Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

You guys have missed this:
https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4495351.html

The TVRS-44 is actually the Let-610. Russia now owns Let.

This aircraft will be built in Russia with Russian engines and parts.

So, before the end of this decade, Russian will have the full spectrum of Passenger transport planes:

- Baikal (9 passenger)
- Let 410 (19 passengers)
- TVRS-44 (44 passengers)
- Il-114 (60 passengers)
- SSJ - New (100 passengers)
- MS-21 (160 -200 passengers)
- CRC 929 (300 passengers)

Perhaps even a 400 passenger Il-96-400

Import substitution is a must and crucial. No single screw should be foreign-made for these aircraft.
It can be achieved in a few years and it will be achieved.
Boeing and Airbus can go fly a kite.

The new derivative of the Let L-610 is a very promising aircraft. Way better than the An-140.

The military cargo Tu- 330 should be produced in Kazan, where also the Tu-214 used by Russian government and for special military purposes is produced. If necessary the Tu-214 could be upgraded to the same standard as the Tu-204SM, but I do not believe it needs to be produced in large serie. For the domestic flights Russia could still use the foreign airplanes that are currently owned or leased by Russian airlines. If russian private airlines like S7 fear the western sanctions or eventual consequences those aircraft could be seized by Russian state owned airlines like Rossiya.

They have enough trained maintenance personnel on those aircrafts and engines to be able to operate them safely for
a few years doing all required maintenance and overhaul checks. They could keep a part of the airplanes stored and cannibalize them for spare parts.

In the meanwhile all the new import substitution programs should be finished.

The  basic Tu-204 (and the proposed Tu-204SM) was instead assembled at Aviastar in Ulyanovsk, but that plant
should probably concentrate on large military transport airplanes like il76, An-124 and eventually il-106.

The regional jet Tu-334  (also a Kazan project) instead does not make much sense. Starting and ramping up production would probably take at least as much time as finishing the import substitution on the SSJ-100.
Furthermore it has relatively outdated components (and engines from Zaporozhye).
The SSJ100 plant in konsomolsk on Amur is able to assemble at least 40 airplanes per year, provided that all the components are available and producers and delivered  in time.

The MC-21 exists also in the smaller MC-21-200 version with 130 to 160 passengers, in the same class as the Airbus A220 (formerly called bombardier CSeries).
This is important, since several russian airlines (including azimuth that currently has a fleet of only SSJ100) ordered several A220.

For flights to foreign destination in the near abroad (up to about 4hours flights) probably existing ssj100, maybe helped by a dozen or so formerly mothballed Tu-204 could be enough (especially if the ssj100 are temporarily replaced by the seized Airbus and Boeing for domestic flights. Especially considering that currently European airspace is closed for russian airlines.

For flights to South East Asia from the european parts of Russia and to central and South America they can put back in service a few il-96 300 and produce a half dozen il-96-400M per year, and maybe open the routes to airlines from friendly countries.

Edit: QED

https://aviation21.ru/superdzhety-red-wings-poletyat-v-turciyu-i-armeniyu/

Superjet" Red Wings will fly to Turkey and Armenia

11.03.2022, 10:57  338



Red Wings Airlines will start flights from Domodedovo Airport to Istanbul on March 15. Flights will operate daily. SSJ100 aircraft are involved in the flight program, the press service of the airline reported.
On March 9, the Federal Air Transport Agency lifted the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic on flights to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Iran. In this regard, Red Wings announced the start of flights to Armenia.

Any news on the PD-8 engine?

Why is Russia having such trouble at the moment with geared turbofans?

limb wrote:Any news on the PD-8 engine?
Why is Russia having such trouble at the moment with geared turbofans?

The PD-8 engine prototype is currently under bench testing.
They already tested the hot section in isolation. Then they assembled the whole engine prototype together and are now doing ground tests.
PD-8 was supposed to enter flight testing next year. Then be qualified and in production the year after that.

I would not say they are having trouble with the engine program. It is just that it takes this long to develop an engine in the first place.
The transporter engine program was not a priority when Russian airlines were still busy buying Western aircraft and the MIC had a deal to buy Ukrainian transport aircraft.

