Russian Civil Aviation: News #4

The bad guys here are the west and the fact that their 6th big sanctions package included some serious climb downs from the 5th big sanctions package is probably evidence they realise that Russia does not need to buy their over priced spare parts for their over priced aircraft so the dropped the sanctions on aircraft parts and support for "safety" reasons.

The reality is that they want to keep extracting large amounts of cash from Russian airlines for the upkeep of aircraft... with most of them being leased I would say it is not the Russian airlines problem but in the current situation it is.

I rather suspect many parts used on Boeings and Airbuses might actually be made in Russia or made from materials sourced from Russia anyway, but agreements with Iran over spare parts and support of these aircraft make a huge amount of good sense for both parties... Russia could probably outsource some parts of their own aircraft to be supported by Iranian companies to encourage them to buy and use Russian planes too.

Not much point in making trade between Iran and Russia all about oil or gas, there are lots of fields they can cooperate in, if Iran wants to join BRICS then the promotion of trade should be encouraged in all areas.

The head of Aeroflot told Putin about the successes in the crisis and plans to buy 323 Russian aircraft, 08.26.2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a working meeting with Aeroflot CEO Sergei Aleksandrovsky. The head of the company told the president that he assesses the situation as very positive. According to him, thanks to subsidies received from the government (about 50 billion rubles), the volume of traffic will increase this year.

The head of the airline noted that although 11 southern airports remain closed, Aeroflot has refocused demand. “Now we fly to 111 destinations, which is 18 destinations more than in 2021,” he stressed.

He also said that Aeroflot had increased the number of flights in a number of directions. In the direction Moscow-St. Petersburg from 31 daily flights - up to 45. To Sochi - from 15 to 25. To Mineralnye Vody - from 2 to 8.

The airline, according to Mr. Aleksandrovsky, intends to expand its fleet with domestic aircraft in the coming years. It is planned to contract 323 Russian aircraft:

Sukhoi Superjet - 73 pieces,
MS-21 - 210 pieces,
Tu-214 - 40 pieces.

“These are very significant volumes, which, of course, will require additional resources from us. It will be necessary to increase and attract additional pilots in the amount of about 3.5 thousand people for this program, it will also require eight full-flight simulators, ”he told the president.

Sergey Alexandrovsky also noted that, despite the projected increase in the cost of passenger transportation in 2022, their prices have not changed. According to him, compared to 2021, the cost of transportation, on the contrary, decreased by 10%.

On June 29, it became known that the airlines of the Aeroflot group would receive a subsidy in the amount of 49.9 billion rubles. for partial reimbursement of expenses for domestic flights. In addition, state support for a total of 2.5 billion rubles. will be provided to 19 airlines.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5534540

Weren't they talking about two planes to replace the An-2 with the Baikal (LMS-901) being the 9 seater because it is single engined and according to their rules you need two engines to carry more than 9 passengers so the Baikal was to replace it for smaller loads (up to 9 people) while a slightly larger plane was going to carry up to 19 passengers being the L-410 sized plane.

If it did change ownership or for some other reason can't make them anymore because of sanctions I rather suspect they would simple do what they are doing with the L-610 and make their own mishmash version with features and engines and avionics that are domestic and suit them better.

According to Wiki ( I know.... not a great source)

On 3 September 2013 the Russian company UGMK (Iskander Machmudov) became the wholesale owner of LET Kunovice Aircraft Industries. They announced that they would produce the L-410 also in Russia within the year.[4] On 7 July 2015 UGMK represented first L 410 NG aircraft manufactured in Russia.

The core problem would be the foreign engine, but the VK-800S engine is in the same power range and is developed for light fixed wing aircraft... the VK-800V being the turboshaft model for light helicopters...

I suspect they are just waiting on the engines for full production... or hope.

The L-410 is a gap filler for the An-2 in the longer ranged larger passenger numbers role, while the Baikal is for normal An-2 type rough strip operations for smaller payloads and passenger numbers.

If they both use the same engine (and they should) then production of one should mean they are ready to produce both... though of course the L-410 uses two engines for the Baikals one... so serial production of the engines will be important.

Russia should just design new airframes. I always hated the L-410 design.
There is no shortage of Russian airframe design talent.

Given the issues with commercial turboprop engines, which won't be ready until some years time, there is enough time to design airframes.
If Russia really needed large turboprops, something with latest NK-12 engines could be used, they produce them by the bucketload for the Tu-95 upgrade.

The Let company probably ran away like other western companies ran away... like McDonalds for instance, but Russia has production capacity in Russia and now it has new engines for the design... I am sure they can take some time to adapt the L-410 design the way they adapted the L-610 design to their needs, give it a new designation and start producing it to fill the gaps left by An-2s as they retire and An-140s as they don't get made.

