Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

Hole wrote:

Maiden flight?

Maximmmm wrote:Lots of good news at the end of the year!

Right you are. I don't know what is with December and the Russian Aerospace industry. Now hoping for a successful Soyuz launch today from Vostochny to cap it all.

Old tradition. The year ends and they show what they did the last 12 month.

https://aviation21.ru/aeroflot-prodal-aviakompaniyu-avrora-za-odin-rubl/

Aeroflot sold Aurora airline for one ruble
Published by 17.12.2020, 18:48
On December 17, 2020, a regular meeting of the Board of Directors of PJSC Aeroflot took place in the form of a video conference. One of the considered was the question of the participation of PJSC "Aeroflot" in JSC "Airline" Aurora ".

The Board of Directors decided to terminate Aeroflot's participation in Aurora Airlines by selling Aeroflot's 396391 shares (51.00133%) in Aurora to JSC Sakhalin Region Development Corporation at a total price of 1 ruble.

So Aeroflot decided to get rid of Aurora.

Anyway the plan to make an airline with local aircrafts in the far east based on Aurora was blocked by the local authorities.

It should have been something similar to Azimuth (that is based in Rostov on Don and has a fleet of SSJ100).

Now Russia is transforming red wing airline in an airline with only Russian aircrafts, but red wing is based in saint  Petersburg.

Possibly they will create a new airline in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok or Konsomolsk on Amur (the lattet will have the advantage of being based where the SSJ100 are produced).

The beginning of testing of the MS-21 with the PD-14 engine is the main aviation event of 2020
Posted on 15.12.2020, 15: 16 | 1 109

Modern aviation is an elite club of a small number of countries that have technological, scientific, financial, production and human resources of a full cycle of creating modern gas turbine engines. The club is really small, only four countries are included in it-these are the USA, France, Great Britain and the Russian Federation. Candidates for membership in this club represented by China, Canada and Brazil, which have large aircraft manufacturing enterprises on their territory, do not have their own modern jet engines for civil aviation, because The state's ability to produce cast cooled blades for a modern gas turbine aircraft engine is an indicator of the highest level of mechanical engineering development.

Gas turbine engines are an endless battle for power, fuel efficiency, environmental friendliness and low noise. In the constant movement forward, designers are forced to look for solutions based on the most advanced technologies in the field of gas dynamics, materials science, and Metalworking. Until recently, the Russian engine industry lagged far behind the world's grandees, but the situation is changing, and this is proved by the beginning of testing of the MEDIUM-haul MS-21 airliner with a PD-14 turbofan engine.

PD-14 is the first domestic development that appeared in our country almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR. Work on it began in 2008, when the Russian government allocated 15 billion rubles for research and development on the new engine. The first prototype of the 100GG-01 gas generator made its first flight on earth in 2010, and the first complete engine demonstrator first started operating on June 9, 2012.

On October 30, 2015, the 100-07 engine made its first flight on the IL-76LL flying laboratory. The engine passed two stages of testing on the aircraft. During the first stage, as of March 4, 2016, the PD-14 completed 22 hours and 22 minutes in 16 flights. At the second stage - from October 11, 2016 to March 30, 2017, the operating time was 26 hours and 31 minutes in eight flights.

On December 28, 2017, the IL-76LL made its first flight with the 100-11 engine. This copy of the PD-14 was intended for certification. Since the beginning of April 2018, an IL-76LL with a 100-11 engine has completed 14 flights with an operating time of 49 hours and 10 minutes.

On October 18, 2018, Rosaviatsia issued a type certificate for the PD-14 aircraft engine.

On December 15, 2020, a prototype MS-21-310 aircraft with the tail number 73055 first took to the sky powered by PD-14 engines.

What is the special feature of the new Russian turbofan engine and is it really a breakthrough project of the domestic engine industry?

PD-14 is the first Russian civil aircraft engine of the 5th generation
Progress in aircraft engine building is characterized by several parameters, but one of the main ones is the temperature of the gas in front of the turbine. The transition to each new generation of turbofan engines, and there are five in total, was characterized by an increase in this temperature by 100-200 degrees. Thus, the gas temperature of the 1st generation turbofan engines, which appeared in the late 1940s, did not exceed 1150 °K, for the 2nd generation (1950s) this indicator increased to 1250 °K, in the 3rd generation (1960s) this parameter rose to 1450 °K, for engines of the 4th generation (1970-1980) the gas temperature reached 1650 °K. The blades of turbine engines of the 5th generation, the first examples of which appeared in the West in the mid-90s, work at a temperature of 1900 °C. Currently, only 15% of the engines in service in the world are of the 5th generation.

