The People's Liberation Army of China "said goodbye" to its most famous combat fighter J-6 - a copy of the Soviet MiG-19
Last weekend, the PRC Central Television news channel aired an unusual reportage. At one of the military airfields, a farewell ceremony was held with the last J-6 fighters. "Veteran" is not just quietly written off to the reserve. The fighter, who served with faith and truth for more than forty years, was given a ceremonial farewell in China.
The last batch of fighters was used for training purposes in the Jinan Military District. Now the J-6 in disassembled form will be transported to one of the PLA Air Force warehouses, where it will be reassembled and stored carefully. Some of the vehicles will add to the museum collections, because we are really talking about the legendary combat vehicle.
The J-6, a copy of the Soviet MiG-19, belongs to the first generation of supersonic fighters produced in China under a Soviet license. In addition, this is the most massive aircraft produced in the entire history of the Chinese aviation industry. For more than 20 years, about 4,000 combat vehicles were produced in the PRC.
In the Soviet Union, the production of MIG-19s was discontinued in 1957 - they were supplanted by more modern and faster machines. The fate of the Chinese relative of the "nineteenth" was much more happy.
The beginning was laid in the late 50s. In 1957, an agreement was signed between the Soviet Union and China on the licensed production of the MiG-19P and the RD-9B engine. The MiG-19P was an all-weather interceptor equipped with a radar and two cannons (in China it was named J-6). A little later, Moscow and Beijing signed a similar agreement on the MiG-19PM, which was armed with four air-to-air missiles. The latter, in 1959, was granted a license for the MiG-19S with cannon armament.
The USSR handed over technical documentation and five disassembled MiG-19Ps to the Chinese side. In March 1958, the Shenyang aircraft plant began assembling fighters. The first aircraft from the supplied Soviet spare parts took off on December 17, 1958. And the first flight of the Chinese-built J-6 took place at the end of September 1959, on the 10th anniversary of the formation of the PRC.
However, it took another four years to establish in-line production of these machines. In-line assembly of the J-6 in Shenyang began only in December 1963.
Since the mid 60s. The J-6 was the main vehicle protecting the air borders of the PRC. From 1964 to 1971, pilots of the Air Force and Aviation of the Chinese Navy in J-6 destroyed 21 aircraft violating the airspace of the PRC. Among them is the Taiwanese amphibian HU-6 Albatross, shot down over the sea on January 10, 1966. Not without losses - in 1967, two J-6 fighters were destroyed in a battle with Taiwanese F-104C Starfighters.
The J-6 fighters and modifications created on its basis formed the basis of the striking power of the Chinese aviation until the second half of the 1990s. China used fighter jets during the armed conflict with Vietnam in 1979, which is often called the "first socialist war."
The J-6 was used several times by defector pilots. Three such incidents are related to the flight of Chinese pilots to Taiwan, two to South Korea. In April 1979, a Chinese pilot in a J-6 attempted to flee to Vietnam, but died after a fighter crashed into a mountain. The last defector, Senior Lieutenant Wang Baoyu, flew over the Soviet-Chinese border near Stolovaya Mountain on August 25, 1990. The Soviet side handed over both the fighter and the pilot to the Chinese authorities four days later. Wang Baoyu was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life in prison.
The aircraft is unique not only for its long history, but also for its wide distribution throughout the world. Export versions of the J-6 were designated F-6 and FT-6 (training version). China has exported these fighters extensively to countries in Asia and Africa. The first buyers were Pakistan in 1965. Export modifications of the J-6 also entered service with the Air Forces of Albania, Bangladesh, Vietnam, North Korea, Kampuchea, Egypt, Iraq (through Egypt), Iran, Tanzania, Zambia, Sudan and Somalia.
And although this aircraft is already in stock in China, it is possible that some copies of the legendary J-6 are still in service in developing countries.
Saluting the planes lined up in a row, the Chinese soldiers on the airfield parted with the legendary aircraft with noticeable sadness. After that, the planes were decorated with bright red bows. And then - the traditional photographing against the background of the departing "fighting friends". For memory. J-6 left a very good memory of himself in China.
