Russian Civil Aviation: News #5

I think I said this before but it shouldn't be much of a problem to maintain relatively old foreign origin airplanes which were produced in large numbers. Like the A320 or the 737NG should be ok. It is modern airplanes like A320NEO or 737MAX, or airplanes which were produced in small numbers, like the large aircraft which are a problem. Parts supplies are limited, quite often are tracked via digital inventory systems, and you won't find any used parts in boneyards or scrap facilities yet.

In most cases in Russia they will be able to procure parts in the worldwide black and gray market to maintain the A320 and 737NG aircraft. There is a huge waste of airframes in boneyards. And the world's largest scrapyard for aircraft in case you guys didn't know is India which is a friendly country. Iran seems to cope with keeping their planes operational just fine for example. While setup and production of consumables in Russia for these aircraft might be warranted, reproducing the parts for them wholesale is a bad idea, unless this is done together with Chinese or Indian suppliers for example. Russia shouldn't be wasting its industrial capability producing clones of inferior ancient products. Straight out cloning of Western engines and parts is IMHO a waste of time and effort. It will make those components sanctionable from sale by the West. There are pretty significant patent and trade protections in place worldwide, have been since the creation of the WTO, so it is a bad idea to do this unless really necessary. Russia is also more than capable of making its own engine and component designs independent from the West. Cloning an ancient CFM56 engine for example is a total waste of time when Russia can design and make much better engines itself like the PD-14.

All the proposals I have heard to clone Western engines and components for aircraft thus far seem like an utter waste of time. Like someone wants to clone the US Garret engine for the TVS-2DS. Like WTF. Just order a turboprop VK-1600 from the maker. Will be available much sooner and will use existent parts supplies with common components instead of making a mishmash of crap and a cornucopia of old engines.

I would also rather that Russia made its own "unique" designs which appeal to customers. Why did they buy the Czech Let company and try to clone that craptacular Cold War era airframe design with a Czech made (now US GE owned) engine. There are plenty of other options they could have taken. For example there was production of the An-38 at Novosibirsk. There was also the Beriev 132-MK design which they never bothered to fund in the early 2000s either. There is no shortage of aviation design talent in Russia. So why copy obsolete Western made junk?

There was a waste of small airplane designs made after the Soviet Union collapsed which were never brought to market. For example the Myasishchev M-101T. Just modernize the design and make it with a VK-800 turboprop engine. This would be a high speed turboprop small aircraft that would complement the lower speed, but needing a smaller runway and rougher airfield capable LMS-901 for example.

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade needs to take a much closer look at the low end of the aviation market, not just the high end, just letting the market mostly do things by itself won't solve the problem. They will just try to cobble things together with legacy systems and Western components they can get in the black and gray market.

As for the reverse engineering of SaM-146 engine components to enable its maintenance I think this is a good idea. Half of the engine is made in Russia anyway, all of its clients are inside Russia, most SSJ-100 airplanes have over half their lifetime left in them. 229 of them were built. This isn't peanuts. This makes it one of the major aircraft in its segment. Plus there is a matter of making sure that Russian aircraft customers are made whole with purchasing Russian aircraft. There should be zero regret in buying a Russian aircraft model. Airlines shouldn't be penalized for getting a Russian designed and made product.



This is the production of SSJ-100 by year. 229 aircraft total delivered. Compare this Embraer E-Jet E2 with 81 delivered thus far. You can typically keep using an aircraft for up to 20 years. Some airline companies switch aircraft after 10 years of use. Still a lot of life in the fleet.

I doubt the 600 passenger transport aircraft by 2030 will happen. Right now they are producing zero such aircraft. Ramping production that massively requires a massive effort not just from the aircraft assembly plants but also the component manufacturers. You can't just flick a switch and magically get to max production. As is they have to certify the MC-21-300RUS and SJ-100RUS and even that still hasn't happened yet. They haven't even flown them in the complete serial configuration let alone certify them and ramp up production.