The increase in gas temperature, as well as new design schemes, first of all double-circuit design, have allowed for 70 years of development of the turbofan engine to achieve impressive progress. For example, the ratio of engine thrust to engine mass increased by 5 times during this time and reached 10 times for modern models. The air compression ratio in the compressor has increased 10-fold: from 5 to 50, while the number of compressor stages has halved – on average from 20 to 10. The specific fuel consumption of modern turbofan engines has been reduced by half compared to engines of the 1st generation. Every 15 years, the volume of passenger traffic in the world doubles, while the total fuel consumption of the world's fleet of aircraft remains almost unchanged.

Until recently, Russia produced the only civil aircraft engine of the 4th generation-the PS-90. If we compare the PD-14 with it, then the two engines have similar weights (2950 kg for the basic version of the PS-90A and 2870 kg for the PD-14), dimensions (fan diameter of both 1.9 m), compression ratio (35.5 and 41) and take-off thrust (16 and 14 TC).

In this case, the high-pressure compressor PD-14 consists of 8 stages, and PS-90 - of 13 at a lower total compression ratio. The degree of double-circuit in the PD-14 is twice as high (4.5 in the PS-90 and 8.5 in the PD-14) with the same fan diameter. As a result, the specific fuel consumption in cruising flight of the PD-14 is less, according to preliminary estimates, by 15% compared to existing engines: up to 0.53–0.54 kg / (kgf·h) versus 0.595 kg/(kgf·h) at the PS-90.

PD-14 – the first aircraft engine created in Russia after the collapse of the USSR
The Soviet Union was a great aviation power. In the 1980s, eight of the most powerful aircraft engine design bureaus were operating in the USSR. Often firms competed with each other, as there was a practice of giving the same task to two design bureaus. Alas, times have changed. After the collapse of the 1990s, it was necessary to gather all the industry forces to implement the project of creating a modern engine. The formation of the UEC in 2008 was aimed at creating an organization that could not only preserve the country's competence in gas-turbine construction, but also compete with the world's leading firms.

The main contractor for the PD-14 project is the Aviadvigatel design Bureau (Perm), which also developed the PS-90. Serial production is being organized at the Perm motor plant, but parts and components will be manufactured throughout the country. Ufa motor-building production Association (UMPO), NPO Saturn (Rybinsk), spcg Salyut (Moscow), Metalist-Samara and many others participate in the cooperation.

PD-14-engine for the mainline aircraft of the XXI century
One of the most successful projects in the field of civil aviation of the USSR was the Tu-154 medium-haul aircraft. Produced in the amount of 1026 units, it formed the basis of Aeroflot's fleet for many years. Unfortunately, as time passes, this hard worker is no longer used on commercial airlines. The Tu-154 was equipped with 3rd generation D-30KU engines with a high specific fuel consumption (0.69 kg/kgf * h).

There are fewer States producing modern aviation turbofan engines than there are nuclear-weapon States

The Tu-154 was replaced by the medium-haul Tu-204/214 with the 4th generation PS-90 engines in the conditions of the disintegration of the country and the free market was replaced by foreign manufacturers. Meanwhile, the segment of medium-haul narrow-body aircraft, which is dominated by Boeing-737 and Airbus A320, is the most popular, and the presence on it is a necessary condition for preserving the domestic civil aircraft industry. PD-14 will provide the Russian MS-21 airliner with high competitiveness, first of all, in our domestic market.

PD-14-basic design for the engine family
The letters " PD " stand for promising engine, and the number 14 – thrust in ton-forces. PD-14 is the basic engine for the turbofan engine family with a thrust of 8 to 18 tons. The business idea of the project is that all these engines should be created on the basis of a unified gas generator of a high degree of perfection. The gas generator is the heart of the turbofan engine, which consists of a high-pressure compressor, a combustion chamber and a turbine. It is the manufacturing technologies of these components, primarily the so-called hot part, that are critical.

The range of engines based on the PD-14 gas generator will move downwards to the PD-12 and PD-8 engines. Also, the PD-14 gas generator can become the basis for gas pumping units and gas turbine power plants with a capacity of 8 to 16 MW.

The PD-14 also serves as a platform for testing future technologies - for the CR929 high-power engine, the first stage of testing of a fan demonstrator made of Russian polymer composite materials took place in Perm on June 7, 2020 as part of the PD-14. These blades will be used in the PD-35.

