Song Wencong

Song was born on 26 March 1930, in Kunming, Yunnan, with his ancestral home in Dali, Yunnan. He joined a youth organization of the Chinese Communist Party by the end of 1948. He enlisted in the Yunnan-Guangxi-Guizhou border region column of People's Liberation Army in July 1949 as a scout. In May 1951, he joined the China's People's Volunteer Army to fight against the United Nations Command in the Korean War.^[2] In August 1954, he was accepted to Harbin Institute of Military Engineering (now Harbin Engineering University), where he majored in aircraft engine at the Air Force Engineering Department. After graduating in July 1960 he was assigned to Shenyang 601 Design District as a designer. He was a designer of Chengdu 611 Design District from 1970 to 1974, and he was elected deputy chief designer for 1977 and chief designer for 1980.^[3][4]

At the age of 56, he was appointed chief designer of the Chengdu J-10.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003, he was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.^{[citation needed]}

He was honored as one of the top ten people touching China in 2009.^{[citation needed]}

On 22 March 2016, Song died at 301 Military Hospital in Beijing, aged 85.^[4]

• Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation
• Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute
• Yang Wei