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Veterans are the precious wealth of the party and the country. In the “discharge season” in December, Yangcheng Evening News launched a series of “retirement will not fade and contribute to a new era” to integrate media reports and tell the struggle stories of retired soldiers, so as to encourage the majority of retired soldiers to make new and greater contributions to the economic and social development of Guangdong. Please note.
Text / Yangcheng Evening News reporter Hou Mengfei / Yangcheng Evening News reporter song Jinyu
Somewhere on the western plateau, 4500 meters above sea level. The chest tightness and headache caused by hypoxia did not distract the attention of Li Yuzhuang, founder and chairman of Guangzhou tianhaixiang aviation technology company. His eyes were fixed on the small plane on the ground.
Start, run-up and take-off. After completing various tasks in the air, the UAV will land steadily. Li Yuzhuang’s hanging heart has also landed – China’s first plateau UAV taking off at an altitude of 4500 meters and cruising at an altitude of more than 5000 meters has been successfully developed!
From his youth to his 60s, from frontier islands to plateau deserts, the “veteran” has never left UAVs. He closely integrated his personal ideal pursuit into the great journey of realizing the “dream of a strong country” and “dream of a strong army”, focused on the research and development of military UAVs, and filled many gaps in the field of UAVs.
Taste the “first soup” of military UAV
At 5 p.m. on December 28, 1973, Li Yuzhuang’s train arrived in Hengyang, Hunan. He joined the army at the age of 19. Li Yuzhuang was born in a revolutionary family. Influenced by his family, he had great love for the country and the army since childhood. After graduating from high school, he resolutely chose to join the army. During his service, he was awarded the third class merit of individual and the third class merit of unit collective.
Li Yuzhuang was deeply hurt by the scene of unnecessary casualties among his comrades in arms caused by backward air reconnaissance means during the war of self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. He secretly made up his mind: we must change the backward means of air reconnaissance.
In the 1990s, the former Guangzhou Military Region and the Department of aerospace technology of the University of national defense science and technology cooperated to establish the Guangzhou Military Region Caili aviation science and technology development center. Li Yuzhuang volunteered, hoping to use his actual combat experience and professional expertise to preside over the development of reconnaissance UAVs and improve the level of air reconnaissance equipment as soon as possible.
In this way, the soldier who once served in the anti-aircraft artillery force to “fight aircraft” opened the door to the research and development of UAVs and bravely tasted the “first soup” of military UAVs.
At that time, there were few types of UAVs in China and their development was slow, which was far lower than the foreign level in the same period. Li Yuzhuang started from basic theory, led the R & D team, aimed at the highest standard of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, devoted himself to tackling key problems and repeated experiments, conquered the most difficult UAV flight control system technology at that time, and realized the complete autonomous control of UAV; In 1998, it led China in developing an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft with light weight, reliable quality, heavy load, long flight time and long flight distance, and successfully developed an on-board unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, filling the gap of China’s on-board UAV and reaching the international advanced level.
Unswervingly adhere to the main line of serving the army
In 2001, Li Yuzhuang, who was already an officer at the regiment level, retired and became the first batch of demobilized cadres to choose their own jobs in China. At that time, there were many roads ahead of Li Yuzhuang: continue to stay in the army for promotion, change jobs as civil servants, and engage in other more profitable jobs. But he chose the most difficult one: continue the research and development of UAVs.
In 2006, he founded Guangzhou tianhaixiang aviation technology company, which was the first private enterprise engaged in the development of reconnaissance UAV in China at that time. Different from large state-owned aviation enterprises, private enterprises do not have any professional supporting testing equipment for aircraft verification. In order to meet military standards and performance indicators of UAVs, they can only experience thousands of flight tests, and enterprises are under great economic pressure.
“Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft serve the actual combat, and the product quality must be excellent!” Li Yuzhuang said that in order to solve the problem of capital shortage, the experimental funds are all advanced by ourselves, borrowed from friends and loans, but it is still difficult to maintain the huge project scientific research, site rent, employee wages and daily operation expenses. When the company has the most liabilities, it exceeds tens of millions of yuan. In the most difficult time of operation, he once discussed with his old father: in case of R & D failure, he would sell his old house to repay the debt. He even had the idea of selling the company to repay the debt.
If you come from the army, you must repay the army! No matter how difficult it was, he always led the team with deep feelings for the army and unswervingly adhered to the main line of serving the army. With more than ten years of persistence and dedication, the company has gradually created an excellent UAV brand in the industry.
Research and development of climbing the plateau in his 60s
For the cause of UAV, Li Yuzhuang has devoted himself to R & D and testing and has been running around all year round. From the high temperature of 40 to the low temperature of minus 43, and then to the environment of gust 7 and wind and snow, after countless reliability test flights, Li Yuzhuang led the team to upgrade the UAV from the first generation to the current seventh generation, breaking through the key technologies of UAV for many times.
Li Yuzhuang never missed every test flight of the company——
In 2013, the company developed China’s first amphibious UAV. In order to make the UAV meet the requirements of anti damp heat, anti mold, anti salt fog and waterproof, he personally led the team to carry out UAV test in the humid and hot environment of the Southern Ocean, and observed every process of UAV launching at sea in the bumpy waves.
In 2015, the company developed China’s first plateau UAV. At the age of 61, he led a team to conduct field tests in areas above 5000 meters above sea level twice. Each test lasted more than half a month. He insisted on carrying an oxygen bottle.
At present, the products developed by the company have reached the international advanced level of similar products, won 1 second prize of national scientific and technological progress award, 1 invention patent, 23 utility model patents and 6 computer software copyrights, created nine “firsts” in China’s aviation industry, filled a number of gaps in the field of UAVs and made contributions to promoting the leapfrog development of high-tech equipment.
Li Yuzhuang, 67, is still full of energy. “All my life, I just want to make this small plane.” He said that as a retired soldier, he is very satisfied that he can do something for national defense construction and military development.
(Yangcheng Evening News)