PD-14 is 16 critical technologies
16 critical technologies were developed for the PD-14 under the leadership of the Central Institute of Aviation Engine Building (CIAM), the main Research Institute of the industry and Aviadvigatel Design Bureau: single-crystal high-pressure turbine blades with a promising cooling system that can work at gas temperatures up to 2000°K, a hollow wide-chord fan blade made of titanium alloy, which made it possible to increase the efficiency of the fan stage by 5% compared to the PS-90, a low-emission combustion chamber made of intermetallic alloy, sound-absorbing structures made of composite materials, ceramic coatings on hot parts, hollow blades of low-pressure turbines, etc.

PD-14 continues to improve. This is how a wide-chord fan blade made of carbon fiber was created, the mass of which is 65% of the mass of a hollow titanium blade. CIAM is developing a gearbox that can reduce the fan speed, so that, not tied to the turbine speed, it will work in a more efficient mode. It is also planned to raise the gas temperature in front of the turbine by 50°C. This will increase the thrust of future developments, and reduce specific fuel consumption by another 5%.

PD-14-20 new materials
When creating the PD-14, the developers from the very beginning relied on domestic materials. It was clear that under no circumstances would Russian companies be granted access to new foreign-made materials. VIAM played a leading role here, with the participation of which about 20 new materials were developed for PD-14.

In 2015, for the first time in the country, VIAM specialists manufactured the PD-14 front-end combustion chamber swirler using a domestic metal-powder composition.

But creating the material is half the battle. Sometimes Russian metals are superior in quality to foreign ones, but their use in a civil aircraft engine requires certification in accordance with international standards. Otherwise, the engine, no matter how good it is, will not be allowed to fly outside of Russia. The same applies to the engine manufacturing process: the industry requires certification according to the standards of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). International certification improves the production culture, and UEC enterprises are re-equipping the industry for new technologies. The development of the PD-14 itself was carried out using a new, digital technology, thanks to which the 7th copy of the engine was assembled in Perm using mass production technology, while previously the prototype batch was manufactured in the amount of up to 35 copies.

PD-14 is a catalyst that brings the entire Russian civil engine industry to a new level. Even the IL-76LL flying laboratory, after several years of downtime, needed to be retrofitted with equipment to conduct flight tests of the PD-14. In general, the PD-14 project will save more than 10,000 highly qualified jobs for Russia.

PD-14 is the first domestic engine that directly competes with its Western counterpart
The development of a modern engine takes 1.5-2 times longer than the development of an airplane. With the situation when the engine does not have time to start testing the aircraft for which it is intended, aircraft manufacturers are faced regularly. The first MS-21 took to the skies in May 2017, its powerplant included US-made engines. The PD-14 type certificate was received a year and a half later - in October 2018, and the first flight as part of the MS-21 took place on December 15, 2020. From the very beginning, the MC-21 project provided for an alternative: MC-21 customers can choose between the PD-14 and Pratt & Whitney PW1400G. However, if the sanctions hysteria of the American "partners" reaches a ban on supplying us with engines, then it will be all the worse for P&W - it will face multimillion-dollar financial losses.

Thus, the start of testing of the MS-21 with a domestic main propulsion system can be considered the main event of 2020 in the aviation industry, which opens a new page in the Russian engine industry.

Andrey Velichko,
for the Russian Aviation website"

https://aviation21.ru/nachalo-ispytanij-ms-21-s-dvigatelem-pd-14-glavnoe-aviacionnoe-sobytie-2020-goda/

Engine tests for IL-114-300 will be carried out in the Omsk region

December 22, 2020

Tests of the TV7-117ST turboprop engines for the new Il-114-300 aircraft will take place at the test site of the Omsk Engine-Building Plant named after Baranova.

The Governor of the Omsk Region, Alexander Burkov, in an interview with
reporters, announced the commissioning of a new stand designed to
test TV7-117ST engines. According to him, testing of engines
developed for the needs of the Russian Ministry of Defense specifically for
the Il-114-300 military transport aircraft will be carried out until 2024.

“The Krutogorsk branch (of the Baranov plant) is provided with orders until 2024, this is a certain guarantee of its development,” Burkov said.

The head of the Salyut production complex, Alexey
Gromov, in turn, drew attention to the fact that
not only tests, but also production and design work on
the TV7-117-ST and TV7-117-ST01 engines will be carried out in Krutoy Gorka , writes TASS ... He also noted that the
enterprise has a very responsible and long way to go.

However, he has no doubts of success, given the fact
that it has historically been used to test engines of the TV7-117 family. The presence of a
bench base and qualified specialists allowed not only to revive the
test bench at the Krutogorsk site, but also to modernize it.

“If (with Il-114-300 aircraft) the replacement of An-26 aircraft is actually provided, then the workload of the corporation's enterprises will be serious. While we are talking about 50 (power units), and then we'll see, "- added Gromov.

