Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

Nice !! They will make more russian aircraft. More il-96 and MS 21 as well as ssj-10 and il-114. Get ride of Boeing and Airbus.


Babak Taghvaee - Μπάπακ Τακβαίε - بابک تقوایی
·
15m
#Boeing has decided to sanction #Russiaian aviation industry. They have ceased technical & spare part support of all Boeing made aircraft in #Russia due to #US sanctions on the country over its invasion to #Ukraine. 59 out of 186 passenger aircraft of #Aeroflot are Boeing made

Isos wrote:Nice !! They will make more russian aircraft. More il-96 and MS 21 as well as ssj-10 and il-114. Get ride of Boeing and Airbus.


Babak Taghvaee - Μπάπακ Τακβαίε - بابک تقوایی
·
15m
#Boeing has decided to sanction #Russiaian aviation industry. They have ceased technical & spare part support of all Boeing made aircraft in #Russia due to #US sanctions on the country over its invasion to #Ukraine. 59 out of 186 passenger aircraft of #Aeroflot are Boeing made

The short term problem is the rented planes , leasing companies will take those planes from Russia , i guess Russians can rent a rented planes .

Isos wrote:Nice !! They will make more russian aircraft. More il-96 and MS 21 as well as ssj-10 and il-114. Get ride of Boeing and Airbus.


Babak Taghvaee - Μπάπακ Τακβαίε - بابک تقوایی
·
15m
#Boeing has decided to sanction #Russiaian aviation industry. They have ceased technical & spare part support of all Boeing made aircraft in #Russia due to #US sanctions on the country over its invasion to #Ukraine. 59 out of 186 passenger aircraft of #Aeroflot are Boeing made

Off topic, maybe to be moved into the civil aeronautical industry thread.


Yes but the russian alternatives (ssj100 and mc21)with almost complete import substitution are not ready yet. They will be after 2024, and even in that case the production cannot be at max from the beginning (furthermore the first 50 or so mc21 were supposed to be with American engines and western systems (avionics, pneumatic and hydraulic systems, etc)...

Either they continue operating western airplanes "illegally" for a few years... They have all the maintenance facility in Russia and also trained personnel, but will have issues with spare parts and replacement engines... Or they temporarily reactivate old airplanes in the meanwhile (e.g. tu 204 and even older Soviet airplanes, since not many Tu204 were built). There is no safety issue if properly maintained, they will just be less comfortable, more noise and more fuel thirsty

Nice !! They will make more russian aircraft. More il-96 and MS 21 as well as ssj-10 and il-114. Get ride of Boeing and Airbus.

The Soviets managed to reverse engineer a B-29 bomber to the tiniest detail - even a camera found on the bomber was copied.  P&W and GE engines shouldn't be too much of a problem for the Russians.

Edit>>should have added - If they wanted too...

Isos wrote:Nice !! They will make more russian aircraft. More il-96 and MS 21 as well as ssj-10 and il-114. Get ride of Boeing and Airbus.


Babak Taghvaee - Μπάπακ Τακβαίε - بابک تقوایی
·
15m
#Boeing has decided to sanction #Russiaian aviation industry. They have ceased technical & spare part support of all Boeing made aircraft in #Russia due to #US sanctions on the country over its invasion to #Ukraine. 59 out of 186 passenger aircraft of #Aeroflot are Boeing made

This is the hammer that Russia needs to compel Russian airline executives to buy the local products. Russias domestic market is sufficient to support her industry, especially as the aerospace companies are now integrated in a public owned conglomerate and is of national strategic value.

It also creates a market for reverse engineering of "genuine parts" to service existing air-frames while they are run to their end-of-life limits and replaced with Russian equivalents.

F U Boeing and Airbus.

2024 is no far away. Their actual planes can still fly.

Russia has its own engines. No need to copy them.

I agree it could be move to another thread.

