U.E.C.- Russian aircraft engines

There is something already on the way designed for just that or something similar. The PAK-VTA is gonna be the mordern An-225.. 1st flight is scheduled for 2025.. Then hopefully the 1st few ones will be built in 2030..

The question is, is the PAK VTA a separate new programme or is it the official title of Slon?

I suspect it is Slon, because if you have in the 60 ton capacity Il-476, the 90-100 ton capacity Il-106, the 120-150 ton capacity An-124 and in the 180 ton capacity range Slon, is there really any need for a bigger aircraft?

They were saying that the PD engine range will go from about a PD8 to a PD50... well other than power stations or ships, what other platforms would need a PD50 than a super heavy aircraft... but when you start talking about such aircraft I would say an airship would make more sense than an airplane... an airship of course would be much slower, but would not be tied to airfields and could take things from where they were made to where they are needed without roads or airfields needing to be built.

A massive telescope mirror could be taken from where it was made to the hilltop it will operate from without travelling narrow winding roads up the sides of mountains.

Complete turbines could be delivered to dams in one piece.

PAK VTA is the name of the program and the Slon is a particular aircraft design.
As for the use case for a 50 ton engine, that is about the power level of the GE9X engine for the 777X.

I still think they should go for the 35 ton engine design. This can be used both for a twin engine replacement for the Il-76, and a quad engine replacement for the An-225.

I still think they should go for the 35 ton engine design. This can be used both for a twin engine replacement for the Il-76, and a quad engine replacement for the An-225.

I agree, but if you look at the numbers.... the Il-76 has four 12 ton thrust engines, which means 48 tons thrust in total, so fitting two 35 ton thrust engines is overkill really... if they make an upgraded improved D-18T engine at about 24 tons thrust then two D-18T engines could replace the two 12 ton thrust engines, the main issue would be reliability because four engines are going to be more reliable than two.

Two 35 ton engines would make an An-22 class aircraft like the Il-106...

lancelot wrote:PAK VTA is the name of the program and the Slon is a particular aircraft design.
As for the use case for a 50 ton engine, that is about the power level of the GE9X engine for the 777X.

I still think they should go for the 35 ton engine design. This can be used both for a twin engine replacement for the Il-76, and a quad engine replacement for the An-225.

Well about 35 tons would be almost exactly the same amount needed for the CR929 and il96 twin jet derivative.

The most useful takeoff thrust ratings for a widebody is between 28 and 38 tons.

A thrust higher than that is for particular exceptional cases which will be eventually useful but are not worth to further delay the program at the moment.

What Russia needs at the moment is to cover the most useful and typical cases, corresponding more or less to  the size of Boeing 787, Airbus A 330 and up to the smaller of the A350.

To make some examples
There are three versions of the Boeing 787
787-800 . Engine takeoff thrust  28.6 tons (64000lbs)
787-900 engine takeoff thrust 32.6 tons (72000lbs)
787-1000 engine takeoff thrust 34.7 tons (76000lbs)

The airbus a330 neo -> takeoff thrust 33 tons

Airbus A380 (4 engines Megajumbo) takeoff thrust  35 tons (max possible engine rating about 36 tons).

As far as the a350, there is a considerable difference between the 2 versions
a350-900, with the trentXWB 84k (38 tons of thrust)

And A350-1000 with the Trent XWB-97k (44 tons of thrust).

The difference there is considerable and would require almost to develop 2 different engines for the two versions of the aircraft, increasing a lot time and cost.

I do not even want to start talking about the 777X with 50 tons (110000lbs) Thrust engines.

I do not believe it makes sense such a big engine.

Russia at the moment does not need a twinjet as large as the Boeing 777.

I almost believe it would make more sense to develop something like a 4jet Jumbo (like Boeing 747 or airbus a380) than an equivalent to the Boeing 777.
Also because such large quadjets could use engines that are already among those being developed (30 tons for the boeing747-8 and 35 tons for the a380).

An eventual PD-50 engines instead would require a very long and costly dedicated design and development campaign.

Before doing that it would be much more useful to develop new engines in the niche between 20 and 25 tons rating, similar to that was requested by Boeing for their NMA project (new midsize airplane (a sort of successor to the Boeing 757) and what was also proposed for eventual development of the MC-21 larger than the MC-21-400 (like the MC-21-500 and MC-21-600).

In addition to these narrowbody projects, such engines would be also perfect for a new wide-body medium-haul like the Tu-304/frigate ecojet, which was frozen due to the lack of modern engines and for military transport aircrafts like an eventual twin jet replacement for the il-76 (not something needed now, but possibly in 10 years time).

By the way, due to the lack of modern engines the frigate ecojet was all but canceled and a slighty larger quad jet configuration calles frigate freejet woth PD-14 or CFM leap engines was proposed, but that as well did not proceed, also because the initial project considered a large foreign participation with assembly in EU lands such as Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Of course the foreign participation from hostile countries does not make any sense now, but once the engines will be in development the project could be restarted, ideally back with the Tu-304 naming.

The interesting thing is that the thrust needed is more or less the one offered by the D-18T, but even a modernisation of it would be too outdated.

Anyway what I mean also to say is that after developing the first engine for widebody rated between 30 and 35 tons of thrust, the next engine should be something smaller (20 to 24 tons of thrust), not something bigger.

An interesting video about the VK-650v engines...

If you look at the time it is broken into segments... the second last segment shows the potential use of the VK-650V engine in a hybrid system with four electric lift engines for a VSTOL aircraft...

Good news for the testing of PD-35

https://aviation21.ru/aleksandr-inozemcev-rasskazal-o-srokax-nachala-ispytanij-dvigatelya-pd-35/

Alexander Inozemtsev spoke about the timing of the start of testing the PD-35 engine
30.11.2023, 15:32

The start of testing of the PD-35 engine is planned for the first quarter of 2024, Alexander Inozemtsev, Deputy General Director of UEC JSC for the management of NPK Perm Motors, said at the Perm Engineering and Industrial Forum.

“The most ambitious project of our country is the PD-35, which we will probably show to the whole world in tests in the first quarter of 2024. This will be an event that will happen for the first time in our country,”quotes him as sayingFederal Press News Agency.