I am sure it will eventually happen but there will be further slips in schedule. I kind of doubt that serial aircraft will be delivered this year like they originally intended to. I wouldn't be surprised if there was another slip in the schedule by like another two years. Those 600 aircraft deliveries are more likely to happen sometime in the next decade.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:As far as the MC-21, the plan announced in 2022 was to reach full production rate (72 aircrafts per year) only in 2029. That is realistic.
...
Probably by that time Russia could also produce more than 30 SSJ100 per year (already happened in 2014 (36 built) and in 2017 (33 built), albeit of course in the old version with many foreign components).

So if they manage to ramp up production of the new components, an average of about 24 SJ100 aircrafts per year across 6 years should not be impossible (maybe with 36 aircraft per years in the last 3 years and an average of 12 per years in the first 3 years.

What has to be confirmed is the rates for the other airplanes, especially Tu-214. It still needs a certain amount of import substitution and it is not clear if they will be able to produce at a pace of about 15-20 aircrafts per year. I know however that they are organising new modern assembly lines in Kazan for that.

As far as the il-96, they can go to Rossiya, and it would force Voronezh as well to modernise their assembly lines and to get more personnel.

72 MC-21 aircraft per year means 144 engines and that's without spares or anything. 30 SJ-100 per year is 60 engines.

I don't think it is impossible to get those SJ-100 production numbers. The production facilities for most of it already exist. But producing those engines for the MC-21 alone is going to be extremely difficult. There is just not enough production capacity for it. And I haven't seen any efforts to fix this. Aviadvigatel had been proposing building a new production facility for the PD-14 and PD-8 series of engines for years, even chose a site at one point, but I haven't seen it move an inch. And that is before you consider they don't have the facilities to build wings for the MC-21 at that rate in service yet either.

Maybe attaining this kind of PD-14 production will be possible if they engage other production sites. Because Perm Engine Plant alone can't do it. Not without building new facilities. Maybe if you get the other engine plants like the one at Samara working on it. But I kind of doubt it.

Rosatom doubled the volume of carbon fiber supplies for the production of composite structures MS-21
01/17/2024

In 2023, enterprises of the Rosatom state corporation doubled the volume of carbon fiber supplies to the Russian aviation industry, including for the production of the composite wing of the MS-21 medium-haul aircraft. About it reported in the press service of the state corporation.

Also, as part of the import substitution program, supplies of prepreg for the horizontal tail of the MS-21 continue from 2023. In 2024, it is planned to begin serial deliveries of prepreg for the narrow-body short-haul passenger aircraft SJ-100.

Carbon fiber is an innovative material for use in the aviation industry. It has high strength and rigidity at low density, which makes it possible to reduce the weight of the aircraft and improve its weight and aerodynamic characteristics. In addition, carbon fiber has good resistance to corrosion and other aggressive influences, which increases the service life of aircraft.

Currently, composite materials are used in the designs of various foreign and domestic aircraft, including the A350, B787 and Superjet 100. Initially, the Irkut Corporation chose foreign materials for the MC-21 project, since in the 2000s Russia did not have the technology to create carbon fiber from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursors, which has thread strength characteristics of the T700-T800 level, similar to those of foreign analogues. However, after the supply of these materials ceased in 2018, the need for our own technology became vital.

Today, Russian carbon fibers have a strength of 4.9 GPa, there are individual samples with a strength of 5.6 GPa and even 6 GPa, that is, the same as Toho-Tenax or Cytec fibers - 6 GPa. However, in this area, strength is not the only and not the most important indicator. Therefore, even if we take into account only fibers commercially produced in Russia, they are quite suitable for the manufacture of large integral structures of the first level: spars, wing panels and center section. The strength of domestic carbon fiber is reduced due to microroughness on its surface , but at the same time, these microroughnesses improve interaction with the polymer matrix and, along with modification of the matrix itself and sizing agents, lead to improved performance characteristics of the product.

Composites made from domestic carbon fiber are 15% stronger in compression and impact than those made from Cytec, even though foreign fibers are stronger. This suggests that Rosatom enterprises have successfully coped with the task of creating composites from domestic materials. In December 2023, the next stage of introducing domestic PCM into the MS-21 design was completed.

