Like many other industries on the mainland, the aviation sector has come a long way since French aviator Rene Vallon took off from a Shanghai racecourse on February 21, 1911 in a Sommer biplane and buzzed around the skies for about 10 minutes, marking the first powered flight in China.
Impressed by the Frenchman's aircraft-handling skills, a reporter working for the English-language North China News at the time wrote that Sommer's 50 horsepower engine 'cackled like a Maxim' gun and that the 12-metre-long craft performed a figure-eight manoeuvre. The reporter also described the landing as being 'like a fastidious butterfly approaching a flower'.
With the assistance of three Americans contracted to work with the Chinese government, within 12 years of the first mainland flight, China could claim the first plane designed and built in the country, a small biplane, fittingly referred to as China Airplane No 1.
'China's aviation history slightly predates Hong Kong's and includes an interesting evolution,' says Martin Craigs, Hong Kong-based president of the Aerospace Forum Asia, who was in Shanghai to celebrate the mainland's 100th anniversary of powered flight.
Following the initial enthusiasm for aviation, for several years the mainland's aviation industry took a back seat to other developments. When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, there were less than 40 airports in the entire country. At the time, the mainland had only one airline, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and airports and airspace were controlled by the military.
Adding to the limitations, most airports were unable to accommodate large commercial aircraft. This began to change during the era of Deng Xiaoping, when he encouraged business links with the international community. During the 1980s and 1990s, the mainland's aviation industry started to expand rapidly.