done by hand, and most fields seemed to contain 20 to 30 peasants all hoeing in unison. This gave some answer to my question: where were the thousand million Chinese? The answer was that they were spread like ants over the vast countryside, growing food. Gradually the terrain became hilly and then positively mountainous, and suddenly, as we reached the 4,000-foot level, there was the Great Wall ahead, crossing our road and stretching as far as the eye could see towards both horizons, undulating up and down across the mountains into the furthest distance.

  It was a thrilling sight. On the Beijing side the wall was about 30 feet high, but on the north side the drop from the top was even greater. The wall had been repaired locally, and along the top was a track wide enough for a car (though of course there was none), punctuated at intervals by blockhouses. I believe the wall is the only man-made thing visible to the naked eye from a low-orbit spacecraft, and it stretches almost 2,200 miles along the main route, with branches and spurs bringing the total up to almost 4,000 miles. One could not help marvelling at the unbelievable toil needed to build such a wall, with a thickness of about 32 feet, in order to keep at bay the barbaric Mongolian hordes which at one time were led by Genghiz Khan himself. Today peace prevails, and we ate our lunch in a visitors’ room which had been reserved for us.

  We then set out for the tombs of the Ming emperors (1366-1644 AD) on the route back to Beijing. In the old days the beautiful valley was forbidden territory, but today it is intensively cultivated. The visitor enters through a pagoda-like gate and then along a drive which is dead straight for a mile. I do not think I have ever seen a more impressive sight, because the entire length is bordered by giant beasts carved in solid stone. First we passed between a pair of standing elephants facing each other. Then we passed between a pair of kneeling elephants. Then came two colossal standing camels, followed by two kneeling camels. Then came lions, horses and many other animals, in each case first standing and then kneeling. Finally came two lines of emperors, each carved in perfect detail.

  The only tomb so far opened was a deep underground mausoleum, with side chambers for the particular emperor’s wives. It was quite dull, but the treasures found therein were fabulous. They included solid gold plates about 2 feet across, and head-dresses for the wives looking like beehives and thickly encrusted with jewels. Everything was displayed in a museum room where, to remind everyone, large wall paintings showed the cruel treatment meted out to the peasants by their avaricious rulers.

  On the next day we returned to our lectures and answer sessions. By this time we were on very friendly terms with our hosts, and I began to press them for areas of interest which we might explore further. They replied, ‘Patience, we will tell you. But first, on Sunday, you are going to visit our Aeronautical Institute in Beijing, and then you will travel to Shen-yang to see our engine factory’. I was amazed and delighted, especially when our embassy told us that no Western visitor had ever been able to visit either.

  Accordingly, on the Sunday morning we found ourselves entering large and attractive grounds wherein were a collection of nondescript concrete buildings, again guarded by soldiers, which housed the Institute. The whole staff were assembled to greet us with applause at the entrance, led by the Vice-Director, Dr Shen Yuan. Only later did I discover (because he never mentioned it) that he had studied at Imperial College, a year or two after me, and spoke fluent English. After the usual tea ceremony we entered a large room full of engines. Most were Russian, though a few were American, but right in the doorway was a sectioned VK1, Soviet version of the Nene, which the Chinese call the WP-5D. As related earlier, I said ‘Yes, the Russians made a good copy; they even copied the mistakes!’ When this was translated there were howls of merriment. I asked how they had come by their American General Electric J47, and they replied ‘It fell from Heaven!’

  The ice was thus broken, and we had a good tour. The facilities were large but meagre, and when at the end they asked for my comments I told them they really needed much more equipment with which to train young engineers. In particular they had no compressor, turbine or combustion test or demonstration rigs, and they were very weak on metallurgy. Moreover, there was no entrance examination; instead the students were recommended by their local Revolutionary Party, in all parts of China, mainly on the basis of their knowledge of the sayings of Mao. It would not have done to suggest that these sayings were unimportant, but they are hardly the right way to select a nation’s top engineers and today the Institute has an entrance examination.