Russia used to have partnerships with Western companies for the civilian engines. This was done in the lean years.
Russia made a deal with Pratt&Whitney for the PS90 engine A2 upgrade and Safran for the SaM146 engine.
Then Russia had civilian aircraft sales to Iran blocked because of Western sanctions on Iran. IIRC this happened around 2010.
This made Russia make a program to remove Western content from Russian civilian engines. The military engines never had any.

You have to see that much of the Soviet turbofan engine industry used to be in Ukraine. This includes engines like the Progress D-18T and D-436.
So Russia basically lost that part of the industry.
Russia never lost the industrial and technological capability to do turbofan engines since they still had Aviadvigatel and Saturn.
But both those companies were mainly focused on military combat aircraft turbofans. So it is taking time to develop their civilian engine portfolio.

PD-14 and PD-8 are fruits of this effort.

lancelot wrote:

limb wrote:Any news on the PD-8 engine?
Why is Russia having such trouble at the moment with geared turbofans?

The PD-8 engine prototype is currently under bench testing.
They already tested the hot section in isolation. Then they assembled the whole engine prototype together and are now doing ground tests.
PD-8 was supposed to enter flight testing next year. Then be qualified and in production the year after that.

I would not say they are having trouble with the engine program. It is just that it takes this long to develop an engine in the first place.
The transporter engine program was not a priority when Russian airlines were still busy buying Western aircraft and the MIC had a deal to buy Ukrainian transport aircraft.

Russia used to have partnerships with Western companies for the civilian engines. This was done in the lean years.
Russia made a deal with Pratt&Whitney for the PS90 engine A2 upgrade and Safran for the SaM146 engine.
Then Russia had civilian aircraft sales to Iran blocked because of Western sanctions on Iran. IIRC this happened around 2010.
This made Russia make a program to remove Western content from Russian civilian engines. The military engines never had any.

You have to see that much of the Soviet turbofan engine industry used to be in Ukraine. This includes engines like the Progress D-18T and D-436.
So Russia basically lost that part of the industry.
Russia never lost the industrial and technological capability to do turbofan engines since they still had Aviadvigatel and Saturn.
But both those companies were mainly focused on military combat aircraft turbofans. So it is taking time to develop their civilian engine portfolio.

PD-14 and PD-8 are fruits of this effort.

Shouldnt the PD-8 take very little time since its just a downsized PD-14, with no need to reseacrh composite blades?

2-3 years is a short time. It typically takes 5 years or more to develop an engine.
This one is going to take a lot less time because the cold section already exists and the hot section is basically a downscaled PD-14 engine core.
The large fan part of the engine will be the one used in SaM146. I think.

lancelot wrote:2-3 years is a short time. It typically takes 5 years or more to develop an engine.
This one is going to take a lot less time because the cold section already exists and the hot section is basically a downscaled PD-14 engine core.
The large fan part of the engine will be the one used in SaM146. I think.

Exactly, and as I have already commented previously it is not just design of a new engine (or of half of it if you are able to reuse either the core (the hot section) or the cold section from a previous engine). You also need to do all the   component verification testing, then the engine testing and finally test the new engine in the aircraft.
Even if everything goes perfectly at the first time, and you do not need redesign and redo the test.. this test campaign requires time.

Even western engine manufacturers sometimes mess up with new engine programs (even if they have already lot of experience in similar design and same thrust level).

Russia probably does not need to do all the validation testing to try new concepts and bring forward and validate new designs and technologies, as they were most probably already developed for the PD-14 and now there is the need of a good new engine, not of the best possible engine that will be ready in 10 years.

As an example some companies speak of technology readiness level (TRL). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level

Normally you need a certain amount of innovation in a new engine, otherwise it will not be better than a previous product, but in this case it is different, as Russia just need a fully domestic engine of this class using the technologies already developed for the PD-14 and for the SaM146 and not a generation change (like it was between PS-90 and PD-14).

P.S. that is the reason why PD-14 program was much longer and the same it will be true for the PD35.

UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

Looking at the aviation side, I think its clear Russia knew exactly what was coming.
Once the satanic corpse Biden was "in office" it would be full steam ahead in turning Hoholstan into 3 Reich Mk II.

The strange part is that I think the World has become OVERglobalised. And reduced "globalisation" can be a godsend to quite a lot of countries. Of course the Washington/WEF controlled media in the West will never admit to it.