Flight tests of all new engines are carried out as part of a flying laboratory. UAC uses the Il-76LL aircraft for this purpose. One of them is currently undergoing certification tests of the PD-8 engine for the regional SJ-100. Presumably, the experimental PD-35 will be installed on the Il-76LL instead of one of the standard D-30KP internal engines.

The PD-35 engine belongs to the family of fifth-generation turbojet engines and is intended for use on wide-body passenger and heavy transport aircraft. The diameter of its fan is 3.1 meters, the thrust is 35 tons. The PD-35 gas generator has already been tested and in the future will become the basis for the creation of engines in the thrust range from 24 to 38 tons.

Engines similar in size and thrust to the PD-35 have not previously been created in Russia. In the future, it may be offered to the Chinese aircraft manufacturing corporation COMAC as an alternative power plant for the C929 wide-body aircraft. It is also assumed that the PD-35 could serve as an impetus for the remotorization of the passenger Il-96-400M into a twin-engine version, and also replace the Ukrainian D-18T on the cargo An-124.

About the D-18T, Russia is now able to produce all of the spare parts for it, and probably it will soon be able to produce a modernised version of it.

https://aviation21.ru/rossijskaya-promyshlennost-osvoila-glubokuyu-modernizaciyu-ukrainskix-dvigatelej-d-18t/

Russian industry has mastered the deep modernization of Ukrainian D-18T engines
10/17/2023, 23:40

The D-18T engine, which is used as a power plant on the An-124-100 heavy transport aircraft, is at the stage of completing a deep modernization; its spare parts are entirely produced in Russia. About itreportedTASS source close to military transport aviation.

The D-18T engine develops a thrust of 23,400 kgf, it was developed in Zaporozhye by the Progress design bureau, and was produced there at the Motor Sich plant. Today in Russia there is no engine with a thrust of 23-25 tons. The PS-90A develops a thrust of 16,000 kgf, and the promising PD-35 is at the stage of testing a gas generator and manufacturing a demonstrator engine.
In July 2020, then Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov stated that the industry has mastered the repair of D-18T engines, and the first repaired engines have already been received. It was planned to reach the ability to repair at least 12 engines per year.

On October 11, 2023, during an inspection by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of the Ulyanovsk Aviastar plant, the commander of military transport aviation, Lieutenant General Vladimir Benediktov, reported to the minister that the Russian high-thrust engine PD-35 or D-18T could be installed on promising models of heavy transport aircraft and modernized An-124-100.

At the meeting that the Minister of Defense held at Aviastar, it was said about the need to double the fleet of An-124 aircraft by 2025. “Due to the fact that we now have engines, we have the capabilities and power to modernize these aircraft. By 2025, they must be doubled,” said the head of the Russian military department.

A TASS source told the agency that a deep modernization of the D-18T is now being completed, as a result of which a new engine will be obtained; all spare parts for it are manufactured by Russian industry. “Both engines will be Russian, and the best one will be selected on a competitive basis,” he clarified, answering the question of which option - PD-35 or D-18T - is a higher priority.

A modernised (and fully Russian) D-18T will be less efficient than an eventual PD-24 or PD-26, but a dedicated modern engine of the desired thrust will take more time to develop.

I am sure that Russia will eventually do also  PD-24 or PD-26 engine but that will happen only after the PD-35 is in service, all the variants of PD-14 are in service (including PD-14M and/or PD-16) and possibly the PD-18R, plus possibly the turboprop variant of the PD-8 and also the new turboprop/turboshaft with 4000/5000hp (PDV-4000).

Russia now needs first to concentrate on a engine with around 35 tons of takeoff thrust, which could be used on a widebody passenger plane, on a Slon and on possibility a twin engine large transport plane with a payload similar to An-22 and il-106.
Using a PD-35 on a An-124 will be very inefficient because of the needed derate (to the point that a D-18T  will be more effective).

Please note that a dedicated PD-24 or PD-26 engine will need separate design, development and testing phases than PD-35. Of course it will be much easier since all the technologies will have already been developed and some design can be reused or scaled but it will take probably something between 5 and 10 years before a new PD-24 can be put in service.
(Even engine manufacturers like GE and Rolls-Royce, with a lot of experience in large turbofan engines need many years to develop a new engine).

Russia could have in the meanwhile a modernised D-18T in service in 2026, the PD-35 in 2028 and a PD-24/PD-26 sometime between 2031 and 2035. (This keeping into account that they need resources also for the other engine project mentioned earlier).

If they can make D-18T engines for the An-124 then it is a bit of a waste making brand new engines for them, they should look at other segments they might want to expand in the future as their airlines spread out and start heading towards the global south, so perhaps engines for long range aircraft.

The PD-35 can power the new Slon transport plane in the 180 ton payload range (with four engines), and perhaps an H tailed variant for carrying outsized external loads on its back, and the An-124s can continue for quite some time with their engines fully supported in Russia, but with the PD-35 in serial production then a twin engined Il-106 type to replace the An-22 would be a very useful aircraft that would be rather useful and should be cheaper to operate than the An-124 being smaller and lighter and with new engines, so many jobs that don't require a 120-150 ton payload could be going on the Il-106.

The Il-476 fits below the Il-106 and a twin engined Il-476, a Il-276 can replace the An-12, along with the Il-214 with jet engines and probably in the 12-15 ton payload capacity range.

With the serial production of the Tu-214 airliners I would suggest an opportunity to make the Tu-330 and also replace all the obsolete Ilyusions in military service, from the Il-20/22, the Il-38, the Yak-30, the Tu-154M, et all... all those funny elint and intel and MPA types... and a new addition of a smaller AWACS and Inflight refuelling aircraft counterpart to the Il-76 based aircraft.

I would make lots of light fighters and deploy the extra tankers to support them, but as a strategic tanker I think the Il-96M with two PD-35 engines would be ideal... it is fast and does not use a lot of fuel, it can carry a lot of fuel to offload, so in terms of supporting bombers it can take off with the bombers and fly towards the north pole and then after flying 2,500km they can keep up with the bombers because they are quite fast and top them up so the bombers are fully fuelled as they pass the north pole or somewhere similar, and they can then fly back to base while the cruise missiles carriers continue to their launch positions and wait for permission to launch if it hasn't already been given.

