December 17 last year marked the centennial anniversary of humankind's first powered flight. But the day had a special significance for Cao Zhengshu and Zhou Shangyuan, two farmers who live in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Both Cao and Zhou are deeply caught up in their ambition to build their own airplane.

Since 1986, Cao has built five airplanes, but not a one of them successfully broke bonds with the earth.

Zhou has been a bit more successful. His passion for building aircraft, which goes back to 1992, includes a 200-metre flight. But as soon as he tried a small turn, his dream machine, which had reached an altitude of about 5 meters, stalled out and plummeted to earth.

Neither of the two men, who build their aircraft from scratch and have crashed them into farmers' fields countless times, thought for a moment of giving up their hobbies, which their fellow villagers saw as something decidedly weird.

The city of Mianyang where Cao lives and Wenjiang County where Zhou lives, in central Sichuan, are almost 100 kilometers apart, and despite their similar passions, the two farmer engineers had never met before.

Last month, they were overjoyed to receive an invitation from the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, located in the city of Guanghan, in Sichuan, to examine the aircraft in the university and learn from professionals.

When they met in the university, Cao and Zhou immediately became friends.

Walking around the moth-balled aircraft on display in the university, they marveled that there were so many technical terms they never heard of, and that the materials used in the construction of even the oldest of the aircraft there were so much better than the materials they had used in their own machines.

The climax of the trip came when they were invited to board a plane for a brief flight.

Cao had never sat in a plane flown by someone else before. He said it felt like sitting in a ship. Zhou said that when he went up, it felt "just like when my plane was about to crash."

With their living conditions improving in recent years, more and more farmers across the country have taken up previously unheard-of interests.

Living in Xiongdi Village near Lanzhou, the capital of Northwest China's Gansu Province, Zhang Yuxiang has the same hobby as Cao and Zhou.

An honest, persevering and somewhat conservative man, Zhang has dared to dream far beyond the confines of his country village.

The 45-year-old farmer-turned engineer has built an aircraft with a Santana car engine, three motorcycle wheels and a propeller he carved out of wood.

Zhang's home-made aircraft, which is 6 meters long, 2 meters tall and has a wingspan of over 9 meters, can seat two people. The silvery white body of the 480-kilogram aircraft is made of aluminium and is held together with over 20,000 rivets.

One of the few farmers to finish high school in his village, Zhang became an avid aviation fan after reading an aviation magazine in his mid 30s, and has been dreaming ever since of building his own light aircraft.

Zhang's dream came true early in 2001, when he finally had enough savings after 10 years of repairing motorcycles in his village, which is in the city of Baiyin, in the eastern part of the province.

He spent three years and 80,000 yuan (US$9,600) an astronomical sum in the eyes of his fellow villagers on the aircraft.

But Zhang's enthusiasm was dampened when his aircraft failed to fly last September.

Though it was the first time most of the villagers had ever seen an aircraft, the majority of them lost interest when it failed to take off, after speeding along the village's bumpy "runway" time and time again.

But the villagers still think highly of Zhang. "He's an expert on high-tech gadgets. For example, he knows everything about motorcycles," said one. "I've never even been in an aircraft. He really has guts," said another.

To little children in the village, "Uncle Zhang" is simply a hero. "I hope he can teach me how to make a plane someday," said a preschool boy. However, Zhang's brother-in-law Luo Qingkui disapproves of Zhang's endeavors.

"It's too risky for a layman to try such high-tech stuff," said Luo, 55. "In fact, all our family worries a lot about him. What if the aircraft did take off and then crashed."

But Zhang himself is not at all daunted by the failure.

He has asked for professional help from pilots and is still working on the technical problems with his plane.

The persevering farmer insists he will solve the problems by himself.

Zhang Yuxiang, Cao Zhengshu and Zhou Shangyuan are by no means the only farmers in China to attempt to build aircraft, as the better educated farmers of recent generations are quickly picking up new technology to keep pace with modern society.

For example, Liu Yibing, a farmer from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, in Northwest China, successfully flew his home-made plane in 2000. He was 28 then and had only finished junior high school.

Many experts have praised these farmers' courage and perseverance. "It's good to see better-off farmers devoting themselves to science and technology, rather than squandering money on luxuries or gambling," said Qu Wei, an economist with the Gansu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

(China Daily January 7, 2004)