During the year, technological testing was carried out for the manufacture of power elements of the aircraft from Russian composite materials. To determine the design characteristics, elementary samples of wing box and center section materials were tested. Together with TsAGI, life tests of the wing, center section, fin and stabilizer caissons, wing mechanization and control surfaces, as well as static and re-static tests of the pylon for mounting the PD-14 engine were carried out. Technologies for repairing composite components of the MS-21 aircraft were also developed.

Issues of import substitution Ulyanovsk AeroComposite has been involved since 2015 . By this time, the production of the first wing consoles from imported materials had already been mastered, the technological process and the corresponding equipment had been worked out. The next stage was the task of switching to Russian PCM. The work was organized with leading institutes, and by 2019 a prototype of the Russian material was already ready, which made it possible to quickly test it on full-size wing console structures, perform general and special qualifications of the new material, produce consoles for static and life tests and introduce import-substituted material in the design documentation.

Now AeroComposite is dealing with issues of import substitution of equipment. In 2020, R&D began with the South Russian University named after. Platov and MSTU named after. Bauman on the creation of robotic complexes for laying out dry carbon tape. Now one prototype has been put into operation in the Moscow laboratory of AeroComposite, the second is due to arrive at the plant in Ulyanovsk in February and, after commissioning, will be involved in the main production program. Based on the technical solutions obtained during the production of prototypes of display equipment, full-scale display portals and robots are launched into production, which will scale up the production of consoles.

Existing production facilities of AeroComposite allow us to manufacture in Ulyanovsk up to 12 aircraft kits per year. In order to increase production volumes to 36 MS-21 wing sets per year, technical specifications have already been developed for the manufacture and supply of Russian-made assembly station backups. Currently, the MS-21 wing caisson is being assembled for an aircraft with serial number MS.0020. The technological cycle for manufacturing one wing console provides that the wing can remain at the station for final installation of panels for up to 4 weeks. At the assembly station for the tail section of the wing and the nose section, the work also takes about 4 weeks, and at the frame assembly station it takes about 10 days.

In 2023, AeroComposite produced two prototypes of the wing caisson under the ShFDMS program. The products are currently undergoing static and life tests. This groundwork gave the company confidence that, given current technologies, it would not be difficult to produce a composite wing for a wide-body long-range aircraft, this could be either the Chinese C929 or a future project, the prototype for which could be the Il-96-400M airliner.

https://aviation21.ru/rosatom-v-dva-raza-uvelichil-obyom-postavok-uglevolokna-dlya-proizvodstva-kompozitnyx-konstrukcij-ms-21/

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Is it possible that Russia will just modernise the design of old aircrafts like An-28 (previously manufactured in Poland) or Be-30?

Like I said the An-38 used to be made at Novosibirsk.



This is a modernized An-28. But it is longer and heavier.
It is not exactly a direct replacement for the Let L-410. It can basically do the same transportation tasks. But it is a slower flying aircraft which can operate from shorter airstrips.
It probably had imported parts from Ukraine and Belarus and the engines they used last on it were imported from North America. It would need VK-1600 engines. But I think this would likely be doable.

There used to be a Be-30 modernization program. This was called Be-132MK. But I think it never want past the concept stage in the 2000s.



Most importantly I think Beriev has the chops to pull this off. They designed the Be-200.

Given advances in materials technology since the time the original aircraft airframes were designed probably the best solution is to design a new airframe.

I wonder if a Baikal would scale up properly?

Certainly a twin engined Baikal shouldn't be the most complicated project, but equally a TVRS-22 with two engines from the Baikal (a scaled down TVRS-44) shouldn't be too hard either.

The fewer new types of engine required and from scratch designs the better.

Weren't they going to replace the An-2 with two aircraft all along... the rules for the 19 passenger airliner required essentially two engines for safety so they were going to make the single engined Baikal for smaller payloads and smaller trips and a new twin engined aircraft for the 19 passenger role the An-2 could perform to rough airstrips and remote places.

The old An-28 was supposed to replace the An-2 from memory but it failed to do so and the An-38 was an improved An-28 but it didn't take off, so to speak, either.

I am sure there are a few old designs that could be revived and updated but I would guess scaling the Baikal design up to be a twin engined aircraft would make more sense and be easier.