Earlier, the Ukrainian media made an attempt to "spray with poison" because of the first flight of the Il-114-300 with a new aircraft engine.

https://yandex.ru/turbo/politpuzzle.ru/s/180488-ispytaniya-dvigatelej-dlya-il-114-300-budut-provoditsya-v-omskoj-oblasti/?publisher_logo_url=https%3A%2F%2Favatars.mds.yandex.net%2Fget-turbo%2F3008782%2F2a000001729ed0be69c1234363a6c7829f0a%2Fsvg&promo=navbar&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

Why IL-114 is more important for Russia even than MS-21

December 24, 2020

Undoubtedly, December will go down in history as the most “aviation” month of 2020 in Russia. The flight with engines of domestic production was made at once by two airliners, MS-21, and also Il-114. The importance of both liners for our country can hardly be overestimated. However, if our medium-haul lines are fully and for years to come provided with the products of Boeing and Airbus, massively purchased by domestic airlines, there is almost nothing to carry out regional transportation. In this context, the new IL is a much more needed aircraft for Russia.

After the collapse of the USSR and the beginning of the degradation of the national aviation industry, the aging Tu-134, An-24 and Yak-40 remained to work on domestic airlines. Competitors from Bombardier and SAAB produced their own regional airliners, while Russian ones were given barriers to access the world market in the form of limits on environmental friendliness and low noise of aircraft engines. It was not particularly interesting for those in power to develop their modern power plants, since we had a paradigm “we buy everything we need abroad for petrodollars”.

The result was logical: the existing aircraft fleet has aged, and experienced pilots have moved to work abroad for higher salaries. An-24 turboprop, very decent for its time, began to suffer disaster after disaster. In 1997, an An-24RV crashed in Karachay-Cherkessia, killing all 50 people flying on it. In 2010, in Russia, during the crash of a liner of this type, performing flight 9357 on the route Krasnoyarsk - Igarka, 11 people out of 14 on board were killed. In 2011, flight 9007 from Tomsk to Surgut was forced to make an emergency landing on the Ob River due to an engine fire, as a result of which seven passengers died from their injuries. In 2013, in Donetsk, an An-24 crashed with fans of the Shakhtar football club, five of them were killed, seven more were injured.

The need to renew the fleet of short-haul lines is beyond doubt. In theory, Superjet was supposed to cope with this task, but instead of the most demanded segment of 65-75 passenger seats, it was pushed into 100. Everyone has already heard about its problems with imported components, which the domestic industry has now undertaken to replace. But, alas, it seems that they did not have time. On the eve, new US sanctions came into force, which should prohibit the use of US-made components on the Superjet and MS-21. In a short-haul liner, these are the chassis, hydraulic system, electrical and oxygen supply equipment. It is clear that sooner or later it will be possible to replace all this, but here and now a serious failure is forming in the production chain.

In this context, the Il-114-300 arrived just in time. The aircraft can carry up to 64 passengers, that is, it can functionally replace the "Superjet" on domestic routes, although these are liners of different classes. "Ilyushin" is more severe and unpretentious than "imported constructor", but the most important thing is that it is completely ours. Although this project was developed three decades ago, it has received a new life in modern Russia. Its main advantage is its own TV7-117ST-01 aircraft engine. The power plant can produce up to 3100 horsepower, is economical and meets modern requirements for low noise and environmental friendliness. Work on it began in 2014, when it became clear that things went wrong with the West. And it's good that they didn't waste time.

Now Russia has its own short-haul liner capable of delivering 64 passengers over a distance of 1,500 kilometers in three hours. It will be especially in demand in the difficult conditions of the Far North and the Far East. The Il-114-300 with good reason claims to become a reliable "workhorse" of local airlines, increasing the transport connectivity of the vast country. In addition, the RF Ministry of Defense will be able to order its military modifications intended for patrolling sea borders, reconnaissance and electronic warfare.

https://topcor.ru/17935-pochemu-il-114-dlja-rossii-vazhnee-dazhe-ms-21.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

Apparently in Russia they are also continuing the work on an upgraded let610 (high wing turboprop with 30-40 passengers) for which there will also be an import substitution (as for the let l410, the first ones assembled in Ekaterinenburg were mostly made from imported subsystems and from kits made in Czech republic, while now they should be starting with a higher Russian content).
As already said by other users, Let aerospace is fully owned by a Russian company.


And concerning the 75 passengers jet,  if there is the need they will realize a shortened version of the ssj100. It was already in the plan, but then delayed by the other issues with the aircraft and by the need of the import substitution version.
Possibly at the start of the program it was postponed due to Ukrainian lobbyists, as it was in the same niche of the An148.