But then the Western media pretends Russian language, political parties, media+people should be banned in a place Russian for the last 1100 years. And that Nazis deserve arms, money and support.

rigoletto wrote:UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

The Voronezh aircraft factory is not able to increase the production of IL-96. Three such aircraft per year is their limit at the moment, unless, of course, there are plans to completely upgrade production facilities and recruit about 25,000 more personnel for these purposes.

Russia moves to seize hundreds of planes from foreign owners

They may use them more sparingly to extend the "green time". Also, military transports such as Tu-134/154s & IL-62/76/96s could be repurposed before new Tu-334/214s, SSJ-100s & MC-21s come out.

Scorpius wrote:

rigoletto wrote:UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

The Voronezh aircraft factory is not able to increase the production of IL-96. Three such aircraft per year is their limit at the moment, unless, of course, there are plans to completely upgrade production facilities and recruit about 25,000 more personnel for these purposes.

What about Aviastar SP?

Scorpius wrote:

rigoletto wrote:UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

The Voronezh aircraft factory is not able to increase the production of IL-96. Three such aircraft per year is their limit at the moment, unless, of course, there are plans to completely upgrade production facilities and recruit about 25,000 more personnel for these purposes.

Then what you do is take the tens of millions of dollars difference in price between each Boeing 777 and the Ill-96, and invest it in factory infrastructure, tooling, and Russian personnel/staff.
That money is better spent upskilling local people, local spend in the local economy, local tax returns...etc ... than being sent to Seattle. Money sent to Seattle will never be seen again.

I have witnessed "globalisation" hollow out communities before, and I have lived and worked in 3 different countries in 2 different hemispheres.

It doesn't matter if it takes 2, 3, or 5 years..
It's simply the correct thing to do.

There is an existing design, even if it needs further development.
There is an existing factory, even if it needs further investment.
There is an additional expectant workforce, even if it needs training.

They could even set up their production at Antonov plant (which wasn't entirely destroyed) after peace is restored there.

Tsavo Lion wrote:They could even set up their production at Antonov plant (which wasn't entirely destroyed) after peace is restored there.

In Kiev they even have less trained personnel and no good production facilities for the il-96.

I am fully supporting of the idea of improving production facilities in Voronezh. They need them if they want later to build widebodies there (e.g twin engine derivative of the Il96 or a domestic version of the CR929).

3 il96 per year at the moment are enough, until the new PD35 is available. In the meanwhile they can recruit and train new people and improve the facilities.

They could even think about installing there (Voronezh) a second production line for the MC-21, if needed.

Aviastar in Ulyanovsk is a no go. It has already a lot to do with il-76 and possibly with an-124 and il-106 in the future.

wilhelm wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

rigoletto wrote:UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

The Voronezh aircraft factory is not able to increase the production of IL-96. Three such aircraft per year is their limit at the moment, unless, of course, there are plans to completely upgrade production facilities and recruit about 25,000 more personnel for these purposes.

Then what you do is take the tens of millions of dollars difference in price between each Boeing 777 and the Ill-96, and invest it in factory infrastructure, tooling, and Russian personnel/staff.
That money is better spent upskilling local people, local spend in the local economy, local tax returns...etc ... than being sent to Seattle. Money sent to Seattle will never be seen again.

I have witnessed "globalisation" hollow out communities before, and I have lived and worked in 3 different countries in 2 different hemispheres.

It doesn't matter if it takes 2, 3, or 5 years..
It's simply the correct thing to do.

There is an existing design, even if it needs further development.
There is an existing factory, even if it needs further investment.
There is an additional expectant workforce, even if it needs training.

dude, you can't scale such production dozens of times in a short time. To begin with, you need 25,000 skilled workers. Take me, for example. I worked at the factory from 2006 to 2011, but then I left there - for the reason that I could not provide an adequate level of income. The plant lost one pair of workers, and I lost the chance to develop and accumulate experience in this field. Let's go back to today: in order to lure me back, the plant must offer me six times more salary than it paid before. And in the end he will get.... a specialist who has not worked in this field for more than 10 years. And training new people will take at least 5 years, no matter what money you pay them.

