Russian Civil Aviation: News #2

Austin wrote:Under the wing of the state

https://vpk.name/news/220972_pod_kryilo_gosudarstva.html

Austin wrote:Under the wing of the state

https://vpk.name/news/220972_pod_kryilo_gosudarstva.html

PapaDragon wrote:

Austin wrote:Under the wing of the state

https://vpk.name/news/220972_pod_kryilo_gosudarstva.html

If you are just going to post link to Russian language article you could make an effort to at least describe the content...

In a wake of the decision by the White House on May 8 to pull out of the nuclear deal with Iran, European vendors may still keep a presence in the Persian market through Russian OEMs.

However, with the re-imposition of the “toughest sanctions” on the Islamic Republic, the European aerospace sector faces a difficult dilemma: how to do business with the Persians without facing punishment through exposure to U.S. domestic law.

In reality there are few options. One is to keep a presence in the market through selling components for Russian airplanes destined for the Iranian air transport industry and rendering aftersales support to them. Although this does not enable the Western aerospace companies to sell as much as they might have thought back in 2015 when the seven nations struck the nuclear deal, it would nonetheless please politicians in London, Paris, and Berlin and help maintain a European beachhead on Persian soil until such time Washington and Tehran come to terms again.

Along with Iran and North Korea, Russia is also under U.S. sanctions, under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). However, these do not apply to the Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100), as it is a purely civil program, one widely acknowledged as a rare positive example of fruitful cooperation between East and West in the aerospace domain.

French firms Thales, PowerJet, and Safran provide the avionics package, SaM.146 turbofan engines, and landing gear, respectively, while Venice, Italy-based Superjet International (SJI, Chalet A3) installs the interior. This is to name just a few European vendors involved.

During an SSJ100 presentation at a previous Farnborough Airshow, the European vendors estimated their share in the aircraft at “over 60 percent.” A more recent estimate from SCAC says imported items make up 60 percent of the serial aircraft costs. Given the list-price of $56 million, and with a clear demand in the Russian and Iranian markets for modern passenger jets, it makes economic sense for the Europeans to stay in.

Two months before Farnborough 2018, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (SCAC) announced a new version of the Superjet with a suffix “R” attached, the SSJ100R. It would differ from the factory standard in having less foreign content, presumably on account of the unavailability of U.S.-made components and those carrying traces of critical American technologies. In addition to replacing the Honeywell auxiliary power unit with a Russian-made unit from Aerosyla, changes would apply to certain hydraulic, electrical, avionics, and interior items. Most of the suitable substitutes to the U.S. components in the Superjet have been validated during flight trials on the Irkut MC-21 next-generation narrowbody jet.

SCAC CEO Alexander Roubstov explained that the reason behind introducing the R version is to reduce the foreign content by 10 to 15 percent. This matches an estimate for the U.S. content. With the latter taken out of the Superjet, SCAC would no longer need Washington’s permit to sell its products to Iranian airlines. Any foreign OEM producing airplanes with American content exceeding 10 percent needs U.S. licensing from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for sales to Iran. According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the respective permits for Boeing and Airbus to sell airplanes will be revoked by August, and waivers permitting sales of commercial aircraft parts and services will be canceled.

A month after the SSJ100R announcement, Guillaume Faury of Airbus told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper that because of the re-imposed U.S. sanctions, the European manufacturer will not be able to fulfill the deal with Iran Air for 100 new jets, signed in December 2016 in presence of French and Iranian presidents. Also in June, when the first of 80 Boeings ordered was due for delivery to Iran Air, the company’s spokesman said Boeing had lost its license to make sales in Iran and so will not supply any jets to that country. This means that not only the 100-percent government-owned flag carrier, but also collectively-held Iran Aseman Airlines can no longer expect deliveries from the U.S. airframer.

Embraer, Bombardier and even Comac are also exposed to the American laws, because every type in their product lines has double-digit percent of U.S. content. With the Tupolev-204/214 and Ilyushin-96 production limited to the Kremlin’s orders, and deliverable examples of the MC-21 years from being ready for shipment, the Superjet remains the only contemporary passenger jet available anywhere in the world for any worthwhile qualitative procurement by Iranian airlines in the near term.

Although Moscow would love to sell Tehran airplanes for the whole of the $38 billion that the Western makers signed for with the Iranian airlines in 2016-2017, it cannot offer the intended customers suitable airplanes with seating capacity and payload-range capability close to those from the duopoly. In Aeroflot’s two-class configuration, the SSJ100 seats 86 passengers, the figure rising to about 100 for high-density cabins. While Iran does need regional jets in that capacity, the numerical requirement for them is considerably smaller than that for the mainline airliners available today from the U.S. and Europe only.

Ultimately, Iran is likely to order about 100 Superjets; that number should be enough to serve the domestic network of air routes and international flights falling within the type’s operating range. By list prices, such an order would come to $5.6 billion. In April, SCAC signed memorandum of understanding with Iran Airtours (a branch of the flag-carrier operating out of Mashhad) and Iran Aseman Airlines for 40 airplanes altogether, to be delivered in the 2020-2023 timeframe. Quantitatively, it covers 40 percent of the Iranian air transport system’s needs in the given class of aircraft.

