Buzzing like an oversized electric razor,
hairdresser Wang Qiang's home-made airplane
skids over grassland before soaring into a vast
blue sky, in a rare flight allowed by Chinese
authorities.
Wang spends his days trimming and shaping at
a hair salon in eastern China's Zhejiang
province, and his evenings working on the
rickety one-seater craft.
He is one of a tiny—estimates say their
numbers stand at around 2,000—but growing
number of Chinese private aircraft owners
who are grouping together to challenge
restrictions which ban them from almost all
the country's airspace.
Wang's machine—with a stainless steel frame,
wheels from a motorised wheelchair, and a
seat scavenged from a go-kart—took eight
months to build and cost 30,000 yuan
($5,000).
It can reach altitudes of 3,500 metres and
speeds of 90 kilometres an hour (56 mph), he
says.
"In the countryside people play mahjong after
finishing work... but I like to fly," said Wang,
37, who grew up spreading manure and
picking corn on a farm.
"We want the government... to give us more
room to enjoy the skies, and enjoy flying," he
said. "If ordinary people, even vegetable-
cutting housewives can fly, that would be
best."
Around 20 private planes, microlights and
motorised paragliders took to the air in a
valley in Hexigten Banner, in China's remote
Inner Mongolia region at the weekend, in the
country's first festival of its kind after
organisers obtained special permission from
the authorities.
The gathering was inspired by the "fly-ins" of
the US, which can see thousands of aviators
converge on a single location—but the private
flying restrictions meant enthusiasts had to
reach the festival overland.
Plans for an earlier gathering in Beijing in
2011 were cancelled by officials citing safety
concerns.
"We are very far behind the US," said
organiser Zhang Feng, of China's Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association. "We want to
use this event to promote the opening up of
China's airspace."
Ding Lin, a retired Chinese air force pilot who
owns a two-seater plane made in France,
added: "We are trying to push towards
freedom of flight.
"In 10 years you will come back and the
whole sky will be full of planes," he said,
before wiping down his plane's shining red
propeller.
But such aspirations face formidable
opposition. China's military controls nearly all
of the country's airspace, and despite
promises of reform has only opened a few
areas to private flights. "You can barely fly
anywhere... some people have travelled here
because they don't have the opportunity to fly
anywhere else," said Zhang.
In the shadow of green hillsides dotted with
Mongolian yurts, the aviators lamented that
flight is a symbol of liberty, but one only
open to those well-connected enough to strike
deals with local authorities, or wealthy
enough to afford fines of up to 100,000 yuan
for taking to the air illegally, a practice
known as "black flying".
"Often there is no alternative to black flights,"
said Zhang, adding: "If you have to report
flights in advance, you lose the sense of
freedom."
Most private Chinese pilots are wealthy, given
the costs of training and licences—up to
200,000 yuan, visitors to the festival said—
but there are signs of an emerging interest in
flight among China's army of backyard DIY
inventors and tinkerers.
"Flying is a beautiful thing," said Shu Bin, a
mechanic from Zhejiang who soars over hills
and rivers near his home in a self-built
helicopter.
He took design ideas from foreign websites,
he said. "I downloaded pictures and looked at
them again and again."
The amateur builders' experiments come at a
time when China is pouring billions into its
domestic aircraft industry in the hope of
creating firms capable of competing with
Western rivals such as Boeing and Airbus.
But Wang's flimsy-looking craft is more
reminiscent of the biplanes flown by Feng Ru,
an immigrant to the US who in 1909 became
the first Chinese person to build a plane,
using designs by the Wright brothers.
Feng met an untimely demise in 1912, when
he crashed during a display after returning to
China at the invitation of revolutionary leader
Sun Yat-sen.
Wang has had near-misses of his own, his
engine cutting out several times in mid-air,
forcing him to glide down to earth.
"I told myself: there's no time to panic, just
land!" he said of one near-death experience,
adding cheerfully: "I once performed an
emergency landing in a lake."
0 comments:
Post a Comment