Russian Civil Aviation: News #3

End of commercial operation of An-148 aircraft in Russia

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4207423.html

Russian composite wing for "MS-21" has been successfully tested

On December 9 this year it became known that the wing for the promising Russian airliner MS-21 passed static tests, proving all the declared parameters. It is made of Russian composite materials that have no analogues in the whole world.

Initially, it was planned to purchase composites in the United States, but in 2018 American sanctions were introduced in this area. As a result, Russia began to independently master the production of complex composites. Over 6 billion rubles of budgetary funds were allocated for this purpose, which bore fruit two years later. The newest composites are produced at the plant in Alabuga, owned by Rosatom.

Of course, there is still a long way to go before mass production of the MC-21. But creating a full-fledged wing model is a very important step towards the main goal. In the future, it is planned that the airliner will be able to occupy at least 5% of the entire world aircraft market, not counting the needs of Russia. This is not as small as it might seem at first glance.

The domestic airliner can push the global giants Boeing and Airbus due to its advantages, such as the widest cabin among competitors, passenger comfort, fuel efficiency and long flight range. This will be largely facilitated by a new Russian aircraft engine created from scratch."PD-14" :
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/they/rossiiskoe-kompozitnoe-krylo-dlia-ms21-uspeshno-proshlo-ispytaniia-5fd250b9f72a8c3ef204b247

kvs wrote:Relevant for Russia. The Boeing 737 Max is being recertified in the west at breakneck speed. Supposedly it only
requires a bug fix in its software and "accidents happen". Russia should be careful about letting this crap fly
its skies. And it should make sure that any NATzO attempt at coercion against its aircraft industry gets swift
regulatory payback. This includes banning overflights by uncertified NATzO rubbish.

They should ban the 737max over the whole country. Even over flights

Boeing gets 40% of its titanium from Russia. Russia should put it on the table. One more sanction against the MS-21 should result in a halt of titanium exports to Boeing.

Russia has to stop absorbing these attacks from the US.

The fact that Iran hasn't yet taken delivery of any SSJ and hasn't placed first dibs on the MS-21 shows how bad of an "ally" Iran is. They could have ordered modernized iL.96's too. But nope. The Muhllas are a bunch of cowards.

How is the MS-21 marginally better than a pulley 737? It's way better

The AN220 / c series is a piece of shit. It is slow. One of the slowest modern era liners

Backman wrote:

kvs wrote:Relevant for Russia.  The Boeing 737 Max is being recertified in the west at breakneck speed.  Supposedly it only
requires a bug fix in its software and "accidents happen".    Russia should be careful about letting this crap fly
its skies.   And it should make sure that any NATzO attempt at coercion against its aircraft industry gets swift
regulatory payback.   This includes banning overflights by uncertified NATzO rubbish.

They should ban the 737max over the whole country. Even over flights

Boeing gets 40% of its titanium from Russia. Russia should put it on the table. One more sanction against the MS-21 should result in a halt of titanium exports to Boeing.

Russia has to stop absorbing these attacks from the US.

The fact that Iran hasn't yet taken delivery of any SSJ and hasn't placed first dibs on the MS-21 shows how bad of an "ally" Iran is. They could have ordered modernized iL.96's too. But nope. The Muhllas are a bunch of cowards.

How is the MS-21 marginally better than a pulley 737? It's way better

The AN220 / c series is a piece of shit. It is slow. One of the slowest modern era liners

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the sale of SSJ's to Iran f%^cked over due to sanctions? Something about western tech in the plane.
And I think in general the last few years Iran has very little money to spend.
Plus Iran has never been an ally, it's just that the US's shenanigans have driven the two of us together.

PapaDragon wrote:

Maximmmm wrote:...And I think in general the last few years Iran has very little money to spend.
Plus Iran has never been an ally, it's just that the US's shenanigans have driven the two of us together.

Correct

When sanctions were lifted Iran immediately ordered hundreds of airplanes from Boeing and Airbus and not a single one from Russia

When Orange Man slapped sanctions back they started pretending again how they like Russia

As a rule Iran would love nothing more than to suck on that sweet juicy USA cock but unfortunately for them USA refuses to allow them access to the pride of their loins

well one of the issue is that the lifting of some of the sanctions via the nuclear deal and the unfreezing of the billions that Iran has "parked" in western account was probably limited. E.g. we let you use this money, but you can only buy from us and not from Russia or China...