  There was no doubt in my mind that the Mao system had achieved miracles. So far as I could see, 1,000 million people were fed, clothed, housed and did useful work. Certainly the older generation appreciated what had been done, though some of the young men were clearly apathetic and prone to grumble, chiefly because of the central direction of labour which is a feature of life in modern China. I can see that this might be irksome, but as soon as a society has all the basic necessities of life it is easy for its people to forget the old adage ‘Count your blessings’. One has only to think how many members of Western societies take their affluence and total freedom for granted, and spend their time in vandalism and other negative activity, to see that people appreciate things only when the
y are taken away. In the case of most Chinese the Revolution is recent enough to have real meaning, and I have never seen a society whose members were so universally dedicated to working for the public good. It is not possible for an oppressive regime to stage-manage a false happy picture for the benefit of foreign visitors. One might do this with a small group, but not with a city!

  At 8 pm on the Sunday evening we departed to visit another city, Shen-yang. A huge crowd gathered at the railway station, because this train departure was quite an event. On the way we made just one stop, late at night, in Tianjin. Previously this city was called Tien Tsien, and I climbed out on to the platform and spent a few moments wondering what would have happened to me had I gone there in 1936 as the first Professor of Aeronautics in China. The mind boggled!

  At 6 am next day we arrived at Shen-yang, also known as Mukden, in what had been Manchuria; this is a city of about 3 million lying in the plain of the Liao Ho about 400 miles northeast of Beijing. It has a recorded history of over 2,000 years, and was at one time the capital of the Ching Dynasty, many of whose palaces and artefacts are carefully preserved. Today, however, it is a vast industrial complex specializing in engineering, metals and chemicals. It was a cold and wet morning, with pouring rain. We were met by the Shen-yang Chairman of the Revolutionary Party, who corresponds roughly to a mayor, and his aides, who greeted us most politely. Chinese railway stations seem all to have an entrance opening on to a giant square, and as we emerged into the rain I was amazed to see that the perimeter of the square was packed with people — men, women and children. When they saw us they broke into loud applause. I asked my host whatever was happening, and he said ‘They have come to welcome their British friends’. Nothing would suffice but that I walked around the entire square, clapping my hands in return. It was most heart-warming to us all, and since that moment I have been completely captivated by the Chinese people. The rain was forgotten.

  At the factory we found throbbing activity, with a payroll of about 10,000. Two fighter engines in production made up almost the total work-load, and both were literally Chinese copies of originals designed by the Soviet Tumanskii bureau. The first, and older, engine was the WP-6 (Wo-pen 6, or turbojet No. 6), which corresponded to the Russian RD-9B, a neat single-spool engine rated at about 5,700 lb dry and a little over 7,000 lb with afterburner. Two of these engines powered the J-6 (MiG-19) and JJ-6 trainer version, which were in production at the nearby aircraft factory. I was envious of the production rate, which on this engine was estimated by us at about 50 per month. The other engine was the WP-7, the Russian Tumanskii R-11. This very attractive two-spool turbojet was rated with afterburner at about 14,000 lb and was just coming into large-scale production for the J-7, the Chinese MiG-21.

  I was not surprised at the general set-up of the factory, which was mainly of 1955 vintage and equipped largely with machine tools of Soviet origin. What did surprise me was the way that tools were being remodelled and adapted on the spot for special operations, and the fact that the one giant plant made almost the entire engine including many of the accessories. The factory had its own foundry for castings and forging plant for blades and discs, and it seemed to need nothing in the way of supplies except raw material! Moreover, there was little wrong with the products. At the rear were small but effective testbeds where examples of both engines, with afterburners, were on test. I was allowed to operate the throttles of both types of engine. Though I am well versed in such matters, I was unable to stall either engine nor cause any misbehaviour, though I tried my best.

  Clearly the Chinese had total competence in 1950s-technology engines, but they had no way of progressing into 1960s technology except in very localized areas where they were doing research of their own. It seemed to me that the most straightforward way of catching up would be to take a licence for a Rolls-Royce engine, and I verbally made this suggestion. I am sure my hosts agreed inwardly, but their experience with the Russians made them suspicious of licensing. When in the 1958-9 period, the ideological break came with the Russians, the latter departed en masse and took with them every single document including the drawings, material specifications and manufacturing instructions. As the Russians had done in 1947, with the Nene, the Chinese simply soldiered on and after many years succeeded in getting into production with the excellent engines I saw at Shen-yang.

