Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

MAI spoke about the work on a new supersonic passenger aircraft, 08.02.2022

Russia is developing a new generation supersonic passenger aircraft (SPS). Leading Russian scientists and engineers, united in a consortium of the world-class Supersonic Research Center, are working on innovative solutions for a promising machine. About how work is being done on aircraft, Izvestia was told at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI).

The Institute carries out work on optimizing the aerodynamic appearance of an aircraft, modeling the impact of a sonic boom, the behavior of the airframe structure, harmful emissions, acoustic loads, and others.

“In addition to being highly aerodynamic, a supersonic aircraft must provide low noise levels during takeoff and landing and low sonic boom during supersonic cruise flight. Our tasks include optimizing the layout, that is, the appearance of the ATP, in terms of these criteria, ”said Andrey Kataev, a participant in the work, head of laboratory No. 1 of NIO-101 MAI.

MAI specialists have created their own calculation methodology and a software package that allows solving these problems. Several variants of the shape of the future aircraft in 3D have already been developed.

One of the innovative solutions of the development team is the use of probionic structures in the new aircraft. Structural-power schemes of aircraft units are proposed to be built, for example, according to the principle of an animal skeleton, where different parts are adapted to different loads. Two versions of the SPS wing probionic structures have already been developed. They are investigated in terms of mass and strength.

The main purpose of using proionic structures is to reduce the weight of aircraft units and increase their degree of integrity.

To date, the MAI has developed a methodology for performing calculations and made a layout of the software package: the user in three-dimensional space can designate the airport area with the terrain, the permissible radius of pollution, the wind rose. Sources of pollution are also specified: aircraft taking off and landing at this airport at a certain time, their types of engines and fuel.

Using the program, you can calculate the spread of pollution from given sources.

Another layer of work is associated with the SPS cabin. Direct vision of the space ahead of the aircraft is not provided, and the pilot will receive all information about the flight through a set of displays combined into a single information field. As part of this direction, the MAI is developing a special predictive display that improves piloting safety. The technology makes it possible to predict the trajectory of an aircraft and visualize it as a three-dimensional corridor with a set of marks that will help the pilot to correct the course.

The MAI specialists also proposed the idea of ​​an active aircraft control lever. The output signal of such a lever is proportional to the force applied to it. As preliminary studies have shown, when using such a device, the piloting error is reduced by 2.3 times.

In addition, research participants are working on optimizing the ATP trajectory in terms of noise reduction and avoiding collisions with other aircraft, developing an intelligent pilot support system, a complex for monitoring all aircraft systems, a reconfiguration system, and cybersecurity.

On January 31, MAI told Izvestia that the LMS-901 Baikal light multi-purpose aircraft, the airframe assembly of which was carried out at MAI, can be called an improved successor to the An-2 aircraft.

It is noted that Baikal will be able to lift 2 tons of payload, develop a cruising speed of 300 km/h and cover distances of up to 1.5 thousand km, taking off from unpaved strips 250 m long.

On January 30, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Denis Manturov, announced that Baikal had made its first flight. The plane took off from the Ekaterinburg airfield in the city of Aramil, Sverdlovsk region. The flight took place at an altitude of 500 m and lasted about 25 minutes. As part of the flight mission, test pilot 1st class Valentin Lavrentiev performed maneuvers to test the stability and controllability of the aircraft in the air. According to the pilot, during the flight mission, the aircraft systems worked in the normal mode.

https://iz.ru/1288250/2022-02-08/v-mai-rasskazali-o-rabote-nad-novym-sverkhzvukovym-passazhirskim-samoletom

MS-21-400 is the future flagship of Russian civil aviation, 22.02.2022.

The flagship of the civil aviation of the USSR in the 60-70s of the twentieth century, the narrow-body airliner Il-62M, could carry up to 180 passengers in one flight over a distance of 11,000 km. With the withdrawal of this aircraft from commercial operation, the era of long-haul narrow-body passenger liners in our country has ended. All over the world, including in Russia, foreign wide-body aircraft: B747, B777, B787, A330, A350, A380 took over transportation over distances of 8 thousand or more kilometres.

The future of the giants A380 and B747 was seen as bright and cloudless for several decades ahead, until the “covid” 2020 came. Many airlines around the world have landed these four-engine aircraft, but a large number of narrow-body aircraft have ceased to fly or have been converted into cargo variants.

In 2021, reports began to appear from carriers and manufacturers that the time for “big” aircraft was coming to an end. Civil aviation is preparing to decommission four-engine aircraft, while Boeing and Airbus have announced that they are stopping the construction of passenger giants. Transcontinental flights should be launched by narrow-body airliners with an increased flight range.

The industry has strong opinion that long-haul narrow-body aircraft present good growth opportunities in the future. Air carriers, due to the effects of the pandemic and due to the variability and efficiency of the routes that these aircraft can offer, are growing in interest in them. Airbus is ready to offer airlinesupdated version of A321neowith an extended flight range - the A321XLR aircraft, which is capable of carrying 240 passengers in one flight over a distance of up to 8,700 km.