Mir wrote:The Soviets managed to reverse engineer a B-29 bomber to the tiniest detail - even a camera found on the bomber was copied.  P&W and GE engines shouldn't be too much of a problem for the Russians.

Russia already has excellent engines available for large civil aviation. This move will speed their development and their certification on Russian airfames.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Mir wrote:The Soviets managed to reverse engineer a B-29 bomber to the tiniest detail - even a camera found on the bomber was copied.  P&W and GE engines shouldn't be too much of a problem for the Russians.

Russia already has excellent engines available for large civil aviation.  This move will speed their development and their certification on Russian airfames.

What do you mean for large civil aviation?

At the moment there is no russian civil jet engine above 17.6 tons of thrust (PS-90A1).
The highest thrust version of the PD14 is up to 15.6 tons of thrust, and it is for the MC21, an aircraft of similar sie to Airbus A32O and Boeing 737. But you cannot just take the existing A320 and swap the engines with PS90 or with PD14.

There is no engine for twin engine widebody aircrafts like the Airbus A330 or the Boeing 777, they would need to have a thrust above of 35 tons (up to almost 50tons for the Boeing 777. There is the PD 35 in development, but it will not be available before at least 2028.


I can imagine however additional orders for the Il96 400M and the reactivation of all the il-96-300 currently mothballed.

Anyway, if Russia takes control of Antonov and motor sich, they could actually build more An-148 regional jets (about 75-85 passengers max and until 4 years ago was built in Voronezh (in addition to potentially being built also in Kiev) and more Progress D-436 engines (maybe to be later replaced by PD-8 in a later upgrade of the aircraft).

There are also several inactive an148 in Russia and other taken by government agencies... They could be temporarily leased to some airlines like Rossiya to help with the internal air traffic.

Furthermore motor sich in Zaporozhye could be actually later become a second manufacturing point for the PD engine series, if Russia needs to fully replace foreign aircrafts...

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:At the moment there is no russian civil jet engine above 17.6 tons of thrust (PS-90A1).
The highest thrust version of the PD14 is up to 15.6 tons of thrust, and it is for the MC21, an aircraft of similar sie to Airbus A32O and Boeing 737.  But you cannot just take the existing A320 and swap the engines with PS90 or with PD14.

There is no engine for twin engine widebody aircrafts like the Airbus A330 or the Boeing 777, they would need to have a thrust above of 35 tons (up to almost 50tons for the Boeing 777. There is the PD 35 in development, but it will not be available before at least 2028.

I think you guys are exaggerating the problem. Due to the cut in ties air travel will slow down anyways. Middle Eastern and Turkish air companies might continue to operate to Russia. As well as Chinese and Vietnamese ones. We will have to see.

There is the NK-32-01 of the Tu-160M2. And the airplanes won't immediately fall out of the sky just because they cut supply of parts or maintenance. Russia has enough mechanics and engineers to do basic maintenance. How do you think Iran still has Boeing and Airbus airplanes flying? Parts will be cannibalized and the fleet will gradually shrink over time but it will not be immediate. Worldwide air travel is still restricted because of COVID-19. Every single airline company in the world is trying to figure that out.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:I can imagine however additional orders for the Il96 400M and the reactivation of all the il-96-300 currently mothballed.

Perhaps besides the Il-96 PD-35 reengine program they recently announced funding for they should also fund an engine upgrade to PD-14M.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Anyway, if Russia takes control of Antonov and motor sich, they could actually build more An-148 regional jets (about 75-85 passengers max and until 4 years ago was built in Voronezh (in addition to potentially being built also in Kiev) and more Progress D-436 engines (maybe to be later replaced by PD-8 in a later upgrade of the aircraft).

Please God no. That is a disaster of a regional plane. Their military transports like the An-178 might be useful but probably ridden with Western systems and still to be fixed design bugs. An-132 is basically a shell with Western systems in it. Russia will have SSJ-NEW soon and does not need An-148.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Furthermore motor sich in Zaporozhye could be actually later become a second manufacturing point for the PD engine series, if Russia needs to fully replace foreign aircrafts...