The expansion of people and airfields and proper runways east and north in Russia should make good demand for new Baikals and L-410s, which can be optimised for the conditions and circumstances they will find in such places.

The L-410 is certainly not a new design so young aircraft designers should be working away at new shapes and arrangements that better suits Russian need moving forward.

For the moment the L-410 with VK-800S engines will do the trick.

Shares of UAC and Aeroflot rose on the back of an agreement to supply 339 aircraft, 09.07.2022.

As follows from the quotes of the Moscow Exchange , the securities of Aeroflot are growing by 4.27%, and the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) - by 17.56%. The increase in the price of the company's shares comes against the backdrop of news about the signing of an agreement on the supply of 339 aircraft in 2023-2030 during the WEF-2022.

By 11:06 Moscow time, an ordinary share of Aeroflot is trading at the level of 31.28 rubles, UAC - 0.63 rubles. Due to the growth in the cost of securities, the Moscow Exchange raised the border of the price corridor and the range of assessment of market risks of rising stocks.

Earlier it became known that UAC will supply Aeroflot with 210 MS-21 aircraft, 89 Superjet New aircraft and 40 Tu-214 aircraft on a lease basis. According to Aeroflot CEO Sergei Aleksandrovsky, this is the largest agreement on the acquisition of domestic aircraft in the recent history of the airline.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5548362

ALROSA will replace the fleet of regional aircraft with new Il-114, 09.07.2022.

Now the company uses An-24, An-38 and Boeing 737 aircraft. Deliveries of Il-114-300, according to the government program, should begin in 2024.

To replace the An-24 and An-38 regional aircraft, ALROSA is waiting for new Russian Il-114-300 aircraft, CEO of the company Sergey Ivanov told RBC on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF). “God forbid that he (IL-114. - RBC ) will appear in the near future,” the top manager added.

Il-114-300 is a modernized version of the Il-114, which has been under development since the 1980s. The production of such aircraft back in 2014 was approved by President Vladimir Putin, but they are not yet in commercial operation. Production is delayed, among other things, due to the crash in August 2021 of an experimental military transport Il-112V (the same engines are installed on this aircraft and on the Il-114-300).

According to the program for the development of the transport industry, Il-114-300 should be delivered to companies in 2024.

ALROSA owns the eponymous carrier Alrosa. In its fleet, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency as of February 2022, there were four An-24 / An-38 aircraft. According to Ivanov, these machines have a sufficient flight resource. The same applies to Boeing 737 aircraft - the airline now has five such aircraft. If Russian-made liners are offered to replace the Boeing 737, the company will reorient itself to domestic long-haul aircraft, the CEO noted.

Alrosa Airlines operates passenger flights on Boeing aircraft mainly from Moscow, Novosibirsk and Mirny (Yakutia). The carrier flies An-24 and An-38 in Siberia and the Far East.
In 2021, the airline carried 0.5 million people and entered the top 20 according to this indicator. The net profit of the carrier amounted to 500 million rubles.

After the start of a military special operation in Ukraine, the Russian aviation industry came under tough international sanctions. They concern, among other things, a ban on the supply of imported aircraft, components and spare parts to Russia.
Because of this, the largest Russian carrier Aeroflot ordered 339 Russian-made aircraft - MS-21, Tu-214 and Superjet New. Aeroflot and the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) signed a preliminary supply agreement at the VEF. According to Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the contract amount is 1 trillion rubles. Aircraft deliveries will begin in 2023. Ivanov stressed that the airline "remains part of the ALROSA group", and there are no plans to sell it.

https://www.rbc.ru/business/07/09/2022/6318af3c9a79474332a5c2b7

Slyusar announced the rethinking of the Russian-Chinese aircraft project, 09.07.2022.

The head of "UAC" Slyusar: the project of the Russian-Chinese aircraft requires updating.

The project of the Russian-Chinese aircraft requires updating against the backdrop of a pandemic, sanctions restrictions and changes in the structure of transportation, said the head of UAC Slyusar.

Work on the Russian-Chinese project of a long-range wide-body aircraft continues, but it needs to be updated, since a lot has changed since its conception. This was stated by the head of the United Aircraft Corporation (PJSC UAC) Yuri Slyusar in an interview with RBC.

According to him, work on the creation of the Russian-Chinese aircraft continues: engineers in Moscow and Shanghai are working on the project. However, the pandemic, sanctions restrictions against Russia and China, and a change in the structure of transportation have affected the industry.

"Over these three years, the aviation industry has, of course, experienced a lot of storms. We must now reconsider all this with our Chinese colleagues, clarify the requirements, see how the aircraft that we originally formulated meets these requirements, and go further,” he said.