Furthermore Russia had only regional jets available to sell at that time, as the tu204SM was not in production and the engine associated with it contained anyway US content (while the previous version of the engine had worse performance and time on wing).

Let's be honest: at that time Russia could not produce any civil aircraft fully independently (except probably the base version of the Tu204, but it is an aircraft that is not flown in Russia either).

If aeroflot or Rossiya had been still flying with modernised version of tu204 and il96 in 2014, I am sure the export to friendly countries would have been easier.

So Iran was given the possibility to use its foreign accounts (that were frozen for more than 35 years) to buy western products... it is normal that they tried to pursue that path first. Any order for Russian aircrafts would have had to come instead from a different budget...

^ Not quite. The SSJ 100'S could have been delivered. But Iran chose to cancel the whole order.

If they stuck with the order , it would have been done before Trump and the harder sanctions. I also don't think the US forced them to cancel the order.

Edit: It looks like the time was tighter than I thought. There is a Sputnik article that explains it that I cant find. In the article , it says that a Russian trade representative left Iran early and told them off because of it. He said " you (Iran) are choosing to do business with ppl who humiliate you with sanctions" I'll find it eventually.

Regardless. If Iran was a team player with Russia , they could have worked something out. They could have shipped air frames without engines. Or something like that. But Iran wasn't a team player. So nothing got done. And now they sit with almost no good aircraft.

The CAGI conducted the study of the basic aerodynamic model of the joint Russian-Chinese SFDMS CR929 with sickle-shaped wing ending - syberlets. The purpose of the next completed phase of tests was to determine the impact of the deviation of the control and cruising aerodynamic characteristics of the wing with a very large narrowing, as explained in the CAGI - "record for domestic civilian airliners."

Previously, the T-128 CAGI transsonic wind tunnel conducted experimental studies of the CR929 thematic model with two wing variants, and in December 2019, the high speed standard model (HSM) was blown out on a 1:39 scale in the fuselage configuration plus the wing.

Similar aerodynamic wing endings, in this case, cyberlets, were previously tested in CAGI and then tested on prototype aircraft SSJ100 b/n 97006 and 97012. Currently, one of the Superjets with horizontal endings is operated by Severstal, this is the ra-89135 "Eugene Preobrazhensky".

Full story https://aviation21.ru/v-cagi-vypolnili-produvki-kryla-cr929-s-sajberletami/?_utl_t=tw
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Man I wish Xi and Putin would intervene and get this program going. Right now its just not making the progress it should. I think this is because China is making itself too involved.

Plus, why is it named the 929 ? It really leaves Russia out

It's finally here!


First flight with domestic engines.

Full report:
MS-21 with PD-14 engines performed its first flight
Published by 15.12.2020, 10:00 | 262
On December 15, 2020, at the airfield of the Irkutsk Aviation Plant, the MC-21-310 prototype aircraft, w / n 73055, equipped with PD-14 engines, performed its first flight.

The plane was piloted by a crew consisting of test pilots Vasily Sevastyanov, Andrey Voropaev and test engineer Alexander Soloviev. The flight task involved checking the operating modes of the power plant, the stability and controllability of the aircraft, as well as the functioning of its systems.

“At the end of November, while visiting the plant of PJSC Irkut Corporation, my colleagues and I inspected the preparation of the new MC-21. Then we discussed the first flight of the MC-21-310 with the new PD-14 engine until the end of this year. And today we see in action the result of a consistent state policy in the development of high-tech industries. We have formed a new generation of designers and production workers - and now we are seeing the fruits of the labor of tens of thousands of people who worked at the enterprises of the aircraft engine-building industry in order for this flight to take place, "commented the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov.

“This flight is the result of the unification of two major programs of the civil aircraft industry in Russia - the MS-21 aircraft and the PD-14 engine. Through the efforts of scientists, designers, engineers, workers, a new generation airliner is being created, which returns our country to the top league of world aviation, ”said Sergei Chemezov, General Director of Rostec State Corporation.