I am kind of scared they might want to restart large turbofan engine production in Ukraine and that it will take as much time as putting PD-35 in service. It will be a huge own goal. They should just let them continue to manufacture existing products for export to existing clients. Since their supply from Russia will also come back online this means they can export engines again. Which will be better than current situation.

lancelot wrote:

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:At the moment there is no russian civil jet engine above 17.6 tons of thrust (PS-90A1).
The highest thrust version of the PD14 is up to 15.6 tons of thrust, and it is for the MC21, an aircraft of similar sie to Airbus A32O and Boeing 737.  But you cannot just take the existing A320 and swap the engines with PS90 or with PD14.

There is no engine for twin engine widebody aircrafts like the Airbus A330 or the Boeing 777, they would need to have a thrust above of 35 tons (up to almost 50tons for the Boeing 777. There is the PD 35 in development, but it will not be available before at least 2028.

I think you guys are exaggerating the problem. Due to the cut in ties air travel will slow down anyways. Middle Eastern and Turkish air companies might continue to operate to Russia. As well as Chinese and Vietnamese ones. We will have to see.

There is the NK-32-01 of the Tu-160M2. And the airplanes won't immediately fall out of the sky just because they cut supply of parts or maintenance. Russia has enough mechanics and engineers to do basic maintenance. How do you think Iran still has Boeing and Airbus airplanes flying? Parts will be cannibalized and the fleet will gradually shrink over time but it will not be immediate. Worldwide air travel is still restricted because of COVID-19. Every single airline company in the world is trying to figure that out.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:I can imagine however additional orders for the Il96 400M and the reactivation of all the il-96-300 currently mothballed.

Perhaps besides the Il-96 PD-35 reengine program they recently announced funding for they should also fund an engine upgrade to PD-14M.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Anyway, if Russia takes control of Antonov and motor sich, they could actually build more An-148 regional jets (about 75-85 passengers max and until 4 years ago was built in Voronezh (in addition to potentially being built also in Kiev) and more Progress D-436 engines (maybe to be later replaced by PD-8 in a later upgrade of the aircraft).

Please God no. That is a disaster of a regional plane. Their military transports like the An-178 might be useful but probably ridden with Western systems and still to be fixed design bugs. An-132 is basically a shell with Western systems in it. Russia will have SSJ-NEW soon and does not need An-148.

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Furthermore motor sich in Zaporozhye could be actually later become a second manufacturing point for the PD engine series, if Russia needs to fully replace foreign aircrafts...

I am kind of scared they might want to restart large turbofan engine production in Ukraine and that it will take as much time as putting PD-35 in service. It will be a huge own goal. They should just let them continue to manufacture existing products for export to existing clients. Since their supply from Russia will also come back online this means they can export engines again. Which will be better than current situation.

I don't like too much the An-178 or the An-140, in case there is additional capabilities (between the Russian aircraft factory in Samara and the one in Kharkov (that until a few years ago used to cooperate a lot), it would be better to think about an alternative production site for some components of the il-114 and of the new high Wing regional turboprop based on the let-610.

The big gain of this would be also for the transport aviation,  with restart production of the An-124 (in Ulyanovsk) and maybe finally starting the An-70 production in Kiev (and possibly recovering the yak-44, which shares the same D27 propfan engines).

With this there will be quite a bit of work for motor sich, anyway... However, if Russia wants to produce enough engines for its planned MC21 it will need to ramp production considerably, since half of the aircrafts were supposed to have American engines...

I wonder if it make sense to starting building a bunch of MS-21 up to the point where it will just need to add what is not addressed yet, like the engines.

Ssj-100 as a small jet. MS-21 for larger one and why not finish the older tu-204 that are left in hangars. Il-96 as a large aircraft.