Speaking about working with Chinese partners, Slyusar pointed out that lockdowns made it difficult to work in person. Now all meetings, both at the managerial level and at the level of interaction between the engineering group, take place via videoconferencing.

https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/07/09/2022/6318f16a9a79475a7305afb6

Anyway, yes the assembly line was still in Russia (in Ekaterineburg), but I thought that a relevant percentage of the parts were imported from abroad.

I would say that because the L-410 is used by the Russian military that it would already be under heavy sanctions since 2014 so it is likely any foreign parts still used are used by choice, because they would not be allowed on L-410s used by the Russian military.

The fact that so many parts are still used on commercial sales aircraft suggests a demand by the Czechs, perhaps to support their western partners and companies they do business with, so purging of any sanction-able materials and equipment... should be the top priority.

Looking at Wiki, the current production model, The L-410NG seems to have an American engine and Garmin avionics and started production in 2018... the core of the problem will be engines I suspect because Kret makes state of the art avionics systems too, so that shouldn't be a problem.

With the Baikal light aircraft also being produced the market for Russian parts will be enormous so anything they don't make now would be worth setting up production for across the entire range of transport aircraft they will now need to make.

Now that Let have left I would say a new designation and any changes they were wanting to make are good ideas...

I wonder if the old Ryashok will go into production if the VK-800 engines go into serial production, it uses the same engines the L-410 uses and is proposed to carry up to 19 passengers in its latest version... perhaps it could be produced in the factory designed to make L-410s...

The Russian aviation industry challenged the success of the USSR, by Olga Samofalova for VZGLYAD. 09.08.2022.

Russia intends to completely rebuild air transportation. And the first important step along this path is to transfer Russian airlines from foreign aircraft to exclusively domestic ones. Western sanctions prompted our carriers to form the largest package of orders for domestic mainline aircraft in modern history. Is the domestic industry ready for such a challenge?

Russian civil aviation is waiting for "systemic rearmament" and the transition to Russian-made aircraft, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum. According to the president, the country's airlines have formed the largest package of orders in modern history, for about 500 domestic-made mainline aircraft.

Interest in domestic aircraft is more than understandable and logical. Firstly, for two decades Russia has been creating its own civil aircraft from scratch, and finally we have not just the SSJ-100 - the first own aircraft since the Soviet era, but also an aircraft in the most popular class in the world - MS-21, and in an import-substituting option - with a domestic engine.

The sanctions strike by the West on Russian airlines, which were severely restricted from using Boeing and Airbus, spurred on to accelerate the transformation of domestic aviation. This is not only about the fact that airlines will now strive to switch to domestic modern technology as quickly as possible, but about the aviation industry, which will have to grow to the production volumes that were in the Soviet years, but which modern Russia has forgotten. Transformation in the industry means the creation of new jobs - both in airlines and in aircraft factories.

The main order for the announced 500 domestic aircraft falls, of course, on Aeroflot. The group has contracted 323 aircraft. These are 210 MS-21s, 72 Sukhoi Superjet-100s and 40 Tu-214s. To master the operation of new aircraft, it will be necessary to attract an additional 3.5 thousand pilots. Aeroflot's development strategy is synchronized with the program for the development of the transport industry until 2030, said the head of Aeroflot.

“Aeroflot’s fleet now has about the same number of aircraft as it ordered. Mostly foreign cars. However, every 10–15 years, Aeroflot-class airlines completely renew their fleet. Therefore, Aeroflot outlined its needs: over the next decade, change its foreign fleet to a domestic one. This is without talking about the growth in air traffic, which will require expanding the fleet, ”says the head of Avia.ru Roman Gusarov.

At the same time, civil aviation is quite capable of increasing production volumes not only in order to satisfy the record order of Aeroflot, but also the orders of other airlines, Gusarov believes. We are talking about a general order for the creation of 500 domestic liners, that is, the rest of the carriers will have 159 new domestic liners.

The program for the development of the air transport industry until 2030, worth more than 770 billion rubles, which was approved by the government of the Russian Federation in the summer, is supposed to deliver as many as 1,036 new domestic aircraft by 2030, but this includes not only three types of aircraft ordered by Aeroflot, but also the Il-96 , Il-114, TVRS-44 Ladoga, L-410 and Baikal.

According to the plan, only two SSJ New will be produced in 2023, but already from 2024, the annual production will be 20 aircraft per year until 2030.

The plant reached such production volumes, so these are quite real indicators. As a result, 142 regional SSJ New aircraft will be produced in Russia over eight years (Aeroflot ordered 72 aircraft).

As for the MS-21, the carriers will have the first cars in 2024. This year it is planned to assemble six cars. In 2025 - twice as many - 12 MS-21. And then every year the output grows: in 2026 - 22 MS-21, in 2027 - 36, in 2028 - 50, in 2029 - 72, in 2030 - 72. That is, the plan is to produce 70 MS-21 per year. In just eight years, 270 such liners will be produced according to the plan (Aeroflot ordered 210 aircraft).