Following the government shakeup that took place after the 2017 general election, President Rouhani and his team resumed talks with Moscow on the Superjet and Kamov Ka-226T helicopter with an intent to procure a number of them from Russia and establish local assembly lines. The respective programs are pictured as pure civilian efforts, so that the Russian manufacturers do not expect issues with shipment of the PowerJet SaM.146 turbofans and Turbomeca Arrius 2G1 turboshafts that power the two types. “Should the Western engine-makers forbid us to use their products [on helicopters destined for Iran], we will work so as to equip them with Russian-made substitutes,” said Russian Helicopters CEO Andrei Boginsky. The same view is also applicable to the Superjet, for which Perm-based Aviadvigatel offers a downscaled version of the PD-14 developed for the MC-21, promising a 7-8 percent reduction in fuel burn.

It is not clear yet whether London, Paris, and Berlin will collectively oppose Trump’s policy towards Iran and defend their commercial interests in that country, or succumb to the pressure from across the ocean. “Europe has displayed that it accompanies the U.S. in most sensitive cases,” Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei said in late May. If that is the case, Moscow may oblige Tehran with a completely Russian version of the Superjet, dubbed the SSJ75. It would seat 78 passengers in a single class cabin at 32-inches pitch. First flight is planned for 2021, first shipment the following year and full-scale production starting in 2024-2025. Major design changes include a new fully composite wing, giving a 10 percent increase in lift-to-drag ratio.

The SSJ75 would supplement and then replace the original SSJ100 in production, currently running at 34 airframes annually. As of June 2018, 127 aircraft were in operation with governmental structures and six commercial airlines in Russia and three foreign operators. In 10 years since its maiden flight on May 19, 2008, the type performed 275,000 passenger flights lasting over 420,000 flight hours

At Farnborough 2018, Russian participants are prohibited from exhibiting military wares. However, Russian Helicopters' new strategy seeks to grow the civilian sector to offset a drop in the defense orders. Without expanding its civil business, the manufacturer would not be able to increase its share in the global market for rotorcraft from 12.9 percent now to 19.4 percent in 2025, as the Kremlin commanded.

Deputy minister for industry and trade Oleg Bocharov told AIN that the Russian government is keen to render “every kind of support” to local OEMs in their efforts to expand sales in the global marketplace. Bocharov led the national delegation to the Eurasia Airshow, held in Antalya three months ahead of Farnborough 2018, to attend the contract signing ceremony where Kaan Air became the first commercial operator in Turkey to select Russian rotorcraft. The company ordered three Kamov Ka-32A11BCs for delivery later this year with an option for four or five more. Bocharov said he sees this as another step forward for Russian Helicopters in expanding its sales to more of the world and building a wider customer base.

Since Farnborough 2016, the Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsiya has signed agreements on mutual recognition of national certificates with its counterparts in Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea, and Turkey. Earlier this year, Rosaviatsiya signed an agreement with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to expand and deepen interaction on certificate recognition and airworthiness issues.

“During the entire past year, there were no cases of non-recognition of our airworthiness certificates as foreign customers took delivery of freshly made Russian helicopters,” a Rosaviatsiya spokesman said. Moscow is seeking more agreements with various nations on certification issues and airworthiness by way of mutual trust to ease the way national certificates are recognized in the partner countries, he added. So far it has been going well; the only downside has been the low number of shipments actually made: a Mi-8MTV and a Mi-171 to Kazakhstan; and an Mi-26T and few Ka-32A11BCs to China.

Military orders continue to dominate Russian Helicopters’ backlog. Last year, the Russian defense ministry and foreign armies took almost 150 rotorcraft, while civilian customers took fewer than 70. Yet the company’s CEO, Andrei Boginsky, expects military sales to decline in the coming years, so that the respective share would drop below 40 percent. At the same time, he anticipates that a more aggressive sales policy targeting commercial operators around the globe will boost the share of foreign orders to more than half of the company’s production output.

After the peak of 290 in 2012, Russian Helicopters' production rate dropped to 212 in 2015 and 189 in 2016. Last year, it was up to 214 (according to government officials, the manufacturer has yet to confirm the figure), but Boginsky confessed that deliveries were roughly 10 percent less, since some shipments were postponed in this year's first quarter. Even with this, the company generated a profit of Rouble 27 billion ($430 million) against a turnover of Rouble 228 billion ($3.6 billion). The picture becomes worse considering that the manufacturer has been eating into its backlog, which stood at between 400 and 550 units around five years ago.

The Kremlin has been trying to ease the situation through several initiatives, including a program to support medical aviation in the country. The respective budgetary allocation is Rouble 10 billion evenly distributed over three years. Taking advantage of this, licensed operators arranged the hire-purchase of 34 Mi-17s plus 18 Ansats in 2017-18. These come new from the factories in Kazan and Ulan-Ude, outfitted with a standard medical equipment set.
Fleet Renewal

Another initiative is to encourage commercial operators to hire-purchase new aircraft from government-controlled leasing companies. This is a part of the bigger effort to facilitate fleet renewal in the country. The Russian civil fleet numbers approximately 2,000 rotorcraft, with local products accounting for between 1,600 and 1,700. Half of them are more than 25 years old.

