Ukrainian Aviation Industry: Discussion

Isos wrote:Was a monkey in charge of procurment contracts in Peru ? Who right in his mind orders planes from Ukraine ?

There's always a sucker

Tsavo Lion wrote:Perhaps the An-70 could get a new lease on life if/after the Antonov plant starts working again.
"Demilitarization of Ukraine" doesn't mean that heavy cargo planes can't be produced there for Russia.
https://www.flyingmag.com/new-video-claims-to-confirm-an-225-destruction/

IMO, what's left of it could be used to finish the 2nd plane that was sitting in the hangar for years.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote: (...) An-70 (including digitalizing the design, if this has not been done yet and possibly modernising its internal systems). Hopefully the Ukrainians did not destroy in the meanwhile all the technical paperwork for the An-70 (I do not know if Russia has copy of those , but at least for the An-124 Russia has everything it needs to produce the aircraft (except the engines)).

Antonov must not be a rival, it must be a Russian company registered in Russia and part of UAC


Anyway Antonov does not need to stay in Kiev.
The main factory in Kiev can be separated from Antonov and renamed back Aviant or even Kiev aviation plant. The main technical office (and the official company registration) can be moved back in Russia, e.g. in Moscow or in Ulyanovsk.

Antonov airlines (or what remains of it) could be incorporated in Volga Dnepr (anyway Dnepr was always part of its name).

In Kiev, in the office of Antonov design bureau they can organized a separate branch of the russian UAC and give some part of some projects (as European and American aeronautical and engine companies have technical branches in India or in Singapore...actually even Boeing has a technical branch in Moscow and those guys were the people responsible for the last cargo modification of the Boeing 747 (the 747-8f, with frontal doors).

As specified before, even with a design branch in kiev, the design authority and IP right of all projects must be kept (or moved for existing projects like An-70 and An-124) in Moscow

(...)

On the other topic (engines) I believe the status of tooling and machinery in motor sich is not that bad, even if outdated (unless the Ukrainians destroyed them in the last couple of years), so they could restart production at least of the existing engine projects (D18t, d436, elicopter engines) and later move to produce parts or even new PD engines for UEC (as I said before, now all the western engines or components in new productions of SSJ100 and MC21 must be replaced)

Anatoly Vovnyanko: (...) And when new planes are created, they are always created like cars. Each new aircraft is created a little larger, more economical, and so on, than the previous one. Because a little more, these are other possibilities: loads, dimensions, pallets, etc. Here they stupidly took everything that was at hand. The guys who designed it told me: "We proposed to make the fuselage diameter larger by 200 mm", but since the general was D. Kiva, then everything they could, as I wrote there in the article, "I blinded him from the fact that It was". Here they “blinded” from what was with the An-148, part of the An-70 and more from others, well, at minimal cost, so that “their” money that they received offshore from cargo transportation by the airline was not spent. We started An-178 in 2010 and built the first prototype in 2015. They tried to shove him into VolgaDnepr and the Ukrainian military. But our military said that “We don’t have money,” and Volga-Dnepr, when they looked at the characteristics of the An-178, said that we don’t need such an aircraft.


Yuri Romanenko : Well, all the more, Volga-Dnepr is in Russia. Already then there was a war in the Donbass ...


Anatoly Vovnyanko : No, no, no, it was they who signed the documents before the war, when the plane was still under construction.


Yuri Romanenko : Ah, that's it, I understand.


Anatoly Vovnyanko : Well, Volga-Dnepr, when they looked at the characteristics on the papers, what kind of aircraft it was, they wrote extremely negative reviews there. There are military transport aircraft, as it were, by class. Conventionally, the first class of aircraft, which is widespread today, is various modifications of the An-74 aircraft: C-295 Airbus and C-27J from Italy. This is about 9.5-11 tons carrying capacity, its dimensions and so on. The second class of aircraft was the An-12, it has a carrying capacity of 16 tons, a maximum of 20 tons. And today, the C-130 Hercules aircraft dominates the market, more than 2,200 of them were produced. An-12, by the way, was also produced more than 1200.