The plan for the production of Tu-214 shows that from 2025, 10 such aircraft will be produced every year, and by 2030 the total production will be 70 units (Aeroflot's order is 40 aircraft).

Production volumes exceed Aeroflot's orders. “As you can see, there is a production reserve for other airline customers,” Roman Gusarov points out.

This is a serious challenge for the Russian aviation industry. After all, we are talking about a gradual output of 100 civil aircraft per year. And if we take into account other small aircraft, then by 2029-2030 the total production of civil aircraft in Russia should grow to a record 186 aircraft per year. Russia has never produced so many civilian aircraft in modern history. More than a hundred civil aircraft - this is the level of the Soviet Union.

So, in the 2000s, no more than 20 aircraft were assembled in Russia. In the 2010s, there were separate years when volumes grew, for example, in 2013, 35 civil aircraft were assembled, but it was not possible to keep this bar, and the production fell again. Another example: in 2020, 11 SSJ-100 aircraft were built, in 2021 - 12 aircraft. The release rate is one plane per month, but it needs to be doubled.

“Even if not 500, but only 339 aircraft ordered by Aeroflot are produced, this will already be a great success for the domestic aviation industry,” says Gusarov. Understanding that there is a serious backlog of orders for eight years ahead will allow the industry to see its prospects and invest in expanding production capacity without fear. Aeroflot, due to the transfer of the fleet to domestic equipment, also receives a development strategy for the future, because no sanctions will be able to put pressure on the company, ”adds the industry expert.

MS-21 is a medium-haul narrow-body (single-aisle) aircraft in the most popular and mass-produced class in the world. It is a domestic competitor of Boeing and Airbus. That is why this aircraft was subjected to "personal" sanctions. First, the West banned the supply of composite materials needed for the production of a unique "black wing". Russia solved this problem by switching to its own composite material. Therefore, the West deprived the project of American engines, but here, too, the project to create its own PD-14 engine lost its nose to the sanctions.

“MC-21 has about 180 seats, this is the most popular option. On this plane you can fly both in Russia and abroad without restrictions. Except for those countries that simply do not want to see Russian airlines. The situation with the Superjet is exactly the same. You can easily fly it anywhere. But this is an aircraft of a different class - it is a short-haul aircraft with about half the number of passengers, ”says Gusarov.

The SSJ-100 is a regional aircraft for passenger transportation on shorter distance routes where passenger traffic is more modest. In general, this is a niche product, and its demand in Russia has been low all these years precisely because long-haul transportation abroad has been developing. However, now Russia is betting on the development of interregional, regional and local aviation within our vast country. And this is also an important part of the "systemic rearmament" of the aviation industry.

“If we look at the Soviet structure of aviation, where Aeroflot was the largest airline in the world, then the Tu-154 was the most massive aircraft in operation, and it was supported by the half-sized Tu-134. Now it turns out exactly the same configuration. The Superjet-100 is half the size of the MS-21, and they will work great in pairs, complementing each other.

On regional routes, aircraft for 200 passengers are often redundant, they are underloaded, and it is more profitable to use a half-sized airliner, like the SSJ-100 and even turboprop aircraft of the Il-114 type, the mass production of which is also being prepared. But, of course, not on all routes where the MS-21 flies, the Sukhoi Superjet, which has a shorter range, will be able to fly, ”says the head of Avia.ru.

Aeroflot's portfolio of orders includes 40 Tu-214 aircraft. However, this aircraft is rather an intermediate stage. “This aircraft also has no flight restrictions and can fly all over the world. But it is unlikely to become massive. This is an aircraft with outdated technologies, in a number of characteristics it is inferior to Western counterparts and the MS-21. But it is needed as a support for the industry for a certain period, while mass production of the MS-21 will unfold. Our civil aviation needs only about 700 MS-21 long-haul aircraft. But by 2030, we will be able to replace only half, at best, two-thirds of the fleet of medium-haul aircraft, but not completely,” says Gusarov. In other words, the Tu-214 is needed to temporarily close the hole due to the lack of MS-21 for all airlines as a replacement for foreign sanctioned equipment.

https://vz.ru/economy/2022/9/8/1176428.html

Hopefully all this production going in to the civilian sector of aviation will also lead to improvements like a standardisation of avionics for airliners and transport types, and a unification and standardisation of things across the board to create savings and improve efficiency.

It might even lead to production and develop of civilian based military transports like the Tu-330, which is based on the Tu-204/214, and also the Il-276, simply because the An-12 needs replacement around the world and so having a scaled down Il-76 and an improved Il-76 to sell on the international market with shared avionics and engines would be a good seller... especially as the western equivalents are much more expensive to buy and to operate.