The plans of the Boeing corporation also have a new aircraft with a single pass, this is the B737 NMA (New Midsize Airplane), which is positioned as the Boeing 797. But after two B737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which occurred through the fault of the corporation, work on this new machine was suspended , and all efforts are thrown at a full return to flying the B737 MAX.

At the same time, neither Brazil nor China announced plans to create long-range "single-pass" aircraft. Embraer is focusing on medium-haul regional aircraft, and COMAC, for political reasons, is having problems certifying its C919, an aircraft that is heavily dependent on foreign supplies of components, assemblies and aircraft systems.

Russia, due to the size of the territory of our country, it is vital to have aircraft that could fly from the European part to the Far East, Kamchatka and Chukotka without intermediate landings. Now this niche is occupied by B777, B767, A330. The B747s in Rossiya Airlines' fleet transport tourists to Egyptian resorts, but the airline has already announced that these machines will be completely withdrawn from its fleet in the next three years.

The new flagship airliner of Russian aviation could be the MS-21-400 aircraft, an extended version of the MS-21-300 airliner.

In the summer of 2021, a month before the start of the MAKS air show, Ravil Khakimov, at that time the CEO of the Irkut Corporation, spoke about the versions of the new Russian aircraft that are being considered for further development. According to him, the most likely will be the launch of the MS-21-400 project for 260 passengers, everything will depend on demand after the start of operation of the MS-21-300 aircraft by airlines.

The United Aircraft Corporation is considering the possibility of developing advanced modifications of the MS-21 airliner for the period up to 2035. First of all, it is possible to modernize the MS-21 in terms of optimizing the specific fuel consumption and improving the aerodynamics of the liner, and the MS-21-400 version has also been preliminarily worked out.

The Irkut Corporation at one time considered another version of the "universal" MS-21X aircraft with a flight range of 9,000-10,000 kilometers. The take-off weight of the MS-21-400 will exceed 105 tons, the MS-21X - about 155 tons. However, it is too early to talk about this or that project: firstly, there is no Russian power plant that could provide the thrust-to-weight ratio of an aircraft weighing more than 105 tons , secondly, the MS-21-300 has not yet begun to carry out commercial transportation, so it is necessary to consider its further development, but the specifics on this issue are somewhat premature.

The primary task now facing Irkut and JSC AeroComposite is to obtain approval of the main change in the standard design of the MS-21-300 in terms of the wing made from Russian composite materials, as well as in terms of the PD-14 engine. In addition, the Ulyanovsk enterprise participates in the project of the Russian-Chinese ShFDMS CR929. The wing for the MS-21-400 is slightly larger than that of the basic version of the aircraft, and the liner itself will be much heavier than the MS-21-300, so additional design and testing of the wing of the new aircraft will be required.

In September 2019, Deputy General Director - General Designer of the United Engine Corporation Yuri Shmotin in an interviewdeclaredthat the UEC has plans to increase the power of the PD-14 engine by increasing the bypass ratio of the fan and developing a PD-16 engine with higher performance on its basis.

“This modification will be in demand for MS-21-400. We set ourselves the task not to develop a large number of different engines, but to make one basic unified gas generator and an engine based on it, which in the future will become mass-produced and will not require modifications for similar classes of aircraft, with the exception of software adaptation and modernization,” said Shmotin.

On the basis of the PD-14 gas generator, a whole family of turbofan engines with a thrust of 8 to 18 tons can be created, now the UEC is working on the PD-8 engine for the Superjet 100 and Be-200 aircraft. The PD-35 high thrust engine is also being created. The readiness of the PD-8 is announced for 2023-24, and only after that can we expect the start of work on the engine for a long-range narrow-body aircraft. At the same time, we can conclude that when an assignment for the development of an engine for the MS-21-400 is received, its creation will take place in a short time.

Before the start of the MAKS-2019 air show, the United Aircraft Corporation released overview of the global civil aircraft market until 2038.

According to the presented forecast, narrow-body aircraft with a capacity of 166-200 seats will be the main demand in the next 20 years. The need for aircraft of this capacity is estimated at 20.5 thousand units, which is more than in all other market sub-segments. In absolute terms, the total demand for civil passenger aircraft until 2038 is estimated at almost 44.3 thousand liners, or $6.35 trillion in 2019 catalog prices.

The share of the Russian segment is estimated at 2.9% in value terms and 3.3% in quantitative terms of the global market as a whole. Most deliveries to domestic airlines will fall on the sub-segment of narrow-body aircraft, with a capacity of 166-200 seats, according to the UAC forecast, this is about 630 aircraft. The study suggests that the MC-21-400 liner in a two-class layout with a flight range of up to 10,000 km will be in demand on the Russian market, and this aircraft has good prospects for becoming the new flagship of domestic civil aviation.

Andrey Velichko
for the Aviation of Russia website.

https://aviation21.ru/ms-21-400-budushhij-flagman-rossijskoj-grazhdanskoj-aviacii/