Zee Yee Lee

Zee Yee Lee (; 1891–1944) was a Chinese aviation pioneer. After becoming the first Chinese pilot to earn a Royal Aero Club certificate in October 1911, he brought two Etrich Taube monoplanes to China and flew on over Shanghai in April 1912. He was by some accounts China's first aviator, and was also one of the first Chinese aircraft designers. He served as the chief instructor and head of the Nanyuan Aviation School in Beijing for 15 years, and later taught at the predecessor of the Republic of China Air Force Academy.

Biography Lee was born in 1891 in Shanghai, Qing dynasty China, in his ancestral home in Dinghai, Zhejiang. His courtesy name was Yizhi (翼之). Howard Pixton was one of his flight instructors. On 17 October 1911, Lee flew a Bristol Boxkite on Salisbury Plain and passed the test to become the first Chinese aviator to earn a Royal Aero Club certificate (No. 148). although Feng Ru, who had flown earlier in the United States, is also commonly credited as the first Chinese aviator.

Because of sabotage by the troops of the Fengtian clique when they retreated from Beijing, the Nanyuan Aviation School was closed in 1928. Lee moved south to serve the Kuomintang government, and was appointed deputy director of the Aviation Corps of the Central Military Academy, which later became the Republic of China Air Force Academy in Jianqiao, Hangzhou. He also designed a floatplane and became one of China's first aircraft designers. He published at least two books on aviation.

Lee left the aviation industry after the 1930s. He died in 1944.