The man who installs 'eyes' for missiles
- By Dong Ning and Li Jingrong
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 29, 2017
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Jia Yan processes a hole with a diameter of 0.17 millimeter on the wall of a stainless steel pipe with a diameter of 2 millimeters. This job is a severe test of a person's hand stability, the observational power of the eye, and the psychological quality of an ice-cold nerve. [Photo by Dong Ning/China.org.cn] |
Jia began his career in 1981. He has produced, processed and installed numerous spare parts, covering most types of China's defensive missiles since then. By working with his team, Jia has resolved numerous serious technical difficulties in his particular field of expertise.
Nowadays, computer digital control machine tools have been widely used in the military industry, but the manufacture of many kinds of ultra-precision parts can still only be undertaken by highly-skilled fitters by hand.
Once, Jia and his team performed a mission to process a hole with a diameter of 0.17 millimeters on the wall of a stainless-steel pipe with a diameter of 2 millimeters, meaning a hole as thick as a hair on a steel needle. It's not hard to imagine how difficult it was.
While recalling the scene, a technician said all the drilling has to be done under a magnifying glass. "As the drill bit is extremely tiny and thin, any carelessness may cause the drill to break. Even if one manages to finish the job, the size of the hole and the elasticity were far from standard, with the reject rate reached around 50 percent."
Jia didn't rush to drill the hole as soon as he took over the mission, but first worked out a precise overall plan. He first drilled a bottom outlet with a diameter of 0.15mm on the wall of the pipe, grinding it bit by bit by hand, and finally expanding it by 0.02 millimeter to complete the process.
That particular component has been processed and verified more than 2,000 times, in line with technical requirements.
And that's only one part of Jia's achievements. In more than three decades of working with military industrial products, he has solved a lot of technical problems with diligence and displaying his excellent skills. The products he has handled number more than 100,000, with a continuous record of "zero wastage."
With the progress of science and technology, Chinese military enterprises are also developing rapidly, setting higher requirements for the assembly of military industrial products. Most of the spare parts in missiles' key components are complicated and highly costly to produce.
It is a very hard job to assemble several hundred ultra-precision parts together after processing and grinding to make them capable of being melded together and operating freely. Only those thoughtful, talented and experienced fitters like Jia are capable of the job.
In recent years, the assembly task undertaken by Jia and his team has become ever more difficult. For example, the gap between the assembled parts is often required to be within 0.01 millimeter and usually hundreds of spare parts are put together. By moving steadily and meeting the challenges calmly, the technicians find problems and solve them under operational conditions.
Just as Rome was not built in a day, Jia's wonderful skill is the crystallization of years' hard work and dedication. Through acquiring a wide range of experience, Jia can spot the problem at a glance or with one touch, and has become a trouble-shooter to ensure the normal operation in all major projects.
In view of his outstanding contribution, Jia has been given the honorific title of technical expert in the national defense industry, and listed in the national talent pool.
Today, Jia has his own workshop built in the academy mainly engaged in teaching apprentices, testing new products and solving thorny technical problems. Under Jia's leadership, and with their dexterous hands, the technicians have made up for the unattainable parts of mechanical production to install "bright eyes" for missiles.
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