At some point they might design a model like the Mi-12K which does not have a fuselage and is just a frame and a cockpit with some external shell fairing to make it aerodynamic that is filled from nose to tail with rotary cruise missile launchers as a cheap replacement for a strategic cruise missile carrier, or perhaps an arsenal aircraft...

Either that or a Slon where you can roll missiles out the back whose wings flip out and it flies to its target... it could also launch drones in the same way.... and potentially recover them that way too.

Maybe they can reengine the 124 with pd 35 inboard and pd 14 outboard. So they still have 50 tons on each wing. It would make a lot more sense then putting an obsolete engine into production for a very small fleet. Do they have 124s  in storage? How many if so?

GarryB wrote:If they can make D-18T engines for the An-124 then it is a bit of a waste making brand new engines for them, they should look at other segments they might want to expand in the future as their airlines spread out and start heading towards the global south, so perhaps engines for long range aircraft.

The PD-35 can power the new Slon transport plane in the 180 ton payload range (with four engines), and perhaps an H tailed variant for carrying outsized external loads on its back, and the An-124s can continue for quite some time with their engines fully supported in Russia, but with the PD-35 in serial production then a twin engined Il-106 type to replace the An-22 would be a very useful aircraft that would be rather useful and should be cheaper to operate than the An-124 being smaller and lighter and with new engines, so many jobs that don't require a 120-150 ton payload could be going on the Il-106.

The problem is always that new projects (for aircrafts and even more for engines) require a lot of time and testing.

Most of the preparatory work done by Russia was to be able to produce the An-124 under another name (they spoke of a potential il-106, but with the internal size of a an-124 and payload of more than 100tons).

Neither Slon or a twin engine il-106 can be ready before at least 2030.

If Russia could set up a production of modernised D-18T within a couple of years and enable new An-124 production at Ulyanovsk it would close a gap and solve one problem in the short- medium term.

Russia was able to independently from Ukraine produce the Ivchenko-Progress AI-222-25 turbofan engines at Salyut plant in Moscow. I believe they should be soon able to produce slightly modernised D-18T without many problems.


By the way actually a brand new engine in the 22- 24 tons thrust range (of coure  that is not possible before ay least 8 years from now, given all the other priorities) would be also useful for civilian planes.
This would also be similar to Boeing requirements for the NMA.

Already in 2016 there were articles mentioning possible longer versions of the MC-21, called MC-21-500 and MC-21-500 which would require engines of 20-25 tons of thrust

https://aviation21.ru/ms-21/

Options for the new narrow-body “single-aisle” aircraft MS-21-400, which will require engines with a thrust of up to 18 tons - PD-18, have been preliminary developed. It is also possible to create aircraft of the family - MS-21-500, MS-21-600 with engines of 20-25 tons of thrust and MS-21-700 with engines of 30 tons of thrust.

The same engines could be also used on a Short medium range elliptical fuselage widebody like the Tu-304/ frigate ecojet project.

Maybe they can reengine the 124 with pd 35 inboard and pd 14 outboard. So they still have 50 tons on each wing. It would make a lot more sense then putting an obsolete engine into production for a very small fleet. Do they have 124s in storage? How many if so?

That would not be good, in fact it would be better to just delay it till they have two PD-50s... but the obvious and best solution is that now that they can maintain its original engines to simply keep using them, I would think making a few engines from scratch and the existing engines with complete overhauls would be enough to keep them operating for a significant period of time... the existing engines had some reliability issues but I suspect their own parts and their updated versions of the old engines would probably sort that out with improved performance.

The point is that the old An-124s are 120-150 ton payload capacity aircraft... that is rather large... a lot of the time the An-22 was more use with an 80 ton capacity, and I suspect it will be the same once the Il-106 type is flying... it is useful to have the big planes, but for day to day use smaller lighter aircraft are more flexible.

Logistics is not magic... if you have a factory making special motors that are 90 tons.... they fit inside the An-124, but you need to move them from Germany to say Brazil, first of all you need to find the nearest An-124 that is available for the trip. It then needs to fly to Germany and that special motor needs to be transported from the factory it was made to the airfield that the An-124 can operate from. Then you plan the flight plan from Germany to Brazil with various stops on the way.

The point is that when you have 20 An-124s and they are all working then fitting them in might be a problem... compare that with a 60 ton motor that could be carried by an Il-106 or Il-476 of which their could be hundreds.

It works both ways of course, you might have a 20 ton payload that has to go to the Russian far east but there is a 90 ton payload that needs to come back, you could send an An-124 with 20 tons that could bring back the 90 ton load... not ideal, but better than sending the 20 tons on an An-12 and an empty An-124 to collect the 90 ton payload.

Russia was able to independently from Ukraine produce the Ivchenko-Progress AI-222-25 turbofan engines at Salyut plant in Moscow. I believe they should be soon able to produce slightly modernised D-18T without many problems.

I don't think they should invest too much in the An-124 because now it is really just a stopgap until the Il-106 and Slon and PD-35 are ready.

As mentioned by someone before the An-72 was supposed to replace the An-24/25/26 types, ... well the Il-214 should be able to finally do that now... with the ramp rear door the extra power would mean 10-15 ton payload potential which is useful for light vehicles... that would mean all the Tigr types and even the smaller of the Typhoon vehicles should be air portable.

They need to ramp up production of the Il-476 and get new factories making a few Il-276 prototypes for testing and fast tracked to start replacing the An-12s... perhaps even try mounting the engines above the wings for short takeoff and rough field performance...

GarryB wrote:

Maybe they can reengine the 124 with pd 35 inboard and pd 14 outboard. So they still have 50 tons on each wing. It would make a lot more sense then putting an obsolete engine into production for a very small fleet. Do they have 124s  in storage? How many if so?

That would not be good, in fact it would be better to just delay it till they have two PD-50s... but the obvious and best solution is that now that they can maintain its original engines to simply keep using them, I would think making a few engines from scratch and the existing engines with complete overhauls would be enough to keep them operating for a significant period of time... the existing engines had some reliability issues but I suspect their own parts and their updated versions of the old engines would probably sort that out with improved performance.