This sounds like a good idea in principle. I already discussed the possibility of such an aircraft before. This Tu-324, or similar, would be a regional jet that would serve more remote locations with few passengers including in the Far East. It would replace small Canadian and Brazilian regional aircraft from Bombardier and Embraer. Presumably a small engine based on the Al-222 or SM-100 engine core could be developed to power it. Another possibility would be a lower power PD-8 variant.

I personally think spending additional resources on the Tu-334 or Tu-214 is a waste of time though. They would compete in resources with the more modern SJ-100 and MC-21 and would be a duplication of effort. The Tu-334 and Tu-204/214 pair were a good concept in the 1990s when it would be competing with the A319, A320, A321. But today those airframes are just totally obsolete. See how many people are interested in buying the A319NEO for example. Nobody wants it. Using a shortened version of a larger airframe just means you will have to carry loads of weight around on a small aircraft which won't make it cost effective to operate. Compare the empty weight of the Tu-334 (28,950 kg) vs SJ-100 (25,100 kg). The Superjet weighs almost 4 tons less and carries about the same passengers. The max takeoff weight of both aircraft is also way worse for the Tupolev. 47,900 kg for the Tu-334 vs 49,450 kg for the SJ-100. This means the Superjet is just way better in any operational metric. The only advantage of the Tupolev would have been lower development costs because of shared design with Tu-204. But the development of the SJ-100 is a sunk cost at this point.

Possibility of resuming the Tu-324 aircraft project under the Aurus brand
February 12th

Tatarstan network publication “BUSINESS Online” in the material of Timur Latypov “Tatar” jet: the “unfinished” Tu-324 will be turned into a flying Aurus. Gazprom structures are involved in the creation of the aircraft, for which Minnikhanov has fought for years, and reported that the reincarnation of once-stalled aircraft construction programs continues. Designed in the late 1990s by order of the government of Tatarstan, the Tu-324 aircraft will become the basis for the creation of a business jet of the Aurus transport line. What’s interesting is that the topic will be hosted not by Tupolev or the UAC at all, but by one of Gazprom’s companies. Why the raw materials giant became interested in the aviation industry and why a winged limousine was needed in our difficult times, the BUSINESS Online correspondent found out.



When we say Aurus, do we mean Gazprom?

It was decided to use the Tu-324 aircraft project as the basis for creating Russia’s first specialized business jet, sources in the aviation industry told BUSINESS Online. The aircraft will become part of the Aurus transport line. What is noteworthy is that it will not be developed by Tupolev or any other company of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), but by Gazprom, which is creating a design bureau for this purpose. BUSINESS Online invited Tupolev, UAC and Gazprom to comment on this information, but at the time the article was published, it did not receive an answer to its questions. Adviser to the Prime Minister of Tatarstan Nazir Kireev, who today remains the director of the group managing the creation of the Tu-324 aircraft under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan, did not comment either (as it turns out, no one canceled the Russian government’s decree on the development of the aircraft), explaining only details of a historical and technical nature .

The most intriguing part of the sources’ information is about Gazprom. What does a gas monopolist have to do with it? Meanwhile, recently it has been increasingly mentioned in connection with Aurus vehicles. Last May, the gas monopoly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the United Shipbuilding Corporation signed an agreement of intent to cooperate in the implementation of the Aurus-Marine project - the creation of a premium class vessel. Last October, Vedomosti sources reported that the raw materials giant could enter the capital (and receive up to 40%) of the luxury car manufacturer. Allegedly, a fundamental decision on this has already been made at the government level. The reason is that the project needs investment.

The aviation industry theme can also be traced in the activities of Alexey Miller’s company. In March 2023, Gazprom Tech LLC was created in St. Petersburg, owned by two wholly owned subsidiaries of Gazprom - Gazprom Capital LLC and Gazprom Gasoilproduct Holding LLC. In September, Gazprom Tech became the owner of Aurus-Aero LLC, which was established in July 2022 by the investment and venture fund of Tatarstan (share - 950 thousand rubles) and a wholly owned subsidiary of UAC - Oak-Resource LLC (50 thousand rubles). The main activity is the production of helicopters, airplanes and other aircraft.

