Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

Hole wrote:

Maiden flight?

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Hole wrote:

Maiden flight?

Yes

https://www.uacrussia.ru/en/press-center/news/novyy-passazhirskiy-regionalnyy-samolet-il-114-300-sovershil-pervyy-polet

It would be nice to know how noisy and vibration prone it is inside for passengers. Flying on these:



is annoying.

And if Russia won't act now, that's what is going to happen in a decade or so.

I agree... I have been saying for a while now that Russia should look for other trade partners... the EU and the US are rejecting them because they wont accept them as equal partners and expect them to be their bitch. Russia needs to look at the rest of the world... there are lots of countries out there that need modern productions and technologies and trade partners that don't want to hold them down and stop them from real progress and development, or want to control development and progress to force them to conform to someone elses morals and culture like the west does.

Poor countries probably pay more for things than rich countries do because rich countries make big orders and then demand discounts and concessions and never pay full retail price for anything.

A poor country has potential for development and progress to become a much more successful country... Russia wont suffer or be punished if trade with Ethiopia improves conditions there... I am sure Putin could offer some advice about how to take a broken country dependent on western good will and turning it around into a country that can make its own decisions and stand on its own, but they wont be conditions of trade... there should not be strings attached in either direction... it is just trade... Africa, Asia, Central and South America... there are lots of countries that just want to trade and make money and develop and grow...

According to the press service of the state corporation "Rostec" on December 16, 2020 at the airfield in Zhukovsky, a new passenger regional turboprop aircraft Il-114-300 made its first flight.

Excellent... that should replace the An-24s in civilian airline service... as well as french and canadian replacements...

This is why China does as much as it possibly can by itself and only reluctantly deals with Russia. We see this attitude with Iran also. And to a lesser extent India.

To be fair most countries want to be able to do things themselves... China and Iran probably have more capability of doing things on their own than India does, but that is probably going to change too eventually...

This attitude doesn't bode well for the aviation industry in Russia.

They are creating engine families and avionics families to minimise wasted effort and to be flexible across the board in terms of capabilities...

If you look at car manufacturing the Chinese are making better and better vehicles that in my opinion leave US and European vehicles behind, but they are still not better than Japanese cars... but is that just a matter of time too?

Russia never really dominated the world civilian aircraft market so China getting better in this regard is not as big of an issue for them as it would be for the west.

I would say an improved Chinese civilian aircraft potential is more likely to hit Boeing and Airbus than the Russians...

Chinese arrogance is notorious.

To be clear they are not all the same... there are arrogant idiots... there is plenty in each country...

It would be nice to know how noisy and vibration prone it is inside for passengers.

Should be part of the design... engine and propeller efficiency and of course sound insulation for the cabin...

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.

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/

They really should not use turbo props for 3 hour flights. Keep them to 1.5 hours max. The SJ-100 should be used for longer
flights.

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).

As with the Angara rocket, manufacturing facilities are a critical aspect. The decision not to build both the 75 and 100 seat
versions must have been dictated by lack of manufacturing resources. Spending several years to build up those facilities
was not an option since a breakthrough into the market was the priority. I suppose that they did not build up the facilities
since then because of lack of money and no clear view of what the Russian market wanted. S7 operates 14 Embraer 175 models
so its "loyalty" is mercurial.

Also, the physical difference between a 75 and 100 seat version is not that big. I have not seen a good analysis of the
economics of such a model. The price would be basically the same as the SSJ-100 and the SSJ-100 could be operated
on more routes giving more flexibility. Routes requiring over 2 hours of flight time are better serviced by higher capacity
aircraft anyway. There is a general scaling of aircraft with route length. I know that some companies like Air Canada
fly smaller jets across the Atlantic, but that is an Air Canada issue.

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...

Rodion_Romanovic wrote: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...

The retarded yanqui chimps passing these sanctions "laws" are smoking their own shit like crack. They still think that Russia cannot
make "technology" so is desperate to import it. If these retarded fucks go after Russian products outside NATzO, Russia needs to
ban overflights by NATzO based airlines. That will kill many companies since they are screwed already by lack of paying customers
and fuel costs.

This has a high degree of similarity to the lack of any serious response to global warming. There is simply not enough pain from climate change to
get asses in gear. So western hater fucks think that they can roll over Russia because they do not feel any pain from the current
behaviour and assume business as usual will last forever.

It will be hard for NATzO propagandists to bray for war over a ban of overflights.

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...

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)

That won't happen due to Brazil being an arm of the USA. Best bet if Russia invests indirectly via private into Brazil to push Russian products. Otherwise, all other options won't work as it would directly require government of Russia and Brazil will say no.

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"