The point is that the old An-124s are 120-150 ton payload capacity aircraft... that is rather large... a lot of the time the An-22 was more use with an 80 ton capacity, and I suspect it will be the same once the Il-106 type is flying... it is useful to have the big planes, but for day to day use smaller lighter aircraft are more flexible.

Logistics is not magic... if you have a factory making special motors that are 90 tons.... they fit inside the An-124, but you need to move them from Germany to say Brazil, first of all you need to find the nearest An-124 that is available for the trip. It then needs to fly to Germany and that special motor needs to be transported from the factory it was made to the airfield that the An-124 can operate from. Then you plan the flight plan from Germany to Brazil with various stops on the way.

The point is that when you have 20 An-124s and they are all working then fitting them in might be a problem... compare that with a 60 ton motor that could be carried by an Il-106 or Il-476 of which their could be hundreds.

It works both ways of course, you might have a 20 ton payload that has to go to the Russian far east but there is a 90 ton payload that needs to come back, you could send an An-124 with 20 tons that could bring back the 90 ton load... not ideal, but better than sending the 20 tons on an An-12 and an empty An-124 to collect the 90 ton payload.

how often will they actually have to do an operation to transport an engine? these new engines are extremely reliable, and with the PD-14 these engines will be everywhere. If the AN-124 is flying some place for the military, chances are there is a high demand for transport of items. An IL-76 will probably be able to transport a PD-35. Alternatively, they can still fly the plane with 3 engines with low load to where the engines are available. The alternative is having to support a supply chain for an engine used on only 20-25 planes for another 25-30 years .So we are talking 150 engines or so. A huge waste of money and effort.

Mnztr wrote:Alternatively, they can still fly the plane with 3 engines with low load to where the engines are available. The alternative is having to support a supply chain for an engine used on only 20-25 planes for another 25-30 years .So we are talking 150 engines or so. A huge waste of money and effort.

It is not exactly a waste of money.
The supply chain for the spares for the An-124 engines has to be maintained anyway, otherwise the already existing An-124 of the russian air force and of Volga Dnepr will have eventually to be grounded for lack of spare parts (btw this is also what will eventually happen with the Antonov Airlines An-124 (if the west decides to keep them after the end of the SMO) since I doubt they will be able to get spare parts).

Since we are talking of several aircrafts for which a new generation replacement will not be ready before 10 years not having a spare supply chain would mean that RuAF (and Volga Dnepr) would have to use them very sparely.

Anyway these are only conjectures since in one of the articles I posted earlier it was written

A TASS source told the agency that a deep modernization of the D-18T is now being completed, as a result of which a new engine will be obtained; all spare parts for it are manufactured by Russian industry.

So the supply chain for D-18T already exists.
Not using them would be silly.

Furthermore Russia is producing, and will continue produce for a while, new (modernised) il-76, an aircraft which first entered in service in 1974, that is 12 years earlier than the An-124.

The only advantage that the il-76 had was that the engine (both the old D30 and the PS-90) were produced in Perm and not in Zaporozhye. Actually most (about two thirds of them) of the An-124 were produced in Russia in Ulyanovsk and only one third in Kiev.
The il-76 instead, until recently, were only produced in Uzbekistan.

If now Russia has solved the problem of D-18T production (especially in a modernised version) then, I do not see where is the problem.
The D-18T engine is from the same generation of the PS-90 of the modernised il-76 (first run of the PS90 engine was in 1983, only 3 later than the first run of the D-18T (1980).

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:If now Russia has solved the problem of D-18T production (especially in a modernised version) then, I do not see where is the problem.
The D-18T engine is from the same generation of the PS-90  of the modernised il-76 (first run of the PS90 engine was in 1983, only 3 later than the first run of the D-18T (1980).

When it came out, the PS-90 was really unreliable, it took many years of effort to get the reliability level in it up to be what it is today. Even then you still had Aviadvigatel cooperate with Pratt & Whitney on the PS-90A2 to get it to be reliable enough for civilian airliner operations. The D-18T isn't exactly known for its reliability either and would take substantial effort to get it to be reliable. At which point one has to wonder if making a whole new engine by for example speeding up the PD-35 program, possibly making a PD-28 variant of it, wouldn't be more worthwhile.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:

Mnztr wrote:Alternatively, they can still fly the plane with 3 engines with low load to where the engines are available. The alternative is having to support a supply chain for an engine used on only 20-25 planes for another 25-30 years .So we are talking 150 engines or so. A huge waste of money and effort.

It is not exactly a waste of money.
The supply chain for the spares for the An-124 engines has to be maintained anyway, otherwise the already existing An-124 of the russian air force and of Volga Dnepr will have eventually to be grounded for lack of spare parts (btw this is also what will eventually happen with the Antonov Airlines An-124 (if the west decides to keep them after the end of the SMO) since I doubt they will be able to get spare parts).

Since we are talking of several aircrafts for which a new generation replacement will not be ready before 10 years not having a spare supply chain would mean that RuAF (and Volga Dnepr) would have to use them very sparely.

Anyway these are only conjectures since in one of the articles I posted earlier it was written

A TASS source told the agency that a deep modernization of the D-18T is now being completed, as a result of which a new engine will be obtained; all spare parts for it are manufactured by Russian industry.

So the supply chain for D-18T already exists.
Not using them would be silly.

Furthermore Russia is producing, and will continue produce for a while, new (modernised) il-76, an aircraft which first entered in service in 1974, that is 12 years earlier than the An-124.

The only advantage that the il-76 had was that the engine (both the old D30 and the PS-90) were produced in Perm and not in Zaporozhye. Actually most (about two thirds of them) of the An-124 were produced in Russia in Ulyanovsk and only one third in Kiev.
The il-76 instead, until recently, were only produced in Uzbekistan.

If now Russia has solved the problem of D-18T production (especially in a modernised version) then, I do not see where is the problem.
The D-18T engine is from the same generation of the PS-90  of the modernised il-76 (first run of the PS90 engine was in 1983, only 3 later than the first run of the D-18T (1980).