Despite the unimpressive authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles, Gazprom Tech is positioned as a company created “to consolidate high-tech assets in the shipbuilding, aviation and automotive industries, as well as radio electronics, space and other activities. It is indicated that it is “implementing a long-term development program that includes the creation, implementation and improvement of innovative production projects and technologies.”

On the HeadHunter portal, the company posted information that it was looking for a head of the department for the production and cooperation of aviation equipment, a head of the department for aircraft design, and a head of the department for avionics and aircraft systems. According to our sources, the program will be conducted by a team that, on the Russian side, participated in the creation of the Russian-Chinese wide-body CR929. As you know, in 2023 our country withdrew from the project, otherwise Western manufacturers refused to participate in it. Last summer, China introduced the aircraft as its own development, COMAC Wide-Body.

Our interlocutors did not talk about the extent to which the developments once made on the Tu-324 will be preserved, but they believe that it will be significant. According to them, the project was chosen for two reasons: first, a solid foundation; the second is the only thing that Russia already has in terms of the required size.

Aborted takeoff

The history of the Tu-324 is unusual, if only because the customer of this aircraft was a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. “After in 1993, Boris Yeltsin announced to the team of KAPO named after Gorbunov (today the Kazan Aircraft Plant - a branch of Tupolev, KAZ - editor's note) about his decision to stop purchasing Tu-22M3 and Tu-160, the situation of the enterprise became catastrophic , recalls Kireev. — There was an urgent need to resolve the issue of loading it. The Tupolev Design Bureau, as has been customary since the time of Andrei Nikolaevich, had developments on promising aircraft. Then, at our joint request with the bureau, the Gromov Flight Research Institute conducted a study [on] what kind of aircraft airlines needed in the near future. It showed that from 2000 a machine will be needed to replace the Yak-40 and Tu-134, the flight life of which will be exhausted by this time. The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute confirmed this conclusion.”

There was no money to create the aircraft, and they decided to earn it by selling oil abroad (the details of the scheme were not disclosed). Mintimer Shaimiev conveyed this idea to Boris Yeltsin, and he approved it. As a result, according to open data, approximately $100 million was invested in the design of the Tu-324 (the total development program was estimated at $330 million).

In 1997, the project directorate created by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan entered into an agreement with the general developer, Tupolev, and, according to his proposal, with the developers of units and on-board equipment. Software was purchased specifically for the project for Tupolev and specialists were trained in Germany. The Tu-324 became the first aircraft in Russia designed digitally. “Tupolev coped with the task perfectly and survived for almost three years thanks to the republic’s order,” says Kireev. — The Tu-324 project is a family of three modifications: passenger, with a range of 2.5 thousand kilometers and a capacity of 52 passengers; VIP, with a range of up to 7 thousand and a capacity of 19 people; for 72 passengers, with a range of up to 3.5 thousand kilometers. They differ in the length of the fuselage, and the modification for 72 passengers has a more powerful engine and an increased area of ​​the wing and tail... By the way, the Russian government’s decree on the implementation of the project is still in effect today.”

KMPO, Ukrainian Progress and Motor Sich used their own money to develop the Ai-22 engine specifically for the Tu-324 over 2.5 years. Ukrainians managed to get interested in a potentially huge series. Three prototypes were produced... Also, on the instructions of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Research Institute of Aviation Equipment (Zhukovsky) developed avionics (later it was installed on the Be-200 amphibian).

As a result, the working documentation was transferred to KAZ, and the production of equipment and tools began. Shaimiev stated: if there is help from the federal center, it is realistic to begin deliveries of the Tu-324 in 2007. But mutual understanding with Moscow was never achieved. “A lot has been done on the Tu-324,” Nail Khairullin, general director of KAPO, told BUSINESS Online at the time. — The engine is almost ready for production, and its production near the aircraft plant would be a very big advantage. There were completers. Production began at KAPO. About $100 million was spent on the development of the project. It would be a cool car. It was simply blasphemy for the state to throw this money away!”

