While most kids his age play video games, a young Chinese man spends most of his time working on a working jet engine.

Che Jingang is not an ordinary 14-year-old high school student. Having developed a passion for aeronautics at a very young age, he began studying the basics, taught himself calculus and is now building a working turbo engine by hand.

Che was only in kindergarten when he became fascinated with paper airplanes. He noticed the difference between throwing a paper ball and launching a paper airplane by hand, and was curious about what made the airplane fly that way.

Soon, he converted his home into an experimental paper airplane laboratory, but that was just the beginning. According to his parents, Che used to spend three hours every day reading science books on aeronautics.

And by the third grade, he was already teaching himself calculus, aerodynamics, printed circuits, as well as working with complex software such as SolidWorks and Computer Aided Design (CAD).

At one point, he discovered online tutorials and decided to build something practical himself. He mainly focused on video tutorials on Duoyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and progressed to the point where he decided to build a working miniature jet engine.

But he didn’t want to just copy someone else’s design and be done with it. He wanted to design it himself, using his acquired knowledge. “Some people publish sketches online, but if I copied them directly, I thought it would be pointless,” says Che Jiangping.

“I wouldn’t learn anything and it would be a waste of time,” he added. To fulfill his dream, the young and talented guy started designing every little component from scratch, making his 2D engineering drawings in CAD, building 3D models in SolidWorks, calculating air flow, temperature and pressure using simulation software.

He started documenting every process by uploading clips to Douyin and, very soon, he started interacting with people with the same interests. Other enthusiasts shared advice in the comments section, others supported him, and some even offered to 3D print his components for free.

Within six months, he already had a prototype. Unfortunately, the test failed, as Che himself identified problems with the fuel, combustion chamber design and compressor arrangement. But he didn’t let this obstacle stop his ambition.

“Nothing can be achieved successfully on the first try. Even if I didn’t succeed, I learned something and that gives me the motivation to build it a second time,” says the teenager.

Che Jingang is already working on a new and improved version of a working turbo engine and is preparing to test it. Meanwhile, most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite and wasting their time on social media. /tesheshi

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Source: prizrenpost