From what I have read the plan is to double the current AN-124 operational fleet which would mean activating all the airframes in storage. So do you think the plan is ever to go beyond 25 frame and put it back into production? Is there a need for a vast air lifter fleet> Russia hass no plans for a foreign base network like the USA afik. So with 25 AN124 a large fleet of IL 76 and all the other transports, there there is a lot of capacity.

lancelot wrote:
When it came out, the PS-90 was really unreliable, it took many years of effort to get the reliability level in it up to be what it is today. Even then you still had Aviadvigatel cooperate with Pratt & Whitney on the PS-90A2 to get it to be reliable enough for civilian airliner operations. The D-18T isn't exactly known for its reliability either and would take substantial effort to get it to be reliable. At which point one has to wonder if making a whole new engine by for example speeding up the PD-35 program, possibly making a PD-28 variant of it, wouldn't be more worthwhile.

Well actually the PS-90A2 has practically never been used (it was planned for the Tu-204SM but was not possible to be sold to Iran because of the sanctions and it used several western components.

Russia had in plan a modernised version without American Components (the A3 and A3M versions), but I do not know if they were really developed since they are not used in any aircraft. Even the il-96-400M uses the PS-90A1 (an uprated version from the 1990s up to 17.4 tons) and not the A3 or A3M version.

Probably for the il-76 it is less of a problem since it uses a derated version to 14.5 tons of takeoff thrust.

Of course the PD28 will be done ( and I believe also other engines with lower thrust). It is just that it will be either too heavy and not efficient if it is just a derated version of the PD-35 (especially if in the An-124 it will need to be further derated).

If instead it is a parallel development and a separate engine from the PD-35, even if it uses the same kind of technologies and it is just a scaled design between the smaller PD-14 and the larger PD35 it will still require many years of proper detailed design and further development testing. For this reason it would be ready at least 4 years after the PD-35 is in service.
I am sure that several engines in various thrust ranges will be done, because Russia needs them anyway.

(And a PD-24/26, in addition to this could be used in many civilian projects, as I wrote in thr post above, and it could also be used on a twin engine cargo which has a 45 to 55 tons payload,btw, like a twin engine variant/derivative of a An-70)


My point is that such engine will not be ready before 8 years. If Russia is able to produce a reliable version of the D-18T the problem is solved. The specific consumption of that engine is comparable of the one of the CF6. The GE-Nx of the 747-8F is a generation at least newer and probably something like 15% to 20% more fuel efficient, but that is not a fundamental problem, and the fuel consumption can be addressed in the next generation engine.

Russia would have restarted the An-124 production with the old version of the engine much earlier if Ukraine did not create so many problems and blackmails (and this was when Ukraine was not an hostile nation).
If now (within a couple of years) Russia can produce them independently they will do it.
They can switch production to the Slon sometimes around 2035. And or in the meanwhile produce new an-124 versions with PD-24, PD-26 or PD-28.

how often will they actually have to do an operation to transport an engine?

When you haven't got a big aircraft to take what ever you are transporting to pieces so if the only plane you have can carry 20 tons then you break that motor down into small pieces and load 20 tons of parts into each of your 20 ton capacity planes. This might mean it takes months longer because you have to take it apart and fly it where it needs to go and then put it back together again. It also introduces the risk that parts might not arrive at all or parts get reassembled incorrectly.

Shipping is often more practical because size limitations will be different but sometimes in terms of speed if you are building a hydro electric dam and you are waiting for the turbines and it costs you millions of dollars a day waiting for the parts to arrive then flying them might save you a lot of money. Having an airstrip near the dam might mean flying the parts in is more practical than having to build a road to the site of the dam, or shipping parts via the river might work out best.

Ideally an airship that can travel to where the item is made and pick it up and take it directly to where it is to be installed would be best but not really an option at the moment.

There are lots of large things that will fit into a transport aircraft that can be moved by aircraft and delivered faster than other options. Things like helicopters or trains or trucks or tanks.

During the dry season an An-124 might be able to land on grass with a payload of less than 40 tons, which might allow it to deliver earth moving and ground compacting equipment that could build a runway that allows other aircraft to arrive with their full loads which might allow a prepared airstrip that allows an An-124 to bring 150 ton payloads to finish the runway and allow normal operations in the middle of nowhere with no roads or rivers or train tracks leading to the area... which might allow roads and rail lines to be started from that direction to meet up with rails and roads being built to allow access to the area.

The alternative is having to support a supply chain for an engine used on only 20-25 planes for another 25-30 years .So we are talking 150 engines or so. A huge waste of money and effort.

The D-18T is not a terrible engine and making parts for it and being able to upgrade it a little in terms of new parts and improved materials, it will allow the An-124 to be used for another 20 odd years, but it is going to become a middle plane... when they had An-22s the lighter smaller An-22 was a better choice for a lot of transport roles because it was cheaper despite being much older, but I suspect the Il-106 with two PD-35 engines is going to be rather cheaper than the An-124 and with the power of two 35 ton thrust engines it will likely be able to carry loads of up to 110 tons which is not far from the 120 tons the normal An-124 carried and in a smaller lighter aircraft, the production of Il-106 is going to lead to a decline in the use of the An-124.

The An-124 will be useful for big loads but the Slon will actually be better so I rather suspect they will scale back the use of the An-124s, but will be able to use them for some roles. Their size means they could be adapted to trade flight payload for a bit of extra range... perhaps carrying an 80 ton payload they could be fitted with a 70 ton internal fuel tank to massively extend flight range for long haul flights... perhaps direct flights to Africa or Central or South America...

Or maybe something more exotic... 150 tons of cruise missiles or drones that can be released out the back of the aircraft in flight...

So the supply chain for D-18T already exists.
Not using them would be silly.

They made the planes and now they have mastered the engines, it just makes sense to continue to use the aircraft till other aircraft are ready to take over.

Remember the An-22 was kept in service long after it was supposed to be replaced by the An-124, but it just turned out to be rather useful and capable for what it was able to do.

They wouldn't be replacing the An-2 and An-12 if they were not worn out with no Antonov replacement in sight.