Il-114 as a regional turboprop.

That's a good basis because they are already finished or almost finished products. Thanks to the devaluation of the ruble sell them 2 times less expensive than airbus/boeing on the export market.

Ally with China to build a 777 copy.

These Ukrainian aero plants are surely a shell of what they used to be. Maybe their key staff are already at work on the new Russian aircraft, living in Russia. If so is it feasible to consider restarting production there at all? If starting from scratch do it in Russia.

Maybe, like Airbus etc, there is a case for making sub assemblies like wings or tails etc.

JohninMK wrote:These Ukrainian aero plants are surely a shell of what they used to be. Maybe their key staff are already at work on the new Russian aircraft, living in Russia. If so is it feasible to consider restarting production there at all? If starting from scratch do it in Russia.

Maybe, like Airbus etc, there is a case for making sub assemblies like wings or tails etc.

That is what I suggested for karkhov aviation plant, and maybe it could be the same at the beginning for aviant in Kiev as well, keep it for parts production and Maintenance.

However after a few years it could be actually done something similar to what was done in some modern russian plants and install a serial production facility, in the case there is the need of increased production, since now, with the exclusion of the western aircrafts more domestic aircrafts are needed.


By the way, there is no need to copy the boeing777, russia is already working on the twin engine version of the Il96 and on the russian-chinese CR929... Just need to wait another 5 years for the PD35 engines... In the meanwhile there is the 4 engine Il96 as long range widebody...

Embraer joins in on the sanctions.

https://aviation21.ru/embraer-priostanavlivaet-texnicheskoe-obsluzhivanie-svoix-samolyotov-v-rossii/

They really didn't have any other choice - since they are completely dependent upon the same suppliers.

GarryB wrote:The amount of money and the economic and political uncertainty suggests Antonov and Motor Sich are gone and the money required to restore them to productive levels would be better spend at existing Russian factories to meet new demands.

How do you think Iran still has Boeing and Airbus airplanes flying? Parts will be cannibalized and the fleet will gradually shrink over time but it will not be immediate. Worldwide air travel is still restricted because of COVID-19. Every single airline company in the world is trying to figure that out.

Most airlines have rather more aircraft than they actually need right now so it wont be a major problem for a while.

The big gain of this would be also for the transport aviation,  with restart production of the An-124 (in Ulyanovsk) and maybe finally starting the An-70 production in Kiev (and possibly recovering the yak-44, which shares the same D27 propfan engines).

Those are all dead programmes, and I rather suspect the Yak-44 will be reengined and redesigned anyway...

However, if Russia wants to produce enough engines for its planned MC21 it will need to ramp production considerably, since half of the aircrafts were supposed to have American engines...

The customers wanting US engines might no longer want Russian aircraft... the problem might fix itself.

They were almost exclusively russian customers (even with western engines and systems), the foreign orders for the MC21 aircrafts were minimum. Furthermore now that no Airbus or Boeing can be imported there is the need of further aircrafts production...

I think the largest problem for the Russian vehicle industry I have read thus far is supposed stop of sales of SKF ball bearings to Russia which was reported on TASS.
https://tass.com/politics/1416183

All top 10 largest ball bearing manufacturers in the world are in ze West.
https://www.electricallyinsulatedbearings.com/Top-10-Bearing-Brands-in-The-World-id3836959.html

The Russified MC-21 and SSJ should come online in 3 years time anyway. The Russian government should also immediately fund PD-14M engine and MC-21-400 to replace Tu-206 and Airbus 321NEO.

Note: I compiled this list 3 years ago (summer 2019), so it maybe not up to date

Concerning foreign airplane use in Russia, I had a look at available data for the exisiting major Russian airlines.