  This was a very impressive achievement, but they still had no background of design and development experience on which to draw, nor any designers or experienced engineers. As a result, though they strove to produce perfect engines, they were helpless in the face of in-service failures. They, therefore, had to limit the life of each engine to 100 to 200 hours, and a large part of their output was devoted to making replacement engines for ones that had failed. They showed me two persistent failures they had suffered for years. One was at a particular location on the fir-tree root of the WP-7 turbine blade, which was prone to experience first a small crack and then total failure, letting the blade fly through the engine casing — no joke in a single-engine supersonic fighter. The second was the cracks which appeared in the sheet-metal combustion chambers, spreading rapidly until a large chunk would break off and smash into the turbine nozzle vanes, often passing right through the turbine and causing severe damage.

  There is an immense amount of finesse in the design of a fir-tree root, and its manufacture is far from simple. I knew therefore, that we could not deal with that problem on the spot, so I took my courage in both hands and offered to send them a detailed drawing of the root of a Spey turbine blade. After all, they had plenty of Speys in commercial service in Tridents, and could have studied the root for themselves. In fact, Chinese civil and military aviation seemed to be two distinct watertight compartments, and there was no way that a solution to a military problem could have been found in a civil engine. Their eyes shone with gratitude at this offer, and a year later they showed me their new Spey-type blade root which, they said, worked much better.

  The cracking of the combustion chambers was a problem I felt we could deal with there and then. Back on Frank Whittle’s engine I had run into the same problem caused by the use of thick and thin sheets welded together. As the temperature varies, according to throttle position, the thin sheet heats and cools quicker than the one to which it is attached, and the unequal expansion and contraction between the two causes severe cyclic stress which soon gives rise to a crack. The solution is to make the thin sheet thicker, and to cut in it what we used to call ‘keyhole slots’ to allow for any slight dimensional changes. In fact the Russian chamber was a singularly bad design. The hemispherical head was a heavy casting, which actually had fins machined in it for extra cooling, though it was obvious from its colour that it was running very hot. Downstream was a thin sheet flame-tube, and the cracking naturally began at the junction between the two, which was a seam weld.

  I explained all this to them, and they followed my reasoning completely. I suggested that they try making the hemispherical head from sheet of about the same gauge as the cylindrical portion, and provide it with expansion slots. Again they could have seen all this on the Nene in the Institute. A year later they had done it all. From our brief discussion and a quick pencil sketch they had redesigned the chamber and completely solved the problem, and my reputation was sky-high. I took the opportunity of pointing out that there were many, many such practical tips we could give them if a basis of co-operation could be found.

  Late that night we took our leave. Back at the railway station the great square was again packed with people who had waited to see us off. In the centre was a giant statue of Mao, and in our honour it and the whole square had been festooned with a myriad of coloured lights. We returned to Beijing via Peta Hau (Pei-tai to), a lovely seaside resort. It was entirely reserved for foreigners, so even our hosts stayed outside the area. During the very hot months of July and August this resort becomes home for the diplomatic staffs in Beijing. There are many splendid European-style villas, and even a super restauran
t called Kettners after the one in London. The sea was beautiful to swim in, and a great arc of steel fencing protects the little bay from sharks. Like so many places the whole resort was guarded by soldiers, but this is natural in China and their presence was never obtrusive. When we had to leave, our hosts entered the resort to take us by car on a tour of the beautiful coastline.

  Back at Beijing I learned during further talks that there was keen interest in a proposal from us that they take a licence for the Spey turbofan. They did not say which type of Spey, and I did not press them because we had no clearance from our government to make any definite commitment. All four of us — and our Ambassador — felt that our visit had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. It was now up to the Powers that Be in Whitehall to give us the go-ahead. In fact, nothing happened until Sir Kenneth Keith arrived as Chairman in November 1972. Then, in very short order, he took up the matter of co-operation with the Chinese with Edward Heath. Soon we were cleared to propose an agreement on the civil Spey engine, which the Chinese had been using for years in the de Havilland Tridents which they had purchased.

  In November 1972, at a reception at the Chinese Embassy in London given by Ambassador Sung, I again met Mr Chen from Beijing. He took me on one side and said quite bluntly that the engine in which his government was interested was the military Spey 202, with afterburner, as used in British Phantoms. I could see all sorts of political difficulties with our Allies. When I told Kenneth, he hit the roof. ‘It’s taken me two months to get the civil Spey agreed. I’ll never manage this one, so we must go back to the Chinese and tell them to take a more flexible approach — first the civil Spey, which will keep them very busy for a few years, and then perhaps the 202 can follow along. Or we could help them adapt the civil Spey for military use, which is how we did the 202 anyway? In the meantime, you produce a proposal for the civil Spey only’.