If now Russia has solved the problem of D-18T production (especially in a modernised version) then, I do not see where is the problem.

Hopefully the improved version has better fuel efficiency and reliability which will make it even better than before.

At which point one has to wonder if making a whole new engine by for example speeding up the PD-35 program, possibly making a PD-28 variant of it, wouldn't be more worthwhile.

I rather suspect that a Russianised D-18T would be quicker and easier to achieve and that once they start using that to put more An-124s back into service and use that it will allow them to concentrate on getting other engines ready and working and to allow planning for the next aircraft they might want... perhaps a couple of PD-24-28 power engines could be developed with a goal that a Tu-330 that might start with two PS90A engines or perhaps even say two D-18Ts, could later be fitted with a new PD series engine that could be used on the Tu-330 (x2) and An-124 (x4).

The extra power might allow the Tu-330 to operate from short rough strips with 20-30 ton payloads or hard concrete strips with 35-45 tons payload, with perhaps a large fuel fraction to allow strategic flight ranges with these payloads. Such an aircraft would be rather attractive on the international market I would think... as would the Il-106.

From what I have read the plan is to double the current AN-124 operational fleet which would mean activating all the airframes in storage. So do you think the plan is ever to go beyond 25 frame and put it back into production? Is there a need for a vast air lifter fleet> Russia hass no plans for a foreign base network like the USA afik. So with 25 AN124 a large fleet of IL 76 and all the other transports, there there is a lot of capacity.

The idea of the vehicle families is to make the logistics tail of armoured formations much smaller but still effective, to make them more mobile.

It would not really be practical to try to move an Armata division around by air because all the vehicles in an Armata division will be the weight of a tank or thereabouts, but a Boomerang division or Kurganets division or even a typhoon division could be air portable and air mobile...

At about 35 tons per vehicle on average an An-124 with a 150 ton payload should be able to carry four vehicles and have room for crew or ammo or something else.

Another factor is that with the INF treaty gone then truck mounted long range missiles, either rocket or scramjet powered medium and intermediate range missiles could be very mobile around Russia as needed...

Also as their space industry expands and they start working on shuttles and space tugs and other large vehicle types having lots of big transport planes is going to be useful.

They can switch production to the Slon sometimes around 2035. And or in the meanwhile produce new an-124 versions with PD-24, PD-26 or PD-28.

Being able to make and maintain the D-18T takes pressure off the Slon and PD-35, but it still makes sense to get the PD-35 working, and perhaps even maybe look at the NK-93 and perhaps making a NK-93 version of the PD-35 to use on the Il-106.

The Il-106 would be more useful than the Slon except if they couldn't use An-124s, then both would be important.

Being able to keep using the An-124s a bit longer means the lighter cheaper Il-106 with PD-35 would make sense as the priority because you will be wanting more of the smaller lighter plane than the bigger heavier plane. As you start to retire the An-124 then Slon could be put into production to replace it...

The whole concept of the PD series engines is modular related engine types that allow engines with different power ratings to be developed and put into production faster than otherwise making them all from scratch, so there should be no problem developing new types and adapting them into turboprops or propfan engines and other types... that was their reason for being.

This video shows the facilities at UEC Saturn in Rybinsk. You can see them assembling D-30 engines for the Il-76 at 25:53.
They also make the SaM-146 and PD-8 engines for the Superjet.

Concerning the previous discussion I thought again and the needed thrust for the An-124 and I was interested on the comparison between the D-18T with the general electrics CF6 engines (used also on the Lockheed C-5M super galaxy).

Actually the CF6 first ran in 1971, 9 years before the D-18T, but the GE engine was better modernised and supported through the years in comparison to the D-18T, as independent Ukraine did not see the need of invest on engine development.

Furthermore there are some higher thrust variants of the CF6 with increased number of compressor and turbine stages, which have been developed along the years.

The interesting thing is that a few years ago Ukraine was trying to propose a An-124 with 26.8 tons of thrust CF6 engines instead of the D-18T, probably because they were neither really able to restart production of the entire engine and/or they were not able to increase thrust and reliability as much as wanted

An-124-200
Proposed version with General Electric CF6-80C2 engines, each rated at 59,200 lbf (263 kN or 26.8 tons)

That means also that the ideal engine for the An-124 is one with about 26-28 tons of thrust and not one with 23.4tons.

Basically, as already written the il-76 is not limited by its (current) engine, which is as powerful as possible for the characteristics of the aircraft (and that is the reason the PS-90 is downrated to 14.5 tons of thrust on the il-76) while the An-124 capabilities are limited by the existing engine.

However another thing to consider is that new different engines can be ok for newly built aircrafts, but not ideal for already existing An-124 (either those in service or those in storage). It would also mean having to redesign the interfaces between the aircraft and the engine and to repeat many tests.

That is also one of the reasons Russia decided not to put PS-90 engines during the modernisation of the older il-76. (Il-76MD-M)

https://www.airrecognition.com/index.php/archive-world-worldwide-news-air-force-aviation-aerospace-air-military-defence-industry/global-defense-security-news/global-news-2018/march/4157-russian-air-force-receives-first-upgraded-ilyushin-il-76md-m.html

Those upgrades mainly concerned the navigation and avionic systems.
The D-30 engines were not replaced by PS-90, but only modernised.

The upgraded version (Il-76MD-M) has standardized components mounted on the Il-76MD-90A military transport and Il-78M-90A (Midas) aerial refueling planes being produced in Ulyanovsk in the Volga area. During the upgrade, the plane’s D-30KP engines were improved. This allowed expanding the aircraft’s service life by 15 years.

Also adapting a different (even if already existing)  engine to a new aircraft is costly and usually a part of the engine (especially nacelle pylons and interfaces) have to be redesigned anyway and some aircraft tests have to be repeated anyway.

Russia has seen it also in the civilian field. The PD-14 was certified, the MS-21 aircraft had completed the cert tests with the PW1000 engine but Russia had to repeat several of the aircraft tests again, this time with PD-14 engines (i am talking only about the tests to be repeated because of the engine, in the case of MC-21 there were a lot more things to be tested because of complete import substitution).