Not just Aeroflot, but the three other airlines owned by Aeroflot (Aurora, Rossiya and Pobeda) have all only western aircrafts (including regional turboprops from bombardier, in the same class as the il-114)

Aeroflot currently operates 115 medium narrowbodies of the A320 family and 47 boeing 737.
It has 50 russian MC-21 in order.

In addition it operates 41 widebodies (airbus A330 and boeing 777), and has additional 22 boeing 787 in order.

The only russian aircrafts in operation with Aeroflot are 49 ssj-100 (with additional 100 in order)



Rossiya has currently 21 a319 (about 120 passenger each, could be substituted by the smaller ssj100),  22 aircrafts between A320s and boeing737, and 19 widebodies (boeing 747 and 777, that could be replaced by il-96 400M).

Aurora operates 10 airbus a319 and 8 smaller bombardier turboprops.

Pobeda operates 30 boeing 737 and has additional 20 in orders. (I know that they are basically a russian "easyjet" and that they need tested aircrafts, but if the business case is not there yet it would be better to temporarily park the concept of expanding the operation of such low cost airline until the new russian mc21 have the necessary operability instead of ordering additional american aircrafts.


Concerning the other major airlines in Russia (non state owned)

S7(Siberian airlines), Russia's biggest domestic airline operates circa 80 medium range narrowbodies with additional 12 in order (all A320 family or boeing 737) + 17embraer 170 (the latter should be eventually replaced by ssj-75

Globus airlines (formerly owned by S7) operates 21 boeing 737 and has additional 10 in order.

Smartavia (previously nordavia and aeroflot nord), based in archangelsk, currently owned by "skyinvest" operates only american aircrafts, with 14 boeing 737 of various types.

Nordstar in Krasnoyask operates 7 boeing 737 and 4 ATR 42 turboprops

Nordwind Airline (based in Moscow) operates 17 narrowbodies (A320 and b737) and 11 widebodies (a330 and b777). Apparently it has 5 russian mc-21 in order.



Red Wings airline has currently a dozen A320, but it should substitute them with mc21starting from 2021.


Ural Airline (Yekaterinburg) operates 46 narrowbodies of the airbus A320 family and has 14 boeing 737 in order.

Utair Airline operates only western aircrafts: 15 atr 72 turboprops,  47 boeing 737 (with 30 new 737 in order to replace older 737 models) narrowbodies and 3 boeing 767 widebodies.

Yakutia airline has a mixed fleet with 6 old An-24 turboprops, 4 bombardier dash 8 turboprops, 7 boeing 737 narrowbodies (with 10 in order) and 4 sukhoi ssj100

Yamal airlines operates 11 a320 narrowbodies, 11 small bombardier Crj200 small jets (50 passengers) and 16 sukhoi ssj100.



There are probably way too many airlines anyway. In the soviet union times there was only aeroflot, and that helped also the aeronautical industry, that could better plan the production.

In addition, there should be some proper protection for the local aeronautical industry. That means only Russian aircrafts for state owned aircrafts, and for all the other airlines large import tarif (at least 15 %) for acquiring and operating (so also for maintenance contracts) foreign made aircrafts.
American, Canadian, or France/German airlines would not acquire Russian aircrafts anyway, so even if they close their market for russian aircrafts in response it is not a loss. All the other nations do not produce modern commercial aircrafts, so for them it wouldn't change anything.

This part is instead not applicable anymore, the import restrition has been solved by itself



As far as Brazil, they currently they import all of their widebodies and medium range narrowbodies. Brazil produces some modern regional jets and turboprops, but their largest commercial aircraft has the size of a streched ssj100 (E195-E2)
and I doubt they will buy il-114 or ssj100, since they are currently market leaders on these segments.

The Chinese civilian market would not be open to Russia anyway, except for the joint developed CRAIG 929. As soon as the comac 919 will be operational they will stop using airbus a320 and boeing 737 and there is no chance that they will buy some mc-21 (even if it is a much better aircraft than the c919).