Scorpius wrote:

dude, you can't scale such production dozens of times in a short time. To begin with, you need 25,000 skilled workers. Take me, for example. I worked at the factory from 2006 to 2011, but then I left there - for the reason that I could not provide an adequate level of income. The plant lost one pair of workers, and I lost the chance to develop and accumulate experience in this field. Let's go back to today: in order to lure me back, the plant must offer me six times more salary than it paid before. And in the end he will get.... a specialist who has not worked in this field for more than 10 years. And training new people will take at least 5 years, no matter what money you pay them.

Then there is the capacity of the engine production lines.

Cranking up production is a multi faceted and wide spread issue.

What was the problem with the Il-96? It's a relatively new aircraft. Was it the weight? Is she too heavy? Or was it really just the engines?

Are there other options for modernization? The Il-96 is only slightly heavier than the A-350, but the A-350 can fly much further. Could the weight of the Il-96 be further reduced? How much would the latest Russian engines fetch?

It's a great plane, so I'm asking about the potential it may have in the global market. I don't quite understand why so few planes were built from it. There are countries like Iran that should better operate an Il-96 than wait for western castles in the air.

Scorpius wrote:

wilhelm wrote:

Scorpius wrote:

rigoletto wrote:UAC can boost Il-96, Tu-214 jets production if needed — Deputy PM

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov stressed that UAC was speeding
up the implementation of its flagship projects MC-21 and SSJ-100

https://tass.com/economy/1422925

The Voronezh aircraft factory is not able to increase the production of IL-96. Three such aircraft per year is their limit at the moment, unless, of course, there are plans to completely upgrade production facilities and recruit about 25,000 more personnel for these purposes.

Then what you do is take the tens of millions of dollars difference in price between each Boeing 777 and the Ill-96, and invest it in factory infrastructure, tooling, and Russian personnel/staff.
That money is better spent upskilling local people, local spend in the local economy, local tax returns...etc ... than being sent to Seattle. Money sent to Seattle will never be seen again.

I have witnessed "globalisation" hollow out communities before, and I have lived and worked in 3 different countries in 2 different hemispheres.

It doesn't matter if it takes 2, 3, or 5 years..
It's simply the correct thing to do.

There is an existing design, even if it needs further development.
There is an existing factory, even if it needs further investment.
There is an additional expectant workforce, even if it needs training.

dude, you can't scale such production dozens of times in a short time. To begin with, you need 25,000 skilled workers. Take me, for example. I worked at the factory from 2006 to 2011, but then I left there - for the reason that I could not provide an adequate level of income. The plant lost one pair of workers, and I lost the chance to develop and accumulate experience in this field. Let's go back to today: in order to lure me back, the plant must offer me six times more salary than it paid before. And in the end he will get.... a specialist who has not worked in this field for more than 10 years. And training new people will take at least 5 years, no matter what money you pay them.

Scorpius, for that reason I said to start now improving the facilities and training new personnel. In the meanwhile 3 il96 per year are ok. By 2027 or 2028 so when the PD35 engine will be ready to fly commercially they should have had the time to install modern serial production lines and train the people (of course the people have to be paid properly for their work).
For MC21 in irkusk and SSJ100 in konsomolsk on Amur they should have all the people they need for the planned serial production instead. They could also train more people than needed there and rotate them later between different plants in order to allow people with experience with modern serial production to work in a newly upgraded facility.

It is impossible to hope to train and bring to a modern standard tens of thousands of people in just a place and in a short time, but if you do this countrywide, this could be more feasible.

Of course to do that you also have to guarantee the skilled workers and the engineers a good pay and decent relocation bonuses, including support for the families (to move someone from the far East or from Siberia to Voronezh or to Samara you need to be sure that children and wives of the workers are also happy).


And possibily organise modern apprenticeship programs
Like those of Airbus, as an example
https://www.airbus.com/en/careers/apprentices-and-pupils/apprenticeship-in-united-kingdom

A large part of the salaries of the apprentices could be paid by the state budget and not by the plant where they work (it happens also in the west for the salaries of apprentices and graduates in aerospace firms, where the company pays the salary, but then gets an equivalent tax exemption)

And if they properly start now they will have by 2027 a decent mix of experienced people (if split among the various plants)  and properly trained young workers.

P.S. possibly also a part of the trained airplane maintenance technicians from companies like S7 or similar could be Crosstrained to work in aircraft assembly plant, and that will not take 4 years.

P.P.S. and they can start the same training and apprenticeship programs also for the engine technicians and engineers (and in the meanwhile possibily also opening a separate PD serie engines assembly line elsewhere.

