Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

Interesting podcast. Some things are not that clear, like they said Russia has a more advanced technology for the manufacturing of composite wings, but the manufacturing technology of Russia (and China) will not surpass the west.  And also on the issue of matrix and fibers for the composite after the acquisition from abroad has been blocked. As far as I was able to understand, the problem has been solved and only caused one and half years of delays...


Anyway it is extremely important that the independent program with the twin engine aircraft based on the il96 will be realised.  The fuselage was anyway  of a quite modern design and technology (latest 1980s) and already contained a certain amount of composites.  As pointed out in the podcast anyway, a full composite fuselage brings very minor advantages (while increasing maintenance burden).

All the work that Russia is doing or is planning to do for the CR929 can be anyway used for the twin engine aircraft derived from the Il96

Note: edit I do not about trust issue between Russia and China and other issues about transfer of technology... Russia of course must be cautious about it and does not need anyway to offer a full transfer of technologies for the parts that it manufacturing itself (e.g wings).

For other parts, maybe Russia could help, but there should be a return (e.g accessing to more advanced technologies in other areas (electronics/microprocessors, etc).

Russia's major hurdle for now is the engines. Rosatom has already produced advanced composite matrix for wings and other bodies. When the US says they are more advanced, it isn't them. It's Japans and only slightly more advance.

It's mostly waiting on PD-35 engines. Till then, Il-96 will be a 4 engine plane.

They should have been working on modernizing it many years ago. Instead of waiting on others or doing JV work bullshit.

miketheterrible wrote:Russia's major hurdle for now is the engines.  Rosatom has already produced advanced composite matrix for wings and other bodies.  When the US says they are more advanced, it isn't them. It's Japans and only slightly more advance.

It's mostly waiting on PD-35 engines. Till then, Il-96 will be a 4 engine plane.

They should have been working on modernizing it many years ago. Instead of waiting on others or doing JV work bullshit.

many years ago it was basically removed from Russian service thanks to Boeing meddling and corrupt officials.

It was already a great news that thanks to government orders they were able to keep a (very) low rate production.

Anyway, they could have developed a twin engine derivative with GE or Rolls-Royce engines, but it would have been anyway dependent from the west. 15 years ago it was impossible to even think about an engine with 35 tons of takeoff thrust produced in Russia.

Furthermore the design bureau and production facilities with experience with large engines (up to 24 tons of thrust) was in the Ukraine.

If they had started just after the fall of Soviet union, they could have upscaled the core of the NK32 and created a large turbofan from that (of course with a totally new fan and LP turbine, but it would have required massive investment and at least 10 years.

Now finally they are working on a new generation of engines. This is the moment for the aircraft. And the il96-400M is a good intermediate step to verify and deploy some of the new internal systems.

miketheterrible wrote:Russia's major hurdle for now is the engines.  Rosatom has already produced advanced composite matrix for wings and other bodies.  When the US says they are more advanced, it isn't them. It's Japans and only slightly more advance.

It's mostly waiting on PD-35 engines. Till then, Il-96 will be a 4 engine plane.

They should have been working on modernizing it many years ago. Instead of waiting on others or doing JV work bullshit.

Can you give some links discussing Japanese vs. Russian composite tech. From all the information I have seen, Russian composite
engineering is leading edge. Even western industry magazines sing its praises. I have not heard of Japan being some sort of stand out.

kvs wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Russia's major hurdle for now is the engines.  Rosatom has already produced advanced composite matrix for wings and other bodies.  When the US says they are more advanced, it isn't them. It's Japans and only slightly more advance.

It's mostly waiting on PD-35 engines. Till then, Il-96 will be a 4 engine plane.

They should have been working on modernizing it many years ago. Instead of waiting on others or doing JV work bullshit.

Can you give some links discussing Japanese vs. Russian composite tech.   From all the information I have seen, Russian composite
engineering is leading edge.   Even western industry magazines sing its praises.   I have not heard of Japan being some sort of stand out.

It was on sdelanounas when regarding the recent development of the composite wings for the MS-21. Would have to dig through last year.

It could very well be wrong anyway. But Japan is above the US in composite material apparently.

PD-35 engine fan blade made of polymer composite materials

About the picture above:

UEC is working on two technical processes for manufacturing parts for the PD-35 engine from PCM
Posted on 21.01.2021, 16: 40 | 227

In the course of creating a promising high-power PD-35 engine, the United engine Corporation is manufacturing wide-chord fan blades from polymer composite materials using prepreg technology and 3D weaving. This was reported in the press service of the UEC.

"The use of wide-chord fan blades made of polymer composite materials in the engine design is a necessary condition for the implementation of the PD-35 program. The technology of creating polymer composite blades is critical-it belongs to the most promising areas of research and meets extremely high requirements for quality and efficiency, without mastering which it will not be possible to achieve the target competitive characteristics of the engine being developed," the press service explained.

In order to reduce risks, UEC decided to develop two technological directions: layer-by-layer layout of prepreg, which is a composite material - semi-finished product, with subsequent polymerization in an autoclave - prepreg technology, and the formation of a three-dimensional woven reinforcing frame with subsequent impregnation under pressure in the mold and polymerization-3D weaving technology.