Therefore, in my proposals, I told what kind of aircraft to make. And the Chinese made the Y-9 aircraft for 21 tons on the basis of our An-12, the same carrying capacity of 21 tons in the C-130J (this is a deeply modernized C-130) and they have already built 300 pieces and they plan to build the same number. And finally, Embraer made the KC-390 aircraft for 26 tons. Our An-178 aircraft turned out to have a carrying capacity of 15 tons (there is a corresponding document published), then D. Kiva corrected it by 16 tons. Today, the management of Antonov says that it is 18 tons, but this is true, in limited transportation. That is, the aircraft turned out compared to the An-12 with a smaller cargo compartment, worse takeoff and landing characteristics, well, higher speed, after all, time has changed (speed for this class of aircraft is not such an important characteristic), and for military transport aircraft, the dimensions and volume of the cargo compartment, concrete runways of the 2nd class and unpaved runways are important. It turns out that after 58 years, Antonov State Enterprise created the An-178 aircraft, which is inferior to its grandfather, the An-12 aircraft.


Yuri Romanenko : And the presence of a ramp.


Anatoly Vovnyanko: Well, there is a ramp here. Therefore, I know that today many people are turning, well, to me, there from the Emirates: "Find us the An-12." That is, an aircraft like the An-12 would be needed, but at a new technical level, but the An-178 does not replace the An-12. And I also wrote about this earlier and spoke about the fact that earlier ramp aircraft were used very little in civil aviation, why? Because ramp planes were, as a rule, military. And military planes are expensive planes. And only when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the price of these aircraft dropped by orders of magnitude, "Ruslan" could be bought for $ 5 million, the same An-12 - from 700 thousand to 1.5 million dollars. An-124 for Libya Ukraine was sold for 20 million and the last, expensive one, which was sold for the Emirates, is 38 million dollars. Whereas such a plane is abroad, lower carrying capacity (77 tons versus 120 tons in An124), S-17, it costs 220 million dollars. The Americans also tried to make the C-17 "Boeing" for civilians, they reduced the price to 190 million and so on, but it, because of the enormous costs, is not suitable. And so this plane, the An-178, well, no matter where the Antonovs poked, they could not find orders.


I can't say he's bad. He just turned out neither here nor there. It turned out to be better in terms of carrying capacity than the An-74, C-295, although it is inferior to them in terms of price and runway length. I cited in my article "Ukrainian Aircraft Industry - Imitation Continues" where I compare this aircraft with the An-74 aircraft. It turns out that with the same runways there, 1200-1500 meters, the An-178 carries the same cargo of 10 tons as the An-74. But the An-74 is certified, mastered, and so on, but here D. Kiva had to show for PR and retention in office that he had built a new aircraft. (By the way, it was the same with the An-158 aircraft. They simply lengthened the An-148 fuselage and did something else on small things and instead of calling, say, An-148-200, as Boeing does with all its aircraft, gave it the new name An-158).


Yuri Romanenko : And when was the An-74 made? 45 years ago, if not more.


Anatoly Vovnyanko : In 1976, the An-72 took to the skies, I was still involved in its creation, and a few years later they created the An-74, because it was necessary to fly there almost to the North Pole, so they lengthened the wing, changed the APU, etc. .


Yuri Romanenko : By the way, the other day the Ministry of Strategy and Industry announced in the person of Urusky that they were going to revive the production of An-74 at KSAMC, well, this is really funny.


Anatoly Vovnyanko : For almost 6 years, the plant has not been building aircraft, the specialists have fled, the plant has more than 3 billion debts and, it seems, 260 million hryvnias in wage arrears. I wrote that only a few almost finished An-74 aircraft could be completed, but there is a big problem. That's when they started making this idiotic An-132, which no one needed, I then wrote, guys, yes, you put a glass cockpit on the An-74, yes you upgrade it and so on, and there will be a wonderful aircraft.


After all, this aircraft was bought by all the countries of the Middle East, Canada once wanted to take it, but Kazakhstan bought from us all the time. But the leadership of Antonov thought only about their loved ones and about PR. This is the plane of Kharkov, and here in Kyiv there were the fuselage and wings of the An-32 built back in the 1990s. Yes, it was necessary to “earn” that’s why they blinded the An-132D demonstrator. They just threw away a lot of money and time, and no one bears any responsibility. To finish building the An-74, you need to transfer it to imported components. Therefore, I am not sure that this will be done, because. we need significant finances and the one who will buy this aircraft. After all, Kazakhstan has already bought the C-295 and is unlikely to buy anything in Ukraine after we did not supply them with the An-74 in 2015. I would like to return to another An-178. After all, the current leadership does not understand that the wing,


It is necessary to redesign the wing if they want to abandon Russian materials. Of course, for the An178 aircraft, they can remove the wing from the unfinished An-158 aircraft. Yes, and 3 An178 aircraft for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry can be made. I won't deny it. I saw footage on TV of how they assemble the fuselage compartments using temporary slipways. there is no serial equipment yet, and it is not known whether it will be. Because of this tragedy near Kharkov, this agony of the aviation industry, it would be possible to put an end to it today, but for 2-3 years due to the manufacture of these three An-178 aircraft, this agony will continue, well, after that hardly anyone will need it. God forbid that I be wrong, but everything that I wrote about for 15 years, unfortunately, came true. 
(...)