Finally, yes probably a PD-28 could do very well on the An-124 and allow much better performances from the aircraft.

However it is not ready yet and probably it is not the first version of the new widebody engine being build (the 35 tons version for the Il96 will probably come first).
They can decide if they need different engines or if they can have more commonalities between them (the 28 tons and the 35 tons version).

Nevertheless it is not effective to replace the D-18T in the already existing (flying and in storage) An-124 with new generation engines. A modernised D-18T is the only option to keep them in the air.

Furthermore Russia could (in addition to put back in service the An-124 in storage) produce 1 or 2 new An-124 per year with modernised D-18T to verify that they have all the capabilities and then switch to a larger serial production with the new version of the An-124 with PD-28 engine sometimes after 2030 (basically similarly to what they plan to do for the Il-96 passenger aircraft).

Rostec General Director Sergey Chemezov visited the St. Petersburg enterprise "ODK-Klimov"

General Director of the Rostec State Corporation Sergei Chemezov paid a working visit to the St. Petersburg enterprise ODK-Klimov (part of the United Engine Corporation). He praised the increase in production capacity and the pace of implementation of the plan for the production of aircraft engines for civil helicopters and aircraft.

General Director of ODK Vadim Badekha and Deputy General Director - Managing Director of ODK-Klimov Alexander Grachev spoke about the implementation of the plan for a comprehensive development program for the aviation industry until 2030 for production aircraft engines, and also showed the company's workshops and design bureau. The production of engines for helicopters is now one of the most important areas for UEC. As part of the comprehensive program for the development of the aviation industry of the Russian Federation until 2030, the market demand for ODK-Klimov power plants is more than two thousand units. This year, the company has already significantly increased the volume of engine production compared to the previous year. General Director of the Rostec State Corporation Sergei Chemezov was satisfied with the progress of the helicopter engine production program and noted the full capacity utilization of the enterprise. Turboshaft helicopter engine VK-2500PS manufactured by JSC "ODK-Klimov". (JSC "UEC") UEC-Klimov produces a wide range of power plants and provides their service. The company supplies VK-2500 engines for helicopters of the Mi and Ka families, TV7-117V for Mi-38, creates promising engines VK-650V for Ansat and Ka-226T helicopters, VK-1600V for Ka-62, as well as power TV7-117ST-01 installations for the IL-114-300 regional aircraft. To increase production capacity, an investment program is being implemented to modernize existing production and increase the throughput of the enterprise's testing base. It is planned to build a new production site for engine assembly on the territory of the St. Petersburg special economic zone.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4779647.html

Klimov generally sucks for anything that isnt Helicopter engines.. They made the RD33. The 1st smoking Soviet engine. nothing before or after it smoked like that..🫤 I think the Mig29 would have had a combined 270KN if Tumansky built the engine for the Mig29..

You could argue that the only good Klimov engine family is the VK-2500. The TV7-117 engine as used in the Il-112 was a disaster and led to the cancellation of that aircraft. They dithered around with the VK-800 project for over a decade with no results of note. The RD-33 is also considered sub optimal and its performance has led to loss of sales of the MiG-29 more than once.

I think that even the Ukrainians have had more success. They at least developed the Al-222, MS-500V, and Al-450 engines.
Sometimes I think they would have been better off taking Zaporizhzhia and Motor Sich when the war started. At least this way they would have a 650 hp and 800 hp engine already.

One would hope that the new Klimov design team that is doing the VK-1600 will be different but we will see.

Well apparently the RD-33 MK solved most of the problems.

But yeah, I look forward to a new generation engine for a 2 engine mid size fighter.

The problem of the TV7-117 was about some failure modes. It can be corrected.

The il-112v was cancelled in the previous proposed state because the aircraft itself had a lot of issues and they probably mixed together too many contrasting requirements.
Furthermore they probably changed those (the requirements) several times while the project was stopped and restarted continuously.

Basically it ended up as an aircraft with a relatively large cargo hold, but not capable to have the payload capacity to actually use it properly (normally transport aircrafts have the opposite problems).

It could have been better with more powerful engines, but, apart from that failure mode which will have been corrected by know they were not bad, and they are more powerful than the engines normally used in transport aircrafts with similar or higher payload.

It is like you need a light panel van similar to a Volkswagen Caddy, Fiat Fiorino or Renault Kangoo, but your designers provide you with something larger than a full size van but with the same engines.

As far as the TV7-117 engine, it will be used on the Il-114 and (in a derated version) in the TVRS-44 Ladoga.

Rd-93 derivated from rd-33 for jf-17 is said to be very good by the pakistani.

Rd-33 is very good for what the mig-29 was to be, an frontline interceptor that could be destroy in matters of days by a missiles strike or in the air.

Just like tanks, it's pointless to have something that can last for 2 months on the battlefield without maintenance if it's lifetime on the battlefield is 1 week.

We saw that lesson being applied to leo 2. Expensive for no reason. To expensive for basic training, too expensive for having plenty of them, and too expensive for no real advantage over random anti tank weapons out there.

Same will be with f-16.

That means also that the ideal engine for the An-124 is one with about 26-28 tons of thrust and not one with 23.4tons.

No it doesn't.

That engine wasn't developed to improve the An-124, and they are talking about using it because it is the new one that has been developed by the Americans for American projects.

Developing engines and pairing them with aircraft is not just a case of putting the most powerful engine you have in just any aircraft to make it better.

More powerful engines burn more fuel, but no level of thrust is going to increase speed by a lot for such aircraft... at best it would increase MTOW which means more fuel and more payload potential but structurally the aircraft might need to be redesigned to use more power and to carry more weight and if you don't do that you end up with a worse plane than you had... carries the same payload and fuel but burns more fuel on takeoff and cruise so you reduce flight range and increase operational costs.

while the An-124 capabilities are limited by the existing engine.

I don't agree... the first An-124s had a 120 ton payload capacity and the current ones carry 150 tons with the same engines don't they?

However another thing to consider is that new different engines can be ok for newly built aircrafts, but not ideal for already existing An-124 (either those in service or those in storage). It would also mean having to redesign the interfaces between the aircraft and the engine and to repeat many tests.