There are at least two versions of why the project was stopped. Khairullin is sure that this was done to please Superjet, which was then also seen as a regional aircraft. The BUSINESS Online source believes that some people really did not want to preserve the plant capable of building strategic missile carriers.

Minnikhanov, Tu-324 and Aurus

Subsequently, the topic came up several times - mainly through the efforts of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov. One gets the feeling that for him the promotion of the Tu-324 has become a matter of principle.

In April 2015, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an interview with him, in which he made a number of proposals for the revival of the aviation industry, and one of the main topics was the Tu-324. When asked whether it was possible to return to the project, Minnikhanov replied: “We can no longer leave regional lines without such an aircraft and continue to get to neighboring regions through Moscow, as is being done now. It is no coincidence that the Tu-134 and Yak-40 aircraft, which the Tu-324 should replace, have produced a total of more than 1.8 thousand units... Analogs of the Tu-324 remain widely in demand... More than 70 units of Brazilian and Canadian “regionals” alone have already been imported to Russia.” .

In May 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the same thing: “We know how difficult it is to deliver passengers in the Far East, Eastern Siberia, and within regions. Often people have to fly to nearby, neighboring regions via Moscow or St. Petersburg. This is completely unacceptable. It creates difficulties for people and for the economy as a whole... In this sense, our own regional aircraft, especially with the ability to land and take off from unpaved strips, is of great importance to us. At one time, we had a lot of such aircraft, they were widely used, but they are all outdated... You can, of course, purchase this equipment by import, as we have done until now, but for a country like ours, of course, you need your own aircraft.” In response, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov said that there are three main options (all turboprops) - the Russian Il-114, the Ukrainian An-140 and the Chinese MA-700. The official also mentioned the Tu-324. “It was not put into further work due to the fact that we devoted all the main, so to speak, resources to the MC-21, while this aircraft remained in development,” he noted.

But even then the matter ended in nothing, including for the Il-114 (by the way, a development in the 80s). Today, in the promising UAC line, it is the only candidate for the role of a regional aircraft. But at the end of 2023, it became clear that if the car appeared in hardware, it would not be earlier than 2026.

Let's move on. In 2017, Minnikhanov addressed Putin with a letter about the need to complete preparations for production and begin production of the Tu-324. This was motivated not only by the transport needs of the country, but also by the need to keep the plant in good shape to restore production of the Tu-160 (the decision on this was made in 2015). The President of Russia assessed the project as “necessary” and asked for relevant proposals. History is silent about what happened next, but almost simultaneously there was a leak in one of the federal publications that the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation notified Putin about the inexpediency of continuing work on the Tu-324.

Finally, in 2022, after the start of the SVO and the cessation of supplies of imported aircraft to the Russian Federation, Minnikhanov (who by this time had also become the chairman of the board of directors of Tupolev) proposed launching the production of not only the Tu-214, but also the Tu-324 (and also Tu-204SM and Tu-334). And it is possible that now this idea has been looked at more closely.

Let us note an interesting trend: Tatarstan is becoming increasingly attached to the Aurus theme. In 2021, Aurus Senat began to be produced in Yelabuga, and Aurus Komendant in 2022. In 2019, the Kazan Helicopter Plant presented the Ansat Aurus, a helicopter with a luxury cabin. It was assumed that officials at various levels and government-related businesses would be transferred to it from foreign cars.

Where political will is heading

The main technical problem of the reincarnation of the project can be called the lack of an engine. “The Tu-324 Aurus topic is stillborn,” says one of our interlocutors. “There are no engines yet, which means there is no plane.” Khairullin recalled that the documentation for the AI-22 was not completely transferred to Russia at that time, and the PD-8, which is currently being developed for Superjet, is redundant for the Tu-324. “In general, if I were the initiators of the project, I would remember the Tu-334,” suggested the former head of KAZ. — Firstly, it is already certified. Secondly, it can provide a more comfortable interior. And thirdly, Ufa received all the documentation for the D-436 engine.” But Kireev has no doubt that there are options for developing the AI-22 theme, the developments for which are already being used in Russia.

