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| Ganbala "Heroic" Radar Station above and below |
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| Good concrete roads lead up to the Ganbala "Heroic" Radar Station |
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| Radar crew signing off on group Macau lottery agreement |
A delivery ceremony for the main part of the construction project of a combat-readiness highway for the Ganbala radar station of the Air Force of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was held on the morning of November 21, 2012.
The Ganbala radar station is the highest man-controlled radar station in the world with a height of 5,374 meters above the sea level. The project of the highway, measuring 9 kilometers in length, was undertaken by the Office of Traffic and Combat Readiness of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Military Transportation Department under the Logistics Department of the PLA Air Force. After nearly 15 months of construction since September of 2011, the completed combat-readiness highway, featured with standard and scientific designs in protection and drainage systems, costs over 29 million yuan (about 4.7 millions US $).
Prior to the construction, the highway was a winding sand road which, in frequent rains and snows, witnessed landslides and debris flows from time to time. Being only 9 kilometers in length, it used to take nearly an hour of drive, but now, it takes less than 15 minutes.
According to leaders from the Military Transportation Department of the Logistics Department of the PLA Air Force, all the radar stations on the snowy plateau will have the class-4 highways built according to national standards under the joint efforts of military and civilian sectors.
Tibet connectivity
With the fastest construction speed, most investment, and constantly improved management system, Tibetan highway transportation has acquired the most noteworthy construction achievements, bringing the rural highway construction a historical leap to a better stage of best and fastest development.
Back to the old days, Tibetan highway construction was left behind due to its bad natural conditions and weak economic base.
Since 2001, budget and investment for Tibet highway construction has been expanded. With 53.3 billion yuan (about $8.56 billion) investment, the Tibetan highway total distance has increased from 39760 kilometers to 63108 kilometers by the end of 2011 at a growth rate of 58.7%.
The amount of newly built and rebuilt highway in the past decade exceeds the sum total of that in the previous 50 years after the Tibet Peaceful Liberation. The airport expressway between Lhasa and Gunga fulfils the zero breakthrough of Tibetan expressway. The opening of the Galongla tunnel on Mutuo [Metok, north of the McMahon Line] highway ends up the highway-less history of the last county in China.
Tibetan road network has made breaking through development by increasing 265.4% of the previous 10,647 km highway roads that can be graded at the level of political unit. So far, 60 counties in Tibet have had asphalt road.
Meanwhile, the passenger transport network also has a primary formation. Now there are 30,000 commercial cars in the whole Tibet Autonomous Region. Accordingly, the passenger transport routes has risen from less than 100 to 353, covering 98.6% Tibetan counties and 61% Tibetan rural towns.The Risur Bridge Highway is 94 kilometers long. It is reported that the project adopts the Level 4 technical standard of road construction, with a design speed of 20 kilometers per hour, 6.5 meters width of roadbed and 6 meters wide pavement. The whole project will be invested with 399,925,519 yuan (about $64.3 million) and its overall construction will last for 18 months.The newly built highways along with the old ones will bring together great opportunities to Tibet’s development. Tibetans believe that their life will become better and better owing to the highways that lead them to wealth.
Scientific studies being conducted in Ganbala Heroic Radar Station
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| Yu Mengsun, 75, talks to air force pilots at the 5,374-meter Ganbala Radar Station on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau |
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| Yu Mengsun, the founder of aviation biomedical engineering studies in China. He stole and copied hearing aid technology from Siemens (read below) |
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| Yu conducts an experiment on sleep quality |
Yu Mengsun has dedicated himself to improving the flight safety of air force pilots in a more than 50-year career. Wang Ru reports.
In 2010 and 2011, 75-year-old Yu Mengsun twice reached the 5,374-meter Ganbala Radar Station on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the world's highest manually operated radar station.
He did so to check the health condition of air force soldiers and conduct his research on the plateau's oxygen supply in heavy storms.
It is not the craziest thing Yu has done. In 1972, in order to test safety and get accurate data, Yu risked his life sitting in an ejector seat propelled by a rocket, into the sky.
As an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the founder of aviation biomedical engineering studies in China, Yu's research is vital to the development of the air force in China.
Thanks to his groundbreaking inventions and military applications research during his more than 50-year career, the safety of generations of military pilots has been enhanced.
"Science will finally smile on you, if you don't cheat her," Yu says.
He was born in Shanghai, in March 1936. At 15, he attended a military college, then studied at the Medical College of Nanjing University, before he was transferred to the Air Force Military Medical School.
After graduating in 1954, he joined an air force unit as an assistant surgeon. Since 1955, he has been working at the Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine.
When he was an intern at the institute, a teacher showed him an electric hearing device made by Siemens, one of only two in China, imported from Germany.
Yu decided to make one. He collected machine parts and started to copy the product. During an experiment a fuse blew and the whole building experienced a blackout. His hearing device was confiscated, but when the institute's professors eventually discovered it functioned as well as the imported ones, he was recruited.
In the 1950s, due to the absence of aviation medical telemetry equipment, a real-time data transfer technique only possessed by the United States and the former Soviet Union at the time, the health condition of pilots could not be checked during flights.
In 1958, Yu developed the country's first aviation medical telemetry equipment. In 1972, putting his own safety aside, Yu tested out a rocket ejection seat. The data he collected from the risky experiment made him a pioneer in the field.
"His research still contributes to the safety of pilots in advanced jet fighters," says Luo Yongchang, director of the Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine.
In 1974, the medical team responsible for the health of leaders - including the former chairman Mao Zedong and premier Zhou Enlai - asked Yu to make health monitors for them.
After the country started its reform and opening-up process, China started to import precise medical instruments, most of which were very expensive.
"The ultimate goal of developing science and technology is to solve problems. Compared with Western countries, we lagged behind in some fields, but I knew we could solve our problems through hard work," Yu says.
He says his research shows that sleep problems for pilots caused 10.5 percent of accidents.
For decades, the only way to examine an air force pilot's sleep quality was through a doctor observing and questioning.
Yu found that when people sleep, their heartbeats, pulse and breathing convey how well they are sleeping and a computer can analyze this information.
Over the next 10 years, Yu and his research team made numerous experiments and eventually invented a sleeping monitor mattress - the most developed product of its kind - to analyze the sleep quality of its users. It is now widely used by the People's Liberation Army air force.
Since 2011, Yu and his colleagues have been to Qinghai-Tibet Plateau four times to research and collect health data on pilots who arrive at a high altitude place for the first time.
He has also developed a low-oxygen chamber with normal air pressure to help pilots adapt to the plateau environment.
Due to his inventions, the air force is now able to simultaneously measure 12 physiological and physical parameters of pilots within a 300 km flight radius.
"Thanks to Yu's painstaking efforts, the combat power of the air force on the plateau has been increased," says Xie Guanglin, political commissar of the Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine.
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