There is nothing to consider... Russia wont be using General Electric engines any time soon.

Finally, yes probably a PD-28 could do very well on the An-124 and allow much better performances from the aircraft.

The An-124 is a gap filler, the PD-35 is the important engine and the Il-106 and Slon aircraft are higher priorities.

Those upgrades mainly concerned the navigation and avionic systems.
The D-30 engines were not replaced by PS-90, but only modernised.

I seem to remember that was driven by costs... the PS-90 engines were about 6 million dollars each, so 24 million dollars for new engines to burn slightly less fuel every flight, compared with the upgraded D-30 engines that were about $800K each... $3.2 million for the four engines... almost 21 million dollars in differences and cheaper to maintain too.

Nevertheless it is not effective to replace the D-18T in the already existing (flying and in storage) An-124 with new generation engines. A modernised D-18T is the only option to keep them in the air.

Nothing else is available now, but when PD-35 engines are in serial production and Il-106 and Slon aircraft are in serial production then the D-18T and An-124 can be phased out. No doubt the Slon and Il-106 aircraft will be built in the factories that want to make more An-124s so they wont be able to even if they wanted to because they will be busy making the newer aircraft types.

Furthermore Russia could (in addition to put back in service the An-124 in storage) produce 1 or 2 new An-124 per year with modernised D-18T to verify that they have all the capabilities and then switch to a larger serial production with the new version of the An-124 with PD-28 engine sometimes after 2030 (basically similarly to what they plan to do for the Il-96 passenger aircraft).

Why. It would make more sense to get the smaller cheaper lighter Il-106 into production and service and the heavier Slon aircraft into service and then just slowly use up the airframe life of the An-124 and retire them. they are a stopgap. Once the Il-106 and Slon are in serial production they will probably be made in the factories that could make the An-124 so their ability to make more An-124s will likely be removed.

Klimov generally sucks for anything that isnt Helicopter engines.. They made the RD33. The 1st smoking Soviet engine. nothing before or after it smoked like that..🫤 I think the Mig29 would have had a combined 270KN if Tumansky built the engine for the Mig29..

The RD-33 is just fine, it is amazing the bias of idiots on the interweb... the MiG-29 is shit because it has two engines, why they can't be amazing like the Chinese and make the JF-17 with a single amazing engine... except the amazing JF-17 has an RD-33 engine too... but just one of them.

Obviously making jet engines is easy and everyone is making their own engines.

No one complained about the smoke of the MiG-29 during training in the 1990s when they smoked every western fighter aircraft by a wide margin.

If its biggest problem is smokey engines then it has no problems.

I personally think they should carry a tank of diesel to inject into the engine exhaust to generate thick white smoke just to piss off the greenies. Russia is a cold country so a bit of global warming would be good for them.

The TV7-117 engine as used in the Il-112 was a disaster and led to the cancellation of that aircraft.

The TV7-117 engine is just fine as designed and used in the Il-114 and Mi-38, and also the Altius drone. The problem for the Il-112 is when they tried to boost its power by 30%, and even then it was a fire in the wing cavity of the aircraft and the propeller blades not feathering and not the engine that failed.

They dithered around with the VK-800 project for over a decade with no results of note.

They didn't get funding because stupid Russian aircraft manufacturers and aircraft users wanted western engines, but now they want Russian engines because they can't get their fancy western engines.

You blame Klimov, you are part of the problem.

The RD-33 is also considered sub optimal and its performance has led to loss of sales of the MiG-29 more than once.

Sub optimal in what regard?

RD-33 generates 50 KN in dry thrust and 81.3KN in AB, with an air mass flow of 75.5kgs/s. Fuel consumption is 0.77 lb/(lbf·h) dry and 1.85 lb/(lbf·h) in AB.

M88-2 generates 50KN in dry thrust and 75KN in AB, with an air mass flow of 65kg/s. Fuel consumption is 0.782 lb/(lbf⋅h) dry and 1.663 lb/(lbf⋅h) in AB.

F-404 generates 48.9KN in dry thrust and 84.5KN in AB thrust, with an air mass flow of 70kgs/s. Fuel consumption is 0.81 lb/(lbf⋅h) in dry and 1.74 lb/(lbf⋅h) in AB.

Not a lot of difference between the MiG-29, the Rafale, and the F-18 really...

I think that even the Ukrainians have had more success. They at least developed the Al-222, MS-500V, and Al-450 engines.

They couldn't make a plane to save themselves and their racist little minds led them to try to bully Russia right up to the end regarding their products.

China is buying Klimov engines and the Russian military is buying Klimov engines... who buys from Motor Sich now?

China tried to buy Ukrainian engines and got screwed by them like they screwed Russia as well, so keep masturbating to their memory... they ended the cold war producing nice products but they were arse holes with it.

Their engineers are fertilising that black soil or marching round in leather shorts trying to kill Russians every way they can... they don't deserve to be remembered.

One would hope that the new Klimov design team that is doing the VK-1600 will be different but we will see.

Why would they care what you think? Continue to worship the nazis, white boy.

The problem of the TV7-117 was about some failure modes. It can be corrected.

There is nothing wrong with the TV7-117 engine, it is trying to use it boosted to engine powers it was never designed for that creates problems.

Supercharging an Al-31 engine to 16 ton thrust levels will probably fail too. Does that make the Al-31 a bad engine?

The il-112v was cancelled in the previous proposed state because the aircraft itself had a lot of issues and they probably mixed together too many contrasting requirements.
Furthermore they probably changed those (the requirements) several times while the project was stopped and restarted continuously.

They didn't have an engine in a suitable power rating and tried to use one that was underpowered and boost its power which of course effected its reliability only a moron would then say the engine is bad and the company that makes it is shit. Adapting an existing engine and trying to boost its power to a suitable level was the stupid idea, and you can bet that idea did not come from Klimov... no doubt they would rather use a new engine for the job.

As far as the TV7-117 engine, it will be used on the Il-114 and (in a derated version) in the TVRS-44 Ladoga.

It is also going to be used in the Altius drone and the Mi-38 helicopter.... so obviously a terrible engine if they are going to use it on all those platforms... without a power boost.