Li Tian (Chinese: 李天; pinyin: Lǐ Tiān; Wade–Giles: Li T'ien; 2 October 1938 – 11 April 2018) was a Chinese physicist and aircraft designer. An expert in aerodynamics for aeronautics, he served as chief scientist of the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. He was also an adjunct professor at Beihang University.[1]

Biography

Li was born in October 1938 in Jilin City, Jilin province. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 1963 with a degree in fluid mechanics.[2] He was assigned to the then 601 Institute as a technician afterwards, and was banished to western Liaoning during the Cultural Revolution.[3]

Li was responsible for the aerodynamic projects when developing Shenyang J-8 and Shenyang J-11, he is known as one of the founders of Chinese stealth technology for aircraft. He improved Chinese fighter configurations and stealthy designs by combining electromagnetic scattering characteristics with aerodynamic theory.[4]

Li was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2005.

Li's father, Li Pengshu, taught Chinese literature at a high school. Li was the third of five children. After his mother died in 1948, his father remarried in 1950 and had two more children.[3] Li died on 11 April 2018 in Shenyang, aged 79.[1]

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