"The new technology is being developed in the dimension of the PD-14 engine [blade size-750 mm, not 1250 mm]. Comparative tests of products manufactured by two methods are planned for 2021, " the Corporation's representative noted.

"In 2020, UEC-Aviadvigatel, the lead developer of the PD-35 engine, performed a large amount of work on developing prepreg technology, including testing a demonstration fan as part of the PD-14 engine. Creation of 3D-weaving technology is assigned to the developer of the PD-35 engine low – pressure compressor-UEC-Saturn PJSC. Currently, structurally similar elements and a set of working demonstration fan blades are manufactured using 3D weaving technology. In 2021, it is planned to conduct a set of comparative tests of PMK fan blades manufactured using both technologies, "said Yuri Shmotin, Deputy General Director and General designer of UEC JSC.

In 2021, it is planned to issue working design documentation for the working fan blade in the dimension of the PD-35 engine, taking into account the experience gained. Technological preparation for production has already been started - these are devices, molds, special cutting tools, etc.in 2022, the first samples of fan blades should be received. Only domestic composite materials are used in the development of two technologies.

The start of mass production and production volumes are inextricably linked with the PD-35 project implementation forecasts, and it is also possible to use this technology on an updated version of the PD-14 engine. It is possible to organize the production of parts from PCM and in the interests of third-party customers.

https://aviation21.ru/odk-prorabatyvaet-dva-texprocessa-izgotovleniya-iz-pkm-detalej-dlya-dvigatelya-pd-35/

but the manufacturing technology of Russia (and China) will not surpass the west.

Says who... on the technology thread it mentioned that Russian machine tools like CnC machines and 3D printers are being purchased in the west including by German companies because they are state of the art and also much cheaper than their German and Japanese equivalents...

And also on the issue of matrix and fibers for the composite after the acquisition from abroad has been blocked. As far as I was able to understand, the problem has been solved and only caused one and half years of delays...

A factor of sanction busting is that when they are barred from getting an existing technology they often don't try to replicate the sanctioned item exactly, they can take advantage of the latest technology and concepts and develop an all new replacement that might be much better than the original component or item.

And after developing it they can use it much more widely on their own products than they would have with a more expensive foreign product, and of course now they will be a competitor for the original maker on the international market.

That western maker lost a customer and now has to compete against their products too...

So perhaps an Il-96 with comp wings, modernised fuselage, twin domestic engines can rival the latest Boeing 777.

It will already be cheaper and without threats of sanctions unless you like to put sanctions on Russia then it might be an issue, but even then they wont normally risk their own interests just to be bossy or make a point.

China IS strong enough to develop on its own, so Russia is basically supporting a rival.

China is going to be a power centre, and will always be a neighbour for Russia... they can be all as negative and nasty as the EU and US have been to Russia... which is why Russia is so flexible and keen to satisfy the west today because it owes them... nothing...

Or it can treat China as a rival, in some areas, but also a partner in a lot of areas too... like against US/Japan/Australia power blocks trying to bully China and Russia in the region.

Russia don't need to be best buddies with China and vice versa, but they are better working together for mutual interests.

If they had started just after the fall of Soviet union, they could have upscaled the core of the NK32 and created a large turbofan from that (of course with a totally new fan and LP turbine, but it would have required massive investment and at least 10 years.

And money they didn't have, and that would have actually gone into other more useful things like it actually did.

Children in the west are not magic super beings automatically superior to everyone else... during preschool and primary. secondary and tertiary education a child learns and develops... in the west they have the potential to learn everything even the most advanced western engineer knows and their way of doing things, but that goes for white well bred American and German kids, but also a child from a tribe in Papua New Guinea whose people don't understand electricity yet.

A child can learn and the difference between the New Guinea Space Programme and the US Space Programme is the only real difference... money and support and history and an education system that gets people to the point where they can work well in the current projects.

A lot of the older engineers learned different and now obsolete methods of doing things but that does not matter... they can learn the new ways and new ideas and work with new materials and equipment that was never considered possible when they were at university learning to be an engineer.

The key is education... a good training and education programme anywhere can create world class engineers of any ethnicity or background... obviously the nuclear scientists are not going to get a lot of work or practise in Fiji, so they move to places where there is work in their field... most in the west or colonial west will gravitate to NASA...

The point is that if they have a good culture of education and work, and you get them into your system early enough anyone has the potential to be advanced and civilised and a good engineer... the west has no superiorities... there will be plenty of western engineers who are not very good and there will be lots that are amazing, but that is the same for every group in every field.

If Stephen Hawking was black and born in some remote villiage in Africa he would still be brilliant... but he likely would never have become well known or been in the Simpsons.

GarryB wrote:Children in the west are not magic super beings automatically superior to everyone else... during preschool and primary. secondary and tertiary education a child learns and develops... in the west they have the potential to learn everything even the most advanced western engineer knows and their way of doing things, but that goes for white well bred American and German kids, but also a child from a tribe in Papua New Guinea whose people don't understand electricity yet.

