Russian Civil Aviation: News

Very True Garry , but another reason for such shame is domestic airlines not supporting domestic aircraft industry when they meet global standards , Sibir plans to buy few 737 and much more A320 , over looking equally competitive aircraft like Tu-204SM.

Sibir plans in 2011 to buy 8 aircraft

Moscow. 12 Airports - OJSC "Airline" Siberia "in 2011 to purchase up to eight medium-range aircraft, told reporters at the conference" Wings of Russia's general director Vladimir airline scraps.

"If the shareholders are allowed to have purchased 7.8 aircraft," - he said.

According to the airline's CEO, two Boeing 737-800 aircraft will be acquired for the benefit of airlines "Globe", and 5-6 planes Airbus A320 - the airline "Siberia".

Airbus and Boeing probably offer better bribes.

I have seen statistics that show there is little difference in the safety of western and Soviet aircraft.
The main factor that effects safety is the maintainence level of the aircraft. A poorly maintained aircraft will have a worse safety record no matter who made it... remember that Boeing designed the 777 with Russian help and lots of their aircraft are now maintained in Russia.

You bet Boeing and Airbus offer good bribes and some how there is a tendency to opt for Boeing and Airbus because of the name even though they offer aircraft at higher prices.

So small players like Russia has to come with a very competitive design and lower cost to get the same deal which boeing would any way get it at the price they quote.

I think starting from Tu-204SM the Russian aircraft would be as competitive as Western one , it has a two man crew and offers 15 % fuel efficiency over Tu-204 , it is more or less confirmed that SM will get an order of 45 aircraft which will keep production running till 2016.

Hopefully Superjet and MS-21 raises that bar further and we could see more numbers of this beautiful aircraft in Airlines around the world.

I think one way to sort of Shepard Russian airlines to look at Russian aircraft more closely is to put an import duty on Western Aircraft by say 20 % making them expensive and less competitive in Russian market but the Wester manufacture will cry murder.

Here is an interesting video of Tu-154 , It was pleasantly surprising to know the Tu-154M offered 99 % uptimes like western counterpart

http://www.flightlevel350.com/Tupolev_TU-154_aircraft_facts.html

Tu-154M
Currently, the Tu-154M is the production standard which first flew in 1982. It uses more efficient Aviadvigatel D-30KU turbofans. It is far more economical, quiet, and reliable than previous versions. Aeroflot consistently achieves dispatch reliability above 99% with the Tu-154M, which compares favorably with current western airliners.

Ukraine and Russia have formed a start order for resumption of An-124

Ukraine and Russia have formed a start order for resumption of the joint production of transport aircraft AN-124, reported in the state concern "Antonov".

"Has received applications for 56 cars" - the company said.

The new aircraft was designated the An-124-200.It is different hardware upgrades, digital systems and the "glass" cockpit.

Demand for such planes is constantly growing.From the beginning, the company "Antonov Airlines" transported to the An-124 23 thousand tons of various cargoes.

Commitments For Russian MS-21 Approach 200

Moscow Tu-204 crash usual suspects to blame

Ecojet promises economy with three aisles

Dubbed “Eco-jet”, this twin-engined transport would seat between 280 and 350 passengers in a wide, ovoid fuselage – reminiscent in shape to designs proposed for the Airbus A3XX over a decade ago.
With a fuselage cross-section which is considerably wider than the Airbus A330/A340 or Boeing 777, the Eco-jet would accommodate three-aisle cabin layouts with seats 10-abreast, or 11-abreast in a high density arrangement.
According to data shown to delegates at the Wings of Russia International Aviation Forum in Moscow this week, the Eco-jet would be able to fly a payload of 200 passengers 3,350 nm., or 352 passengers around 1,100nm.

The An-124 was already very sophisticated when designed, it was fully fly by wire... which is why I laugh when in that Bond movie with the big antonov where they struggle with the controls to get it to climb because there extra efforts would be wasted.

That wide body aircraft design is interesting, the circular shape has been traditional because it offers no weak points under pressurisation unlike oval or square or rectangular shapes.
Will be interesting.

Regarding limits on foreign aircraft they could certainly do that because they are not in the WTO so how will the US stop them?