I would like to add that most SSJ that Aeroflot used to have were moved to Rossiya.
https://simpleflying.com/rossiya-russian-built-aircraft/

https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Rossiya-Russian-Airlines
https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Aeroflot-Russian-Airlines

Aeroflot is now paying the price of its anti-Russian bias as the West sanctions their aircraft, flights connected to the West, and disables their US made ticketing system.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959816/sabre-cuts-ties-aeroflot-russian-invasion-ukraine

I think the biggest issue in terms of aircraft is with the turboprops. After the Il-112V crash it was proven that  Klimov TV7-117ST engine is not reliable. This will take time to fix. In addition Russia lacks larger size turboprops. Klimov has a lot on its plate and has huge backlog of development programs with helicopter engines. Best choice of engine would be PD-12V engine for Mi-26 helicopter replacement based on PD-14 engine core. But this project AFAIK is still not in an advanced stage with nothing hitting the test stands yet. Latest reports I have read mention component testing of individual parts like shafts with whole assembly and test yet not started.

The lack of technical support for these aircraft will, I think, be mostly irrelevant and be handled by cannibalizing aircraft until Russian aircraft which can replace them are in production. Like I said. It will be a much higher loss for Western aircraft manufacturers and leasing companies. Not to mention their aviation which is barred from Russian airspace. This might mean Europe will start flying routes to Asia via Alaska like used to be the case in Soviet times. These will not be competitive against Asian and Middle Eastern airlines.

Do not count on MC-21 production in near term since initial model was supposed to use Western components and Russified version not ready yet. Perhaps in 3 years.

Local made part MS-21 flew not long ago when they tested PD-14 engines. I would give it at least 1.5 years before it's fully ready.

If they need it now, I assume they can restart Tu-204 program with modern technology (apparently they were a lot better than claimed), and others.

Plus, I would be for a localized version of Chinese C919 and or join development of it like 929 which of course has some issues due to disagreements.

miketheterrible wrote:Local made part MS-21 flew not long ago when they tested PD-14 engines. I would give it at least 1.5 years before it's fully ready.

If they need it now, I assume they can restart Tu-204 program with modern technology (apparently they were a lot better than claimed), and others.

Plus, I would be for a localized version of Chinese C919 and or join development of it like 929 which of course has some issues due to disagreements.

yeah, actually the Tu204SM (the modernised version) has not much to envy to the A320 with the original engines.

If I am not mistaken, the production of the Tu204 (from aviastar in Ulyanovsk)/Tu214 (from Kazan) never completely stopped but it would not be easy to go from very low production rate to more than a dozen aircrafts per year...

Eventually when the MC 21 are produced in enough numbers the tu204 could be converted into cargo use or given to other countries

A little example from Dmitry Orlov, from the Saker site:

Meanwhile, in the West, it may finally be dawning on some people that the extent of the self-inflicted damage from the anti-Russian hysteria is more than anybody bargained for.

For example, the EU demanded that all Russian leases on Airbus jets—over 500 of them—be cancelled. It also blocked the sale of Airbus parts to Russia and forbade Russian planes from being serviced. It also closed its airspace to Russian planes and Russia closed its airspace to EU planes in response. The EU also blocked the SWIFT payment system. This means the following things:

• The European leasing companies will have to pay Russia huge fines for canceling the leases but can’t because SWIFT isn’t working.

• The European leasing companies have to get their planes out of Russian territory but can’t because their flight crews can’t get into Russia and once they take possession of the planes the planes won’t be allowed to take off (airspace is closed).

• The planes can no longer be serviced according to the maintenance schedule, which means that in a couple of months they won’t be able to fly at all.

• Given that this is a force majeur circumstance, the Russian government can very easily nationalize these planes, including all of the intellectual property and patent rights contained therein, and start making their own parts and providing their own service.

• Given all of the above, the obvious choice for the European leasing companies to declare bankruptcy and cease operations. Company representatives have said as much.