Nanchang Qingyunpu Airport (), also known as Sanjiadian Airport (), is an airport in

Qingyunpu District Qingyunpu District (), is one of 6 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most ...

Nanchang Nanchang (, ; ) is the capital of Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China. Located in the north-central part of the province and in the hinterland of Poyang Lake Plain, it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east ...

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

, China. Originally constructed for use by the

Republic of China Air Force The Republic of China Air Force, retroactively known by its historical name the Chinese Air Force and unofficially referred to as the Taiwanese Air Force, is the military aviation branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces, currently based i ...

, it was the largest airport in China when opened in 1935. The airport was destroyed during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

and rebuilt afterwards. After 1949, it was mainly used for test flights by the aircraft manufacturer

Hongdu Hongdu Aviation Industry Group Ltd. (HAIG) (), formerly China Nanchang Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation or CNAMC, is a Chinese aircraft manufacturer and supplier to the People's Liberation Army, Chinese military. It is based in Nanchang, Jiangx ...

Aviation Industry Group, until its replacement by Nanchang Yaohu Airport in 2018.

Location and facilities

The airport is located in

, the capital of

Province, China. It has a cement runway that is long and wide, capable of handling

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

and similar aircraft. Its elevation is above sea level.

History

Republic of China

Qingyunpu Airport, originally called Sanjiadian Airport, was built for

Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...

Encirclement Campaigns Encirclement campaigns (), officially called in Chinese Communist historiography as the Agrarian Revolutionary War were the campaigns launched by forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government against forces of the Chinese Communist Party during the ...

against the

Chinese Soviet Republic The Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) was an East Asian proto-state in China, proclaimed on 7 November 1931 by Chinese communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De in the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. The discontiguous territories of the CSR ...

, the rebel communist base in southern Jiangxi.

Laoyingfang Airport Nanchang Laoyingfang Airport () was a military air base and the first airport in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, China. Constructed in 1929, it was one of the four major air bases of the Republic of China Air Force in the 1930s. Laoyingf ...

was originally used for that purpose, but its proximity to the city center impeded frequent military operations by the 250 war planes based there. In September 1933, Chiang ordered the construction of Sanjiadian Airport in Qingyunpu, then in the far outskirts of Nanchang, and mobilized 290,000 labourers from 83 counties of Jiangxi Province. Construction officially began on 1 August 1934, and the airport was opened in the spring of 1935. At the time it was the largest airport in China, proclaimed to be the "No. 1 airport in the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

". It was then often referred to as the New Nanchang Airport. In 1933, Chiang Kai-shek signed an agreement with Italian Prime Minister

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

to establish a joint venture in China to manufacture airplanes. The company, called Sino-Italian National Aircraft Works (SINAW), was established in 1934 in Nanchang, with factories located at both Sanjiadian and Laoyingfang airports. It became the predecessor of

Aviation Industry Group, one of China's major aircraft manufacturers. After the outbreak of the

in 1937, SINAW factories were severely damaged by Japanese aerial bombing. During a bombing of Qingyunpu on 22 December 1937, 9

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

fighter aircraft led by Shiota Ryōhei flying out of recently captured

Nanking Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

and escorting 12 IJN bombers were intercepted by

Chinese Air Force The People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF; ), also known as the Chinese Air Force (中国空军) or the People's Air Force (人民空军), is an Air force, aerial service branch of the People's Liberation Army, the regular army, regular ...

fighters; Shiota Ryōhei (潮田良平) himself was shot down and killed by Xu Baodi (徐葆畇), a pilot of the

5th Pursuit Group The 5th Pursuit Group was an Air Service, United States Army unit that was assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. It was demobilized in Germany after serving with the Third Army Air Service as part of the American Occu ...

flying a

Polikarpov I-15 The Polikarpov I-15 (russian: И-15) was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed ''Chaika'' (''russian: Чайка'', "Seagull") because of its gulled upper wings,Gunston 1995, p. 299.Green and Swanborough 1979, p. 10. it was o ...

acquired by the Chinese under the new Sino-Soviet Treaty to counter Imperial Japanese aggressions. The

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

dispatched a volunteer air force to Qingyunpu Airport to help China fight the Japanese. Captain Anton Alekseyevich Gubenko and Major Liu Zhesheng among others all shot down Japanese bogeys during a major air battle over Nanchang on 26 June 1938. The airport was destroyed as a result of the prolonged fighting and attrition from 1937 into mid-1939, and was rebuilt after the end of the war in 1945.

People's Republic of China

After the establishment of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in 1949, the airport was renovated and used for aircraft testing by Hongdu Machinery Factory (now Hongdu Aviation). From March 1981 to early 1982, when the runway of

Nanchang Xiangtang Airport Nanchang Xiangtang Airport (), or Xiangtang Air Base, is a military airbase in Xiangtang, Jiangxi, China. It also served as the main civil airport of Nanchang from 1957 until 1999, when all commercial flights were transferred to the new Nanchang ...

was being improved, Qingyunpu temporarily served as Nanchang's public airport for nine months. With the expansion of the city of Nanchang, Qingyunpu Airport became surrounded by the increasingly urban Qingyunpu District and restricted its development. Several major thoroughfares are cut off by the airport, causing Qingyunpu to be known as the most congested district of Nanchang. On 23 December 2009, the Jiangxi provincial government reached an agreement with

Aviation Industry Corporation of China Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, the parent company of Hongdu Aviation, to build the new Yaohu Airport in the Nanchang Aviation Industrial City to replace Qingyunpu Airport. Construction for Yaohu Airport began in November 2016, and it was opened on 16 August 2018. Qingyunpu Airport is expected to close by the end of 2018.

References

{{authority control Buildings and structures in China destroyed during World War II Airports in Jiangxi Transport in Nanchang Airports established in 1935 1935 establishments in China Defunct airports in China Chinese Civil War Second Sino-Japanese War Republic of China Air Force Hongdu