The large majority of the aging machines are TV2-117-powered Mi-8Ts. Although old and underpowered, the 24-seat Mi-8T is also cheap, fuel-efficient and easy to maintain, which retards the process of its intended replacement with the more advanced Mi-8AMT (Mi-17). Even though the latter became available in 1991, many operators have been hesitating to upgrade to the new production standard on financial grounds. Inside Russia, the Mi-8T is still logging more flight hours annually. The Mi-17 is expected to take the lead in the 2010-2020 time frame, though.

Two months before Farnborough 2018, Russian Helicopters delivered the first of a further-improved Mi-171A2 to UTair, the launch customer for the type. It differs from the preceding Mi-8AMT in having Klimov VK-2500PS-03 Fadec-equipped turboshafts, a new main rotor with fully composite blades of improved aerodynamic form, and an X-shape anti-torque rotor. Instead of three crewmembers, this glass-cockpit version can be flown by two pilots. Coupled with other cost-saving measures, this makes Russian rotorcraft more attractive to commercial operators.

Out of 12,000 Mi-8s/17s built since the type was introduced in 1965, more than 7,000 remain operational around the globe. Russian Helicopters believes that this year’s entry-into-service of the Mi-171A2 and its military version, the Mi-171E2, will prompt operators to upgrade to this new standard.

Austin wrote:I hope this works out , I have seen many Russian Iran deal like purchasing Tu-204SM ended going no where.

Re-imposed U.S. Sanctions on Iran Gives Superjet a Chance

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2018-07-13/re-imposed-us-sanctions-iran-gives-superjet-chance
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Austin wrote:Boeing Signs $12 Bln Deal to Sell Giant Cargo Planes to Russian Freight Firms

https://sputniknews.com/business/201807171066439769-boeing-cargo-planes-russia/

Firebird wrote:

Austin wrote:Boeing Signs $12 Bln Deal to Sell Giant Cargo Planes to Russian Freight Firms

https://sputniknews.com/business/201807171066439769-boeing-cargo-planes-russia/

If that actually happens, its outrageous. Its like selling sand to the Arabs. 12bn is not far off Russia's whole arms exports worldwide in one year. Russia should build modernised Antonovs in Russia and tell the hohols to go and suck dick. Is it any surprise that Russian civil aviation got so fucked up? Russia is still buying off a country that's trying to destroy it! Absolutely pathetic and cowardly.

Firebird wrote:

Austin wrote:Boeing Signs $12 Bln Deal to Sell Giant Cargo Planes to Russian Freight Firms

https://sputniknews.com/business/201807171066439769-boeing-cargo-planes-russia/

If that actually happens, its outrageous. Its like selling sand to the Arabs. 12bn is not far off Russia's whole arms exports worldwide in one year. Russia should build modernised Antonovs in Russia and tell the hohols to go and suck dick. Is it any surprise that Russian civil aviation got so fucked up? Russia is still buying off a country that's trying to destroy it! Absolutely pathetic and cowardly.

JohninMK wrote:But how, with sanctions in place, can this be allowed by the US authorities? These are potential dual use aircraft.

Firebird wrote:

Austin wrote:Boeing Signs $12 Bln Deal to Sell Giant Cargo Planes to Russian Freight Firms

https://sputniknews.com/business/201807171066439769-boeing-cargo-planes-russia/

If that actually happens, its outrageous. Its like selling sand to the Arabs. 12bn is not far off Russia's whole arms exports worldwide in one year. Russia should build modernised Antonovs in Russia and tell the hohols to go and suck dick. Is it any surprise that Russian civil aviation got so fucked up? Russia is still buying off a country that's trying to destroy it! Absolutely pathetic and cowardly.

Militarov wrote:And they already cant fly 124s to certain airports due to new noise level reductions. So either stop flying to half of the world or buy aircraft from the people that can build them. Aeroflot flies almost entirely on Airbus...

kvs wrote:The first generation, the PD-14 is too small for a 777 class widebody.   But the next generation coming
in about 7 years, the PD-35, will close any gap.

kvs wrote:

Trollers gotta troll.  Haters gotta hate.

You are spewing BS about the 777.   The only issue is the engines and Russia finally has the capacity to build efficient, high
bypass turbofans.    The first generation, the PD-14 is too small for a 777 class widebody.   But the next generation coming
in about 7 years, the PD-35, will close any gap.    You can go and wank your NATO chauvinist dick elsewhere.

KiloGolf wrote:

kvs wrote:The first generation, the PD-14 is too small for a 777 class widebody.   But the next generation coming
in about 7 years, the PD-35, will close any gap.

Close the gap with 1994, in 2024. Gotcha  
Meanwhile the world has moved on.

Isos wrote:A cargo plane is a big empty solid plane with big engines nothing more. They have all the companies for building that. What are their engineers doing at work ? Seriously ?

The problem is mostly the lack of those 'big engines' and associated gas turbine base in Russia.
The US and Britain are the sole, global powers in that market.