Anyway several airlines in Russia and in friendly states would be interested in a modern 75 passenger regional jet and even S7, the largest russian private airline  previously signed a letter of intent for 50 (with option for 25 more) ssj100 in the shortened 75 passenger version.
Unfortunately last year the s7 owner said that the russian industry "scrapped the ssj100-75 project

http://www.rusaviainsider.com/s7-owner-russian-industry-scrapped-superjet-75-project/

”Everything we did was for real and we were equally serious about the 75-seater aircraft project. For its domestic market, Russia needs precisely a 75-seat aircraft, something similar to the Soviet Tupolev Tu-134 regional jet [now no longer in operation]. The SSJ75 could have become the replacement for this aircraft. Besides, the SSJ was initially designed with 75 seats and that’s the configuration we ordered back in 2004. But later it was stretched into a 100-seater,” Filev recalls.

He is also confident that shrinking the aircraft to its original size would actually solve some problems – in particular, the engines were designed for a lower aircraft weight, so with adequate loads would suffer fewer malfunctions. The same is true for the wing. The SSJ75 could become an efficient airliner, and win over many regional carriers, Filev concludes.

“S7 Airlines has never asked for any special privileges from the government, so there must have been some business logic behind their order,” reasons Boris Rybak, general director of Infomost Consulting. “The shortened Superjet would have lower operational costs and it would offer a decent range and some Russian regional routes are quite extended. It could also offer better economy on those flights where 100-seat aircraft could be under loaded. But it’s unlikely that the lower weight would help solve the engine issues,” he says.

I do not believe that the Russian aerospace industry scrapped the project, I believe however that there was a difference in priorities, as the industry probably want first to solve the import substitution issue.
It was however quite stupid from the beginning of the program not to realize also the 75 passenger version and go instead in the no men's land (again, I believe that this was done only to appease the Ukrainians and sell the an148).


Just a small note: actually in this particular year (2020) the 95 to 100 passengers version has shown to be optimal for several routes previously covered by larger a320 or b737, due to the reduced number of flying passenger as per the covid pandemic.

Note 2: the engine issues with Sam146 have been solved in the meanwhile (of course the PD8 will be extremely important anyway).

The United States was scared of Russia's entry into the global aviation elite
23 december 2020

The United States strikes at Russian civil aviation. This happened almost immediately after a competitor of the American Boeing, the Russian MS-21 aircraft with a domestic rather than an American engine, made its first flight. As with Nord Stream 2, the new sanctions have a specific target.

The United States has announced a new sanctions list, which includes 41 Russian companies. Including about a dozen of Russian aircraft industrial enterprises came under American sanctions. In particular, MiG Corporation, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, Sukhoi and Tupolev companies, Irkut Corporation, Kazan Helicopter Plant, Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant named after Yu.A. Gagarin, Taganrog Aviation Scientific the technical complex named after G.M.Beriev, the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), and the United Engine Corporation (UEC).

What do the sanctions prohibit? “From the published information it follows that American companies need to obtain licenses for cooperation with enterprises from the list,” the UAC press service points out.

In fact, the sanctions restrict Russian enterprises from cooperating with American suppliers of components or suppliers from other countries where the share of American business is large. However, there is a loophole: a US supplier can obtain a license to supply its goods to the conditional Irkut corporation or to other companies on the list. However, whether he receives such permission is a big roulette, and how it works will depend solely on Washington.

It is curious that in such conditions the Russian aviation industry has been operating since the summer. The fact is that this scheme was spelled out in the June package of sanctions. Only there was no specific list of companies, but it was about the supply of commercial products to a Russian company, which could be called a military end user, or "military end user".

In other words, the regime for requesting licenses for the supply of certain products to Russia has been in effect since June. The only difference is that earlier American suppliers had to guess themselves which companies belonged to the military end user. And the American law passed on December 22 clarifies the list of these companies.

The source assures that part of the licenses permitting cooperation with Russian companies have already been obtained, while the other part of the permits is in the process of approval. But the main thing is that the American sanctions provide a lever of pressure - at any moment they may not issue a license or not renew it.

The UAC notes that they have not received notifications of the termination of cooperation from their foreign partners and the implementation of aviation programs continues.

Experts are confident that the main goal of the United States is to strike at the Russian project MS-21. This unique aircraft threatens to destroy the Boeing and Airbus dupolia in the global aircraft market. Earlier, the United States has already tried to stop the project by depriving it of composite materials. And the composite black wing is the know-how of the Russian liner. The terms of the project have indeed shifted, but Russia has solved this problem by replacing foreign composites with domestic ones. Therefore, Washington went further.

The most complex and expensive part in the MC-21 is the engine. And the newest Russian aircraft is powered by the American PW1400G-JM engine from Pratt & Whitney. A ban on its supply could put an end to the Russian project.