Note: off topic, but they probably need to do the same also for shipbuilding crews

Tu-214 and IL-96: better late than never l. 18.03.2022

With regard to Russian civil aviation, 40 states have introduced restrictive measures that run counter to the provisions of international air law and the basic principles of the Chicago Convention, the Federal Air Transport Agency said.

On March 11, at an expanded meeting of the board of the Federal Air Transport Agency, the head of the department, Alexander Neradko, noted that flights to / through the airspace of European states are limited. Restrictions were introduced unilaterally only in relation to aircraft of the Russian Federation. At the same time, by taking illegitimate restrictive measures against the Russian aviation industry, the mentioned group of states ruled out the possibility of resolving the current situation through negotiations.

The Federal Air Transport Agency recommends that Russian airlines take into account the likely arrests and detentions of aircraft and temporarily suspend international flights. Air traffic within the country continues without restrictions. Also, flights of foreign airlines of countries that have not joined the sanctions and have not limited air traffic with Russia continue, the ministry said in a statement.

On March 16, a meeting of the Union of Mechanical Engineers of Russia was held, during which import substitution in key industries, primarily in the aircraft industry, was discussed. Rostec General Director Sergey Chemezov said in his speech that against the backdrop of sanctions, the possibility of resuming mass production of domestic Tu-214 and Il-96 aircraft is being considered, the press service of Rostec reported.

“In the context of serious restrictions on the operation of foreign-made civil aircraft, large-scale tasks are facing the domestic aviation industry. And they need to be solved in a very tight time frame. This primarily concerns the expansion of production of existing aircraft. In addition, it is necessary to consider the possibility of resuming the serial production of the medium-haul Tu-204/214 and the Russian wide-body airliner Il-96,” Chemezov said.

Tu-204/214 and Il-96 aircraft were in no way inferior to foreign ones in terms of reliability and comfort, but in a free market, when Airbus and Boeing passenger aircraft began to arrive in Russia en masse, domestic aircraft could not compete with them in terms of efficiency. In addition, when aircraft-building corporations provided material support to persons contributing to the promotion of aircraft A and B on the Russian market, the fate of domestic aircraft was a foregone conclusion.

In 2011, after the Yak-42 crash, in which the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv hockey team died, at a meeting to investigate the causes of the disaster and provide assistance to the families of the victims, questions were raised about the next steps in the development of domestic civil aviation. Russian President Dmitry Medvedevnotedthat the Government will have to make "a very difficult decision, because it is impossible to go on like this, with such a park."

“It's obvious, we have to support our own. If ours are not able to develop, it is necessary to buy aircraft abroad. But this is a separate topic, I will formulate it, this position, and I will give instructions to the Government. You will need to find money. It should be a big program,” Dmitry Medvedev said then in Yaroslavl.

Four days after the disaster, Presidentapproved the list of instructionsfollowing the results of the meeting, among which there was a paragraph that spoke about the adoption of urgent measures to ensure subsidizing the leasing of civil aircraft that meet modern airworthiness requirements, regardless of the state of the aircraft manufacturer, as well as to ensure subsidizing local and regional transportation.

More than ten years after those events and the start of subsidizing the leasing of "foreign cars" at the state level, the development of domestic civil aviation, having received billions of dollars of those subsidies settled in the pockets of Western "partners", today is seen in a completely different way. The decisions that were made at that time were dictated by a different political situation - there was no Crimea, no Donbass, no special operation Z yet. An assessment of those decisions is beyond the scope of this article. But efforts to restore the civil aviation industry after 2014 are not seen only by those who do not want to see them.

And if we are seriously talking about restoring the production of Tu-214 and Il-96, the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Rostec, UAC, UEC and responsible officials of the aviation industry need to move from talking to business and resolve these issues as urgently as possible: calculate the necessary costs, identify sources funding and the time it will take to restore the serial production of these machines. Our country needs them more than ever, just like the MS-21, SSJ-New, Il-114-300, Ladoga (TVRS-44) and Baikal (LMS-901).

https://aviation21.ru/tu-214-i-il-96-luchshe-pozdno-chem-nikogda/

Very sensible. The Tu-204 was actually a good jet and modern upgrades would make it ideal for Russia. I would assume PD-14 engines are sufficient for it?