I was quite surprised to learn that An-124 has quadruplex fly-by-wire flight control system pretty much the standard these days.

I think in the new variant they have to digitise it and possibly a two man crew .They already reducted the cockpit crew from 6 to 4 in the modernised An-124-100M hopefully they could automate it further and reduce it to two crew.

http://www.antonov.com/products/air/transport/AN-124/index.xml

I think they should start the production as quickly as they can before they have a competition in A-380 freighter variant.

http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/airbus_a380/

The A380 is rather heavier than the An-124 but its max payload is actually just under the An-124s 150 tons... in fact 200kgs less so you could say they have the same payload...
But the A380 also requires double the runway length of the An-124... and I would guess it would be more expensive to buy too.

The most important difference as far as I can tell however is that the freight version of the A380 has three decks so it could carry a lot more light stuff, but it will have problems getting helicopters and trains(locomotives) and Yachts and turbines for hydro electric power stations like the An-124 carries internally. Boeing uses them to transport the large engines for the 777 in one piece without having to dismantle them. The Americans use them to transport the Atlas V rocket to cape canaveral. Rolls Royce uses them to transport its larger Trent engines worldwide... that EP-3 US spyplane that collided with a Chinese fighter and had to land in China was returned to the US in an An-124.
With 3 decks I rather doubt it will open at both ends and allow roll on roll off type loads either.

It is designed for different types of work I think... it is competing against smaller transports by offering to carry the stuff they carry but 3 times that amount in one trip in one aircraft rather than the large bulky heavy stuff that the An-124 can carry.

Garry the A-380F has a range of nearly 10400 Km with full load of ~ 150T while the An-124-100M gives a range of ~ 3200 km with full load of 150T thats a huge difference.

http://www.antonov.com/products/air/transport/AN-124/its.xml

Another option is to use the IL-96-400 Cargo variant with a full load of 92T it gives a range of ~ 5000 km and at 40T it gives ~12000 km pretty decent i must say

http://www.ilyushin.org/eng/products/cargo/96400t.html

Here is a nice cockpit view of IL-96-300 coming to land



Another one IL96 landing at Maldives , nice scenic beauty cockpit view

A380F is a freighter, not a military transport. They could make it one if they opened the nose and reduced it 1-2 decks, but Europe is intent on sticking with A400M. Trying to sell An-124 to Europe is a lost cause, if they wanted a large military transport in numbers, they would have already converted A380.

Can some one tell me the IL-96 while landing one can hear different beep coming and a lady voice in russian coming in background , do these beeps and voice have special meaning ?


Considering IL-96 is a logical replacement to IL-86 Command and Control aircraft , cant they develop such military planes and new gen AWACS and Tanker based on IL-96-400 variant ?

Austin wrote:Can some one tell me the IL-96 while landing one can hear different beep coming and a lady voice in russian coming in background , do these beeps and voice have special meaning ?

It is part of the warning system.

Considering IL-96 is a logical replacement to IL-86 Command and Control aircraft , cant they develop such military planes and new gen AWACS and Tanker based on IL-96-400 variant ?

They could, but that would make the Il-476 redundant.

Trying to sell An-124 to Europe is a lost cause, if they wanted a large military transport in numbers, they would have already converted A380.

They already have An-124s under the SALIS agreement where Belgium, Hungary, Greece, Denmark, Canada, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Sweden all have the use of two An-124s at any time while if needed 4 more are ready to be used given notice... and they have been used a lot. The agreement expires this December.
With the force increases in Afghanistan I would think they will consider either writing up another agreement or extending the existing lease.
I agree with Vlad that they are too stubborn and thick headed to buy some Ruslans themselves.
The irony is that all the nation states of NATO will waste money on fighters yet as part of a larger force they don't buy all the force multipliers like large transports, jammer aircraft, recon, tankers, etc etc.
When NATO turns up to fight it is US, UK (for how much longer), and France that fill in all the useful stuff and every other NATO country turns up with fighters.
You'd think they would organise themselves better.

Considering IL-96 is a logical replacement to IL-86 Command and Control aircraft , cant they develop such military planes and new gen AWACS and Tanker based on IL-96-400 variant ?

