Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Chu Chia-Jen (; 1900 – July 11, 1985) was a Chinese aviation engineer in charge of manufacturing and development of military aircraft for the

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in Chin ...

in the 1930s to 1950s.

Biography

Chu was born in 1900 in

Hanshou County Hanshou County () is a county in Hunan Province, China, it is under the administration of Changde prefecture-city. The County is located on the north in Hunan Province and the southeast in Changde City, it borders to the north and the west by D ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...

Qing China The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

. After completing his secondary studies in

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...

he studied aviation engineering at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

from 1920 to 1926. After working at several aircraft manufacturers in the US, he returned to China in 1928. He worked at aviation factory near

Shanghai Hongqiao Airport Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport is one of the two international airports of Shanghai and a significant airline hub of China. Hongqiao Airport mainly serves domestic and regional flights, although the airport also serves international fl ...

as a service technician, then joined the

and was in charge of an aircraft manufacturing facility in

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

. In 1930 he worked at the Nanjing Aeronautics Department. Chu helped developed two experimental helicopters, the

Hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics ar ...

in the 1940s and

CJC-3 CJC-3 was an experimental tandem rotor helicopter developed in Taiwan during the 1950s under the director of Major General C.J. Chu (朱家仁). Chu was a Chinese aeronautics engineer, who returned to China following his graduation from MIT in 1 ...

in the 1950s. Neither aircraft was developed into a production model. He also developed the XP-0, one of the few Chinese-made aircraft of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Zhu retired on December 31, 1962. He moved to the United States in 1980 and died at his home there on July 11, 1985.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chu, Chia-Jen 1900 births 1985 deaths Chinese aircraft designers National Revolutionary Army generals MIT School of Engineering alumni Chinese expatriates in the United States People from Hanshou County Engineers from Hunan Military personnel of the Republic of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War