However, this is no longer possible. Just last week, the MS-21 made its first flight with a Russian-made PD-14 engine. This is a huge achievement for the Russian engine and aircraft industry. Actually, the Americans were afraid of such a leap.

“The United States is killing two birds with one stone with these sanctions. They do not allow Russia to develop technologically. And they do not allow their loved ones to be forced out of our market, ”says Roman Gusarov, editor-in-chief of Avia.ru.

Russian airlines may gradually refuse to buy American planes in favor of a domestic liner. The demand within Russia for MS-21 can ensure the plant's load for decades to come.

“The United States understands very well that the MS-21 will oust Boeings from the Russian market. Domestic aircraft are both newer and cheaper. Ten Boeing planes are worth a billion dollars, and we have several hundred long-haul aircraft flying on the market. That is, the price of the issue is tens of billions of dollars. The longer the Americans can delay the commercial operation of the MS-21, the more they will earn for us. We don't just buy their planes. We also spend money on their parts and maintenance. This is a market for tens of billions of dollars more. Nobody would like to lose such a jackpot, ”explains Gusarov.

“It should be admitted that the US sanctions are an example of unfair competition. The States are trying to create problems for competitors to develop their aircraft industry, ”agrees Artem Deev, head of the analytical department at AMarkets.

And these sanctions may not be the last. “The closer to the implementation of the MC-21 project, the greater the pressure of sanctions,” Gusarov is sure. As an option, he gives an example, the Americans will say that Russia allegedly stole technology from the United States and therefore created the Russian PD-14 engine. On this basis, the Americans can ban the operation of these engines around the world. As a result, the MS-21 will remain without both the American and Russian engines. And this is the heart of the plane.

Among the risks is certification of MS-21 and the Russian engine by a European regulator. Brussels is actually not too interested in the successful completion of the Russian project, because the MS-21 is a competitor not only to the Boeing 737, but also to the Airbus A320. It is already difficult for Europeans to fight an American corporation on the world market, and then Russia is also flying in with its MS-21. The same Aeroflot has mostly Airbus planes in its fleet, but the domestic carrier has already become a major buyer of the MS-21. Therefore, the Europeans are no less interested in the United States in braking the Russian mainline aircraft project. Another question is how much they will dare to such an obvious unfair competition.

As for military aircraft, there should be no problems with American components. “We have not used foreign components in the military unit for a long time,” the UAC assures.

The regional Il-114-300 aircraft with a Russian engine, which took to the skies last week, should not suffer either. It was originally created only from domestic components. Because this plane is being made for the Russian hinterland - it must be inexpensive, resistant to Russian frosts and be able to land even on bad airfields.

But the SSJ-100 and MS-21 are vulnerable to US sanctions. Why weren't these planes originally made completely Russian as well?

“These projects were created in the early 2000s, when Russia still believed in international cooperation, in freedom of the market, that at an international competition we would select the best products and integrate them into a new aircraft. This was done when the SSJ-100 was created. The MS-21 project began with the same. However, in the process of its implementation, a war of sanctions began, ”explains Gusarov.

The positive moment from all these sanctions is precisely in the pivot to import substitution, the creation of our own product with added value.

The UAC has already launched the SSJ-NEW project. This is not about creating a new aircraft, but about import substitution of components for the existing SSJ-100. Initially, the SSJ-100 consisted of 60-70% foreign parts. However, thanks to the new project, the overwhelming majority of aircraft parts should become domestic. “We have grown technologically and modernized in one decade. We have learned to make good quality parts, no worse than foreign suppliers. But the process of import substitution requires time and additional costs, which we will have to go to, ”says Roman Gusarov.

One of Russia's sore spots is the undeveloped radio-electronic industry. “In the field of electronic components alone, Russian aviation uses about 50% of domestic products, the rest is supplied from abroad. In the space sector, the share of Russian electronics is 80%, in the defense industry - 60%. All of these industries are critically dependent on supplies from abroad, ”Deev notes.

Therefore, the best response of Russia to these unfriendly steps by the United States would be to overcome sanctions using all internal reserves and resources, our labor and our brains, Gusarov said. “The sale of one MC-21 within Russia will be minus one Boeing not bought by our carriers,” he concludes.

https://yandex.ru/turbo/vz.ru/s/economy/2020/12/23/1077070.html?publisher_logo_url=https%3A%2F%2Favatars.mds.yandex.net%2Fget-turbo%2F1377702%2F2a000001649347c10fefd4c24be86ffe0126%2Forig&promo=navbar&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

They can't ban the PD14 to operate worldwide, that would open the pandora's box.