There is reportedly a new AWACS aircraft being worked on right now called A-100 and it is certainly possible that it might be based on the Il-96. It would be a good platform for that and probably cheaper to operate. I would also like to see a smaller less expensive AWACS aircraft like the Yak-44 enter service... it could be exported and could be used to fill gaps and of course it could be carrier capable. It would also be a better buy for smaller countries that want to detect low flying targets inside their airspace.
An Il-96 based AWACS and AEW aircraft would be more fuel efficient and probably have better range and time on station.
It would have similar advantages as a tanker.

Can some one tell me the IL-96 while landing one can hear different beep coming and a lady voice in russian coming in background , do these beeps and voice have special meaning ?

I think the Hind has a similar warning system that is called nagging nadia or something. She is probably saying "Danger close to ground, Pull up" or something to that effect.

They could, but that would make the Il-476 redundant.

The Il-96 will not be a good military transport, it would be a good tanker and with all new Russian tactical and strategic aircraft with inflight refuelling probes you are going to need rather a lot of tankers. This means the Il-76 based tankers can be reverted to transports which is going to be very important for the various military districts because reduced force size means that almost any action will require large numbers of transport aircraft and at the same time inflight refuelling capability for their air assets too.
The upgraded A-50s were not upgraded to the very state of the art because there is another aircraft being worked on.
It has been mentioned in the press by an official as the A-100 and that was all that was mentioned but I would guess that the Il-96 would be more fuel efficient and offer more comfort for the crew and better endurance than the A-50. The A-50 certainly would have the potential to operate from rougher strips but I don't think that is important.

I think the new model of more mobile forces will require a lot more Il-476s or a new replacement like the Il-106. I think a jammer aircraft based on the Il-476 might be on the horizon too, because I had read of a competition between an Il-76 and a Tu-22M3 resulted in a win for the Il-76 because the Il-76 could be fitted with a larger more powerful jammer array and that the engines could supply more electrical power to run the more powerful array.

There is also the A-60 being used to test airborne lasers in Russia that might lead to an aircraft for shooting down aerial targets at long range. This could be used to damage stealth aircrafts skin surfaces to make them not stealthy, or it could be used to defeat optically guided or IR guided AAMs which might become more predominant as each sides aircraft become more stealthy and therefore the standard AMRAAM and R-77 get less effective.
Or it could be used to deal with the new concept of swarm attacks with small UCAVs.

Indeed both the Tu-204 and IL-96 deserve their share both are good platforms and can be converted to military/intel assets.

The planned new Tanker , AWACS and Command and Control aircraft can be based on IL-96 and new generation of Maritime Platform and Intel Assets can be based on Tu-204/214.

Right now IL-96 and Tu-204 has maximum Russian built equipment and component in it , that cannot be said for Superjet or MS-21, so the former platform are good platform for new generation asset.

I would really hate to see great platform like IL-96 and Tu-204 die a slow death just because they do not have adequate civilian order and military just choose to ignore it due to lack of foresight.

Thanks for the reply Vlad,Garry.

I was some what impressed with this Sukhoi Superjet Video , the test pilot mentioned that in one of the AOA test they switched off some failure measure instrument and they put the Superjet through an AOA of 34 to 35 degree and it behaved well and did not stall.

In normal flight with soft limit it is restricted to 11 degrees AOA

How many fighter aircraft can actually get those 35 * AOA even today

Watch it in HD

Latest Comment on Tu-204SM by Fedrov ( vlad can you translate , google does not do much justification )

http://www.aviaport.ru/news/2010/10/29/204898.html

It is really sad that Tu-204SM is going through bad times , the Iran contract which was suppose to be the launch customer for 204SM was cancelled following US sanction and they can put those PS-90A2 engine and other engine are not that economical , so they cancelled the deal for nearly 30 ( 5 + 25 ) aircraft

As per the comments Atlant-Soyuz is now doubtful , the big hope is Red Wings for 45 aircraft.

