Often confused with the Soviet Yak-52, the Nanchang CJ-6 actually predates its Russian counterpart by over ten years. The genesis of the Nanchang CJ-6 traces back to the continuation of a long tradition of the USSR supplying arms and equipment to the Chinese Communists.

Yak-18

After successfully installing a Communist regime in China, the Soviets began supplying aircraft for the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The aircraft supplied was the Yak-18, built under licence in China as the Nanchang CJ-5.

Introduced in 1954 the CJ-5 did not offer sufficient performance to allow pilots to smoothly transition to the much higher performance jet fighters that were increasingly being deployed in front line air forces, relegating piston engined fighters to history.

In 1956 a design team was launched headed by Mr Shunshou Xu. Their job was to design a Chinese primary trainer aircraft. By 1958 they had completed the first aircraft, built in an amazing 72 days from detail design to first flight.

On August 27, 1958, pilots Lu Maofan and He Yinxi made the first test flight in the new trainer; however, its performance fell short of the PLAAF requirements. It was felt that the problem may have been in the choice of the M-11FR engine instead of a Czech built, horizontally-opposed engine originally planned. A change of engine was sought and when this didn’t cure the performance woes, the prototype was sent back to be redesigned. Just over two years later on October 15, 1961, the remodelled prototype made its first flight and this time it was successful. After gaining official approval, production of the aircraft commenced in early 1962 as the Nanchang CJ-6. A change of engine from the 260 hp Zhuzhou Huosai HS-6 (a Chinese version of the Ivchenko AI-14R) to the 285 hp HS-6A in 1965 led to the CJ-6 becoming the CJ-6A. Between 1964 and 1966 small numbers of an armed version, the CJ-6B, powered by a 300 hp HS-6D engine were also built and used for border patrol.

The Yak-52 came about as a tricycle gear upgrade of the Yak-50, and entered production in the early 1970s. It features a bigger engine than the Nanchang CJ-6A (360hp vs 285hp), an inverted fuel and oil system for inverted flight, higher roll rate and high drag airframe due mainly to semi-retracting gear. This results in superior aerobatic performance but inferior cruise performance and higher fuel burn. Generally parts are more costly and not as easy to obtain as Chinese spares.

Yak-52

Those who have looked closely at both aircraft will notice they share many similarities, especially in the cockpit. This is mainly due to the fact that instrument manufacturing was in its infancy in China during the Nanchang CJ-6A’s development, and also many pilots transitioning to the CJ-6A had flown the CJ-5 which was essentially a Yak-18. This meant the Chinese basically copied many of the instruments from the Russians.