The flight duration was 1 hour 25 minutes.


https://aviation21.ru/ms-21-s-dvigatelyami-pd-14-vypolnil-pervyj-polyot/

This is a historic date for Russian aviation and also for the West, for different reasons obviously. Given the Western companies have been lazily "reheating" their narrow body designs for the last three or four decades, due to pure greed since they have a monopoly of the market, they have allowed the MC-21 to technically surpass them by a fair margin. It may not steal their market share in the short term, but I think on the long run they are going to rue this day.

LMFS wrote:This is a historic date for Russian aviation and also for the West, for different reasons obviously. Given the Western companies have been lazily "reheating" their narrow body designs for the last three or four decades, due to pure greed since they have a monopoly of the market, they have allowed the MC-21 to technically surpass them by a fair margin. It may not steal their market share in the short term, but I think on the long run they are going to rue this day.

I think airbus is okay, Boeing is the real garbage dump seemingly.

Maximmmm wrote:
I think airbus is okay, Boeing is the real garbage dump seemingly.

They are handsomely profiting from Boeing's problems and not in such a pitiful shape true, but A320 is already more than 30 years old, so clearly behind the MC-21 in cabin space and wing technology, for instance. As said, they racked in billionaire profits instead of investing in new development but now, besides wining time by sabotaging Russia, they will have to start moving their asses and pump real money in technical aspects instead of in their pockets.

LMFS wrote:This is a historic date for Russian aviation and also for the West, for different reasons obviously. Given the Western companies have been lazily "reheating" their narrow body designs for the last three or four decades, due to pure greed since they have a monopoly of the market, they have allowed the MC-21 to technically surpass them by a fair margin. It may not steal their market share in the short term, but I think on the long run they are going to rue this day.

in addition this aircraft has a lot of potential also for replacing some of the widebodies on the flights from Moscow (or Saint Petersburg) to Vladivostok.  

Airbus announced that they are doing an extra long range version of the A321, with 8700 km range, allowing flights from europe to inside the US.

https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/passenger-aircraft/a320-family/a321neo.html#a321xlr

Personally I would not like to fly on a narrowbody for 9 hours, but it allows the airline to perform intercontinental flights with less passengers.

Boeing wanted to cover a similar niche with the NMA, a brand new airplane with similar size to the Boeing 757, but now they have other problems and probably missed this opportunity.

A extra long range version of the MC-21-400 would be even more interesting, as, in addition to connecting the far east of Russia with its western part (even Crimea), it would allow non stop flights from Moscow  to New York or Tokyo (7500 km), Taipei (Taiwan), (7400 km) , Shangai (6800 km), Seul (6600 km). This could ease some of Russia's  needs for intercontinental flights, while waiting for the PD35,  that will allow them to build modern domestic widebodies.

^ Just before the 737 disaster , Boeing was pouring all of its capital into stock buybacks. Boeing was the last big company left in the US that wasn't destroyed by financial engineering (see GM & GE) but they solved that problem now.

It would be a lot better if China would just admit that its not an aviation power. Comac should be focusing on getting a production license for the MC-21. And scrap the C919 program. But this is unlikely.

It may eventually come to the point where US wants to stick it to China and the C919 is left without engines and essentially killed. So either they buy the MC21, or they co-produce it or they modify the Comac to operate with the PD-14, maybe a mix of the three options. In any case the C919 is in an extremely vulnerable position and the West hardly ever misses such opportunities.

Backman wrote:^ Just before the 737 disaster , Boeing was pouring all of its capital into stock buybacks. Boeing was the last big company left in the US that wasn't destroyed by financial engineering (see GM & GE) but they solved that problem now.

It would be a lot better if China would just admit that its not an aviation power. Comac should be focusing on getting a production license for the MC-21. And scrap the C919 program. But this is unlikely.

.

The C919 is quite inferior to the MC21, but that is not a problem.  China want to do it and they already invested quite a lot of time and money. At the end, even if is it a bit worse and or less comfortable, as long as it passes all the safety regulations and check,  this is not a problem for China.
However Russia could sell PD14 to China, to replace the french american engine (CFM Leap).

It will require a new pylon and nacelle, and additional tests to certify the aircraft with the new engines, but that is absolutely not an insurmountable problem.