A child can learn and the difference between the New Guinea Space Programme and the US Space Programme is the only real difference... money and support and history and an education system that gets people to the point where they can work well in the current projects.

A lot of the older engineers learned different and now obsolete methods of doing things but that does not matter... they can learn the new ways and new ideas and work with new materials and equipment that was never considered possible when they were at university learning to be an engineer.

The key is education... a good training and education programme anywhere can create world class engineers of any ethnicity or background... obviously the nuclear scientists are not going to get a lot of work or practise in Fiji, so they move to places where there is work in their field... most in the west or colonial west will gravitate to NASA...

The point is that if they have a good culture of education and work, and you get them into your system early enough anyone has the potential to be advanced and civilised and a good engineer... the west has no superiorities... there will be plenty of western engineers who are not very good and there will be lots that are amazing, but that is the same for every group in every field.

If Stephen Hawking was black and born in some remote villiage in Africa he would still be brilliant... but he likely would never have become well known or been in the Simpsons.

What you are saying is true but countries in the west(especially US) are destroying their education systems.

The west has been superior because they invest a lot of time and money head hunting the best from anywhere they can find them.

When their education systems were the best they learned in university how to do amazing new things and then went to the work place and showed the older engineers new techniques and ideas.

With a declining education system the advances and improvements will happen more in the field so you end up going to a job thinking things work this way and finding out really fast that in the real world it doesn't work like that.

When I was at university we were shown how to develop software from scratch, but the first thing you learn in business is that developing your own software would cost 50 grand and then deployment and use would be twice as expensive, not to mention that would mean all fault finding would become in house problems... so no one to blame or sue if everything went tits up and all your business data critical to run your business disappears.

It might be ideal for every company to get custom made software developed specially for them, but companies are in a market and might get taken over by another larger company that doesn't want its little new acquisition to be using non compatible software. They adopt your software and they will work out how to make it work.

No point in arguing, no point in saying this theoretical way is better in the long term... that is just not how things work good or bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-38

It outclasses all the competition in this segment. Scaling for the combined GDP and population of the west, Russia simply
blows the west out of the water. And the USSR is not any excuse either, since it was outperforming the combined west
as well as demonstrated by the An-124. But western "documentaries" about aviation sure spewed some fine excrement about
how the An-124 was inferior to anything produced in the west. Really, where do all those western trillions of dollars go?

What matters is that they finally wrapped up development of that thing

If they want to drag with orders it's their business

Still, this new helo is in the different weight class than Mi-8

Still, this new helo is in the different weight class than Mi-8

Perhaps they can develop a scaled-down version? the Mi-8 is a really old helicopter design. I think the time has come for a replacement.

Engines and electronics are new, so as the rotor blades. A new helicopter in that weight category would nearly look  the same. Would be a waste of time and money to design something "new". The Mi-8 is still by far the best helicopter in it´s class.

So perhaps an Il-96 with comp wings, modernised fuselage, twin domestic engines can rival the latest Boeing 777.

That is a really good idea. To be honest, i wasn't sure why Russia was even doing the IL-96M. I believed the hype that time had passed it by. But it really hasn't. Its still a serviceable airframe that can get new wings or engines. The 737 or 777 are still being built and being flown despite being old designs. Its just frustrating that Iran hasn't ordered any of them. Shame on the Mullahs.

Cuba's national carrier has 3 il-96 400's on order as of 2020

Here is a review of one of Cuba's il-96's. This one was built in 2006. Has almost a million views

At least somebody bothered. But the LCD screens on the back of seats have nothing to do with Ilyushin and Russia. They
are the 100% choice of the operator. Just like all of the seating in the aircraft.

For some reason zero comment in the video on cabin noise and vibration. I am going to assume that it was no worse than any
western aircraft. Otherwise there would have been lots of commentary.

^ Yeah of course. It's Cuba. They aren't gonna order all the bells and whistles. It still had outdoor camera displaying on the center screens. I bet the air quality inside is better without the overhead bins there.

One of the top rated comments in the video says that it was quiet. There wasn't anything overtly negative said about it.

Backman wrote:^ Yeah of course. It's Cuba. They aren't gonna order all the bells and whistles. It still had outdoor camera displaying on the center screens. I bet the air quality inside is better without the overhead bins there.

One of the top rated comments in the video says that it was quiet. There wasn't anything overtly negative said about it.

The new version il96 400M will have the overhead storage compartment in the centre of the cabin, however, like all western widebodies

The two-hundred-and-fifth Superjet took off.

Interesting article including the MC-21 and CR-929

https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/chinas-jets-set-to-challenge-boeing-and-airbus/

Still, this new helo is in the different weight class than Mi-8

I suspect the next gen helicopters will be focussed on high speed.

They are developing new engine families so perhaps they can develop a rather more powerful engine for this helicopter and allow it to jump up a payload weight class perhaps to 10-12 tons maybe...

There were three or more aircraft developed to replace the An-2, but they were better but also more expensive and not as easy to maintain... and they already had An-2 (Mi8/17) so why buy new?

Tricky one.