While Russian Airlines are dancing and buying Airbus and Boeing , they do not support the Russian Aviation Industry , its a chicken and egg thing , unless these airlines dont buy in numbers the aviation industry cant discount make it better and competitive , and these airlines see no interest in supporting russian aviation industry. They would rather subsidies Boeing and Airbus.

This is really bad and I really support Putin when he says they want to make profit but dont want to support russian aviation industry.

I just hope the Red Wings deal gets done and Tu-204 gets good support from kremlin and military and I really want to see a ASW aircraft that replaces Tu-142 and IL-38 based on Tu-204.

Hopefully some export customers for Tu-204SM in latin america and other.

Good Luck to Tu-204 team

Tu-204-100 of Red Wings , Beautiful As Ever

Unlucky plane

UAC is considering closing the project Tu-204SM

President of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) Alexei Fedorov, the first time officially acknowledged that the production of Tu-204 and Tu-204SM can be minimized. The reason for the lack of customers, which, according to experts, due to too high a price on the liners. As the sources of RBC daily, the decision to close the project will take the government in early November, since such a step would lead mass layoffs and partial preservation of the Ulyanovsk aviation plant.

Alexei Fedorov in Kiev yesterday said he would not rule out folding Tupolev aircraft production, though later the official representative of the KLA adjusted statements of its leader, noting that the complete closure of the project can be no question. "We have assembled a working group to draft the Tu-204, which included representatives of the KLA, Tupolev, Ilyushin Finance and Irkut." Manufacturing will not be closed because it could be a blow to the operating companies "- said the spokesman for the KLA .

For the first time about the possible closure of the project Tu-204 first appeared in March this year. As mentioned by sources close to the KLA, the Ulyanovsk factory was left without customers. At that time, the KLA was only a contract for the construction of two Tu-204-300 for the presidential administration. Other Russian customers waiting for emergence of a new modification of the Tu-204SM, release dates which are constantly moved. As then noted, instead of the 2009 plane can appear only in 2011, but in case of further delay, there is a risk that the program will be phased out altogether. The first customer of the Tu-204SM should speak an Iranian company Iran Air Tour, but because of U.S. sanctions, the contract was canceled (the developer of PS-90A2 is an American Pratt & Whitney). Another customer was to become the airline's Moscow (signed a preliminary agreement to supply 15 cars from the end of 2011). However, the airline has not confirmed its willingness to enter into firm contract. Yesterday, representatives of Moscow were unavailable for comment.

In early October, save the program offered the head of the National Reserve Corporation (NRC), Alexander Lebedev. He promised to buy 44 Tu-204SM for its airline Red Wings. However, the businessman wanted to spend the money to buy aircraft, which are expected to receive from the sale of its stake in leasing company Ilyushin Finance (as reported in a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and a copy is available to RBC daily). At the same time, the businessman has openly declared inadmissible for the airline's cost of airplanes. Lebedev said he is ready to fly airplanes for 700-750 mln. However, the manufacturer calls a different price - 1.3 billion rubles. "But in order for it to be competitive, the aircraft should cost the plant about 1 billion rubles." - Said the spokesman for IFC.

According to sources, RBC daily, the new version of the product line UAC (which is now being discussed) there are no projects Tu-204, Tu-204SM, Tu-214 Tu-334. This week's issue of introducing a Tu-204SM in the product line discussed in the KLA, but this requires contracts not less than 40 aircraft. The fate of this project will be considered by the Government in November. According to sources, RBC daily, this level of decision-making due to the fact that closing the program will lead to negative social consequences due to staff reductions at the Ulyanovsk aviation plant.

Sergei Starikov

If that happens it would be absolutely tragic and great loss for Russia Aviation Industry as a whole and I dont want to believe it as yet

I really had high hopes from the Government and few Civil Airliners that they would buy the Tu-204,Tu-204SM and Il-96 in decent numbers and keep production line running till 2016.

I just hope the military positively looks at Tu-204P as a suitable replacement for IL-38 and Tu-142M MPA.

IL-96-300 doing a CAT III 3B autolanding , autopilot engage

Investment in new engine technology should be a priority, there is no point in designing aircraft if the lack of appropriate engines is making them nonviable competitors to western designs.

The Tu-204 line of aircraft is dead.