Even during the cold war Soviet civil aircrafts were flying from Soviet union to the US...


Even banning Russian carriers to operate in the US (at the moment no version of the MC21 has the range to fly from Russia to US cities, at least until an extra long range version of the MC21-400 will be done) could have the consequences of having all US planes banned in Russia.

The aircraft would not find customers in the US anyway, but several central or south american states could be interested in it (at least Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela), and some of them fly to the US.

What they could do would be to prohibit sale of pratt&withney engines for the MC-21... that could actually be a blessing in disguise for Russia... they would have to step up engine production and build new facilities, possibly causing some delays, but they would also spend the money for the engine operation and maintenance on Russian firms instead on american ones...

GarryB wrote:And when Russian planes stop using US engines they will complain that they don't use US engines any more...


They will complain to the WTO because Russian planes don't come with US or other foreign engines as options...

The reasons for using foreign equipment were sound enough at the time and to be honest now they probably have the technology and skill to replace those systems with equipment that will certainly be cheaper but also more capable than some of the western systems that are considered world standard...

KRET has likely gained a lot with this sort of BS... and now that they are putting new engines into production and scaling their design for a range of other aircraft things are actually looking good... it is probably a good think a pro Russia candidate is not anywhere close to getting into the white house...

Yeah, Russia could even propose the PD8 engine for the smaller embraer EJet (the 70 passenger E-170 was the only one not upgraded yet to the Ejet E2 family, and its bigger brothers now use P&W engines).

Since the deal between Boeing and Embraer failed, Russia could propose some cooperation with Embraer, maybe setting joint maintenance centers in Brazil and proposing russian planes in Brazil as well (they will not be interested in regional planes, since embraer produces them, but the bigger Ejet E95 E2 has around 130 passengers (as the proposed ssj100-130) and is  considerably smaller than the MC-21-300 (and also smaller than the MC-21-200).

Without affecting the embraer sales, some brasilian airlines could replace some of the older models of 737 with MC21...

Of course Russia could also propose new avionics, navigation, hydraulics, air conditioning systems, etc for new embraer models (probably not for the Ejet E2 series, since that could cause a need for recertification)

About Russian answers to american sanctions

https://aviation21.ru/ms-21-realnyj-konkurent-b737-i-a320/

[quote] It is counterproductive to react to Washington's actions by prohibiting Russian companies from cooperating with the United States, it does not meet our national interests. You can remove a competitor from the Russian sky by other methods - subsidizing airlines with domestic equipment in the fleet and introducing duties on the import of foreign aircraft into the country. And such measures are already being taken.[quote]


Duties on import quotas should have been there since the 90s, but many russian officials accepted to be corrupted by Boeing to remove them and greatly damaged prospective aircrafts like the Tu204 and the Il96 (while russian regional turboprops (il114) were killed at that time by the pro ukrainian lobbyists)

And yes, the antirussian policies from the west in the last few years have been extremely important to push investment in the Russian civil aerospace industry.

Many (but not all) projects would still being done with a more friendly approach from the west, but they would be like embraer planes, I.e. with just the fuselage, the wings and maybe the landing gears made in Russia and all the rest imported from the west.

@Rodion_Romanovic:

I was going to post the whole article and saw you already linked it, I think it is quite interesting to post the whole text regardless:

MS-21 - a real competitor to the B737 and A320
Published by 26.12.2020, 16:36 | 14263

"The old Soviet Tushki, Yaki and Ily went down in history, and their place in the parks of airlines was taken by both used and new" foreign cars. "At the beginning of the 21st century, it seemed that one could forget about domestic passenger aircraft forever and come to terms with the fact that Russia there is no place in the global civil aviation market, "- these are the words that begin the article about the MC-21 aircraft, published on the Russian Aviation website in 2016 and prepared for the premiere display of the first flight model of the airliner at the Irkutsk Aviation Plant.


But times are changing, and 2020 can be called a milestone year, because at the end of it an event took place that we have been waiting for at least the last 10 years - the beginning of flight tests of the MS-21 with a domestic power plant.

In 2020, IAZ produced the fifth flight model MC-21 - this is the final experimental batch of the aircraft and the first aircraft equipped with PD-14 engines. December 15 MS-21-310 registration No. 73055 took to the sky. This 85-minute flight was the intermediate result of many years of intense, hard and painstaking work of a huge army of scientists, designers, specialists of various profiles, workers at the enterprises of the UAC, UEC, Irkut and the engineering center named after A.S. Yakovlev - the developer of the liner, as well as the ground personnel of the LIiDK OKB im. A.S. Yakovlev in Zhukovsky and test pilots. Now on the agenda is obtaining a type certificate and the construction of serial machines.