Who cares about this plane ? It was build for soviet space programs that doesn't exist anymore.

What would be good is an-124 because it is already used by the russian air force. If they take some that will increase their power.

A very interesting article from last year (May 2021) with an interview with an old Antonov engineer.
I will report only some extract (especially about the An-74 and the other projects) since it is quite long, but I suggest also to read the whole article as there are very interesting consideration on the russian aircraft industry of the post soviet period.

I wrote that only a few almost finished An-74 aircraft could be completed, but there is a big problem. That's when they started making this idiotic An-132, which no one needed, I then wrote, guys, yes, you put a glass cockpit on the An-74, yes you upgrade it and so on, and there will be a wonderful aircraft.

GarryB wrote:

I wrote that only a few almost finished An-74 aircraft could be completed, but there is a big problem. That's when they started making this idiotic An-132, which no one needed, I then wrote, guys, yes, you put a glass cockpit on the An-74, yes you upgrade it and so on, and there will be a wonderful aircraft.

This is the Ukrainian aviation industry thread and the only way the An-72/74 could go back into production would be if they started to cooperate with Russia, which they are dead set against doing under any circumstances.

That Ukrainian guy said himself imported parts would be critical to putting that aircraft back into serial production from their perspective and western imported components would make it too expensive and Russian parts would only become available at the end of this conflict which might go on for years and any capacity at Ukraines end to make aircraft is very unlikely to survive the conflict... I doubt they are going to keep young men working developing transport planes right now... their warm bodies are rather more valuable to Kiev lined up at the front absorbing fragments and bullets so their own bodies don't need to do that.

With that in mind the Ukrainian aircraft industry for the most part has probably already fled the country or is about to be destroyed if it hasn't already been destroyed so holding out hope that they might be useful is foolish.

As mentioned in the article that the Il-214 is their programme to replace the An-12 and an Il-276 might be also in the running as well as the Tu-330 now the Tu-214 and Tu-204 are back in production... it seems their focus is replacing the An-24/25/26 which likely are more urgently required as they are probably more widely and heavily used.

As far as Russian aviation industry situation, of course it is not the same everywhere, but he is completely right about the situation until about 2008, when the MC-21 program started, as sukhoi even dabbed in the regional jet market as the other russian firms where almost not existing anymore

after the start of the new civilian programs they even received modern western style assembly lines.

However the il-112v has demonstrated that is a stillborn project which would basically require a huge effort to turn it into an acceptable product.

What I find very important for Russia is also the contribution of relatively new players as the Ural civil aviation plant in Ekaterinburg, which has also a dedicated design bureau and engine department, and basically developed the real successor to the An-24 using the let L-610 prototype as baseline. I see the TVRS-44 Ladoga as the new An-24.

Same thing can be done for the TVRS-44.
Of course such development requires effort, but not more than fixing the Il-112V.

Ilyushin recently had too many projects in the hand and to little people.

As far as the An-72 /74, it is an aircraft that I like and it fits some roles quite important for Russia.

Maybe the production of a modernised version can be transferred to Aviakor in Samara, if the equipment in Kharkov will not have been completely destroyed in the meanwhile.

Tell them not to fly it above me. Thanks.

GarryB wrote:

after the start of the new civilian programs they even received modern western style assembly lines.

As opposed to the old Soviet Tar Pits they used to grow planes in....  

Dr.Snufflebug wrote:

JohninMK wrote:Delusional  

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The most fantastic news of the day: Ukraine has begun building a new Mriya. The new An-225 aircraft is already 30% ready, said the general director of the Antonov enterprise Evgeny Gavrilov.

Work to restore the largest cargo aircraft in the world destroyed during the attack on Gostomel is being carried out in a “secret place”

Obviously, we are talking about the second unfinished An-225, which was offered to Russia and China. The plane is located in Kyiv at Antonov and its mythical completion is carried out there

With a metric **** ton of funding poured into it, it could work I guess. But there's no way that husk is anywhere near "30%"... It technically was back in '89, but now?

They'd probably need to redesign it for new engines and so on, too.

Could be some vanity propaganda project with western cash, economically bonkers but slava ukraini.

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