But all these considerations fade into the background before the question of why it was necessary to create a business jet now. The specialized community was also somewhat surprised by this turn. “Under the conditions of sanctions pressure, the main problem of the domestic business aviation market is the shortage of aircraft,” Dmitry Petrochenko, head of the BizavNews portal, told BUSINESS Online. “But even in this situation, there are schemes for purchasing aircraft from abroad. There are small volumes of imports, and every month more and more new options are being tried, which allows, although in small quantities, to still satisfy demand. In addition, it is possible to purchase Western-made aircraft on the secondary market. And then, users of such machines are very pragmatic, and the new type will inevitably have childhood illnesses, plus the lack of specialized maintenance and repair centers will not add bonuses. And one more thing: the current fleet of foreign jets is very young by market standards, and aircraft with RA registration are completely illiquid abroad. This means that the owners will use them for a long time, and maintenance problems can still be solved.”

“The appearance of a new member in the Aurus line is more of an image story,” sums up the expert. — Most likely, his niche is government agencies, state-owned companies. In any case, I think that here we are not dealing with a “strong economic project,” but with political will.” To some extent, this explains the words of our original source that “Gazprom received the command to deal with such a topic from the president.” Let us recall that there has already been one image experiment in this area - in 2021, the public was shown the Aurus Business Jet, made on the basis of the Superjet 100. But this is still a remake of a serial commercial aircraft, and not a machine originally created as a business jet.

One of our sources agrees with the political will thesis, but in a slightly different way. He does not exclude that the topic of a business jet is only a prologue to the resumption of the regional jet program. The country still cannot manage without such a machine, our interlocutor is sure. And he explains the removal of the topic beyond the scope of Rostec by the company’s workload with the production of long-haul aircraft, as well as an experiment in changing the contractor.

The version has a right to exist. As we remember, the Tu-214, which today claims to be one of the saviors of the Russian civilian fleet, was preserved as a type only thanks to corporate orders - from the administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the special services, and the military. Why shouldn’t this story repeat itself with the Tu-324?

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4801721.html

I would say the Tu-214 makes sense because there is production capacity at a time when they need aircraft.

It is not a bad aircraft and with modern Russian systems in it it would make a good replacement for a lot of aircraft the Russian military still uses, so after MS-21 and Superjet production meets the needs of commercial airlines then the Russian military could start adapting airframes to its needs and production could shift to military needs, the airlines can sell their Tu-214s to airlines in Africa and Asia and Central and South America and the not so rich countries in the Middle East, while the Russian military can not only make Tu-214 based replacement aircraft for all the obsolete types they have like the Il-38 and Il-20 and Il-22 and Tu-154M and Yak-30 and Il-62 and other types they have lying around it would also be a good aircraft base for an inflight refuelling aircraft, and perhaps also an AWACS or JSTARS type aircraft too.

Equally a transport version Tu-330 would be useful too with a 35 ton payload capacity it would be an interesting and useful aircraft for a range of jobs... keeping in mind that their Typhoon class armoured vehicles might be less than 20 tons but their Kurganets and Boomerang and their DT-30 and lots of other vehicles are not going to fit on a a 20 ton payload class aircraft like the An-12 or Il-276.

It would also be useful for longer flight range trips with lighter payloads...

The Tu-214 is basically obsolete. And to expand production rate to that established in the state order they had to build a new building.
Aeroflot is complaining about the need to train flight engineers for the aircraft. And it will compete in terms of production resources with the MC-21. It uses pretty much the same suppliers. At least the suppliers for the engines (Aviadvigatel), APU (Aerosila), and avionics (KRET) seem to be the same. It uses the PS-90 engine, which uses more fuel, was designed to meet a lower lifetime, and takes longer to build in terms of man hours than the PD-14.

There are few positives really.

Compare the Tu-214 with the MC-21. Larger empty weight (56,500 kg vs 43,400 kg). Lower range (4,300 km vs 6,000 km). Similar 210 passengers in 1 class layout. The Tu-214 does have a higher max takeoff weight. So it could be more useful for a cargo aircraft. But if you put the PD-14M engines on the MC-21 it would probably get the same max takeoff weight.