By the beginning of 2021, a total of seven prototypes were built - two samples for static and life tests at TsAGI and five flight prototypes, which, since May 2017, have been successively transferred by the aircraft plant for certification tests.

To spite my grandmother I will frostbite my ears

The safety problems of the Boeing 737 MAX have dealt a serious blow to the prestige of the American aircraft manufacturer. The liner has not been flying since March 2019, the company incurs large financial and, most importantly, reputational losses. At the same time, a potential and real competitor, created in a "torn to shreds" "gas station", systematically passes certification tests, and now also with its own engines. In the ruling circles of the United States, this echoes with severe pain, they believe that Russia should not even think about replacing the Boeing with its domestic aircraft.

And the sanctions obscurantism continues - towards the end of 2020, the American Ministry of Trade extended stricter export control standards to key enterprises of the Russian aviation industry. In total, the restrictions affected 41 companies, including the aviation industry - the United Aircraft Corporation, Irkut Corporation, Sukhoi Regional Aircraft, United Engine Corporation, Russian Helicopters and others.

Washington's calculation suggests that it will become much more difficult for Russian enterprises to cooperate with American suppliers of components, since the latter will have to obtain a license from their authorities to trade with companies on the "black list". And given the unpredictability of the US authorities and their absolute incapacity for negotiation, there is no confidence that such licenses will be issued. And this is even despite the fact that the sanctions thus fall on their own companies. In Russia it is called "to spite my grandmother, I will frostbite my ears . "
January 2019. Engaged reverse engines on the run after the next test flight

Remove a competitor

The persistence with which restrictions are imposed on the supply of materials and components for the Russian aircraft, speaks only of one thing - in the United States they are well aware that the MS-21 is a real competitor to the latest iterations of the B737 (and A320 - also), and the flights of a Russian airliner are not "cartoons" of a cardboard airplane. And all those advantages of the MS-21, which have been repeatedly mentioned in the media, are also real. Here are some of them:

Increased comfort due to the larger fuselage diameter. For MS-21, it is 4.06 meters, which is 11 cm more than the A320 and 36 cm more than the Boeing 737.
Increased aisle width between the rows of seats (56-58 cm, depending on the type of seats). This allows the passenger and flight attendants to disperse with the trolley, as well as facilitates faster entry / exit of passengers and minimizes the turnaround time of the aircraft at the intermediate airport.
The use of composite materials made it possible to reduce the weight of the aircraft structure by 25-30%.
Due to the improved wing, the MC-21 has better aerodynamics, less fuel consumption and higher speed. Wing aspect ratio MS-21 - 11.5 without winglets. A320neo - 10.45; B737-800 -900ER - 9.45. Both types are equipped with aerodynamic tips.
The cruising speed of the MC-21 is 870 km / h, which is 25-70 km / h higher than that of aircraft of the same class from Boeing and Airbus.
The presence of the domestic turbojet engine PD-14 - this nullifies the project's dependence on the American company Pratt & Whitney.

The sanctions, of course, affect the course of the MC-21 program, but they cannot stop the start of serial production of the airliner and its delivery to the airline - only slow down.
MS-21 reg. 73054 at the MAKS-2019 air show

“The implementation of our aviation programs continues. In particular, there is a planned work on the development of civilian products using domestic systems of a new generation. Work continues on the Superjet New. The first flight was made by the MS-21 aircraft with the domestic PD-14 engines. The Il-114-300 flew into the air, consisting entirely of domestic components. In the military unit, we have not used foreign components for a long time, ”the UAC press service said on December 21, commenting on the restrictions of the US Department of Commerce.

It is counterproductive to react to Washington's actions by prohibiting Russian companies from cooperating with the United States, it does not meet our national interests. You can remove a competitor from the Russian sky by other methods - subsidizing airlines with domestic equipment in the fleet and introducing duties on the import of foreign aircraft into the country. And such measures are already being taken.

As writes RBK , in 2020, airlines that do not have SSJ100 in their fleet were allocated 9.5 billion rubles, in 2021 such carriers will receive half as much - 4.4 billion.Operators of this aircraft will increase subsidies from 5.7 billion to 9.5 billion (68% of the total amount of subsidies). The press service of the Federal Air Transport Agency previously reported that about 70% of the total amount of subsidies from the federal budget "will be used on the routes declared for operation on the Superjet 100 aircraft."



Airline subsidies in 2021

With the beginning of the arrival of MS-21, Il-114-300, SSJ-New in the fleets of Russian carriers, the squeezing of foreign-made aircraft will continue. In the meantime, Superjet 100 is being "blown away" for them.

Andrey Velichko,
for the site "Aviation of Russia"