Xu Shunshou

Xu Shunshou (; 21 August 1917 – 6 January 1968) was a Chinese aircraft designer and a founder of the aircraft manufacturing industry in the People's Republic of China. He was the founding director of the PRC's first aircraft design organization (later the Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute), where he oversaw the development of the Shenyang JJ-1, the first jet aircraft designed in China. He trained many of the country's top aircraft designers and also participated in the design of the Nanchang CJ-6 trainer, the Nanchang Q-5 jet attack aircraft, and the Xian H-6 bomber. He was severely persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and died at the age of 50.

Republic of China Xu Shunshou was born on 21 August 1917 in Shanghai, Republic of China, the youngest child of Xu Yibing, an educator and a member of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary group Tongmenghui. When he was three, his family returned to their hometown Nanxun, in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. He lost his father at a young age. Upon graduation four years later with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, he briefly worked at the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company in Jianqiao, Hangzhou, before entering the special aviation mechanics program of the National Central University in Nanjing. China's wartime capital. Upon graduation in March 1939, Xu joined the Republic of China Air Force and served at the technical research office of the air force's aviation committee in Chengdu. Xu led a team of 108 people, After the JJ-1, Xu participated in the design of the Nanchang CJ-6 trainer, the Nanchang Q-5 jet attack aircraft, and the Xian H-6 bomber. He also designed wind tunnels used for aircraft development. On 19 May 2005, the first anniversary of the establishment of Tsinghua University School of Aerospace Engineering, a life-size marble statue of Xu was dedicated in the main building of the school. In 2008, the China Aviation Industry Press published Xu's biography, written by Shi Yuanguang and Xu's former trainee, academician Gu Songfen.

Family Xu was the youngest of five siblings. His brother, Xu Chi, was a famous writer known for his popular biographies of Chen Jingrun and Li Siguang. His third sister, Xu He (徐和), was the wife of Wu Xiuquan, who served as Vice Foreign Minister of China.

Xu married Song Shubi (宋蜀碧) in 1946, whom he had met four years before while working in Chengdu. She was a writer and translator known for her Chinese translation of Aylmer Maude's The Life of Tolstoy. The couple had three children. Their daughter, Xu Fan (徐汎), was an official of the World Tourism Organization of the United Nations. Their elder son, Xu Wen (徐汶), was still in middle school when Xu Shunshou died. He worked in a brick factory for eight years, and entered college after the Cultural Revolution and became an aerospace engineer. Their youngest son, Xu Yuan (徐源), became a tenured professor of mathematics at an American university.