Russian Civil Aviation: News #5

When you compare the production of civilian aircraft in Russia and in the declining West, there is simply an indescribable gulf in favor of the declining West. Russia still has a lot of work to do to increase the production of its civilian aircraft. It's a long way to Boeing and Airbus.

Arrow wrote:When you compare the production of civilian aircraft in Russia and in the declining West, there is simply an indescribable gulf in favor of the declining West. Russia still has a lot of work to do to increase the production of its civilian aircraft. It's a long way to Boeing and Airbus.

That is normal. Civil aircraft production was almost abandoned for many years.

What would have been relatively easy in 1991, which is to reach a similar level to the western civilian aircraft, including efficiency in 5 or 10 years, if the politicians did not destroy everything became practically impossible afterwards.

Nevertheless now Russia is on the correct path. Within the next 36 month the completely russified SJ100 and MC21 will enter service, albeit the initial production rate will still be relatively low.

Furthermore Russia has a full production cycle of all aircraft parts and subsystems. This is practically unique in the modern world.
In 2026, apart from large widebodies, the only advantage that Airbus will have over Yakovlev will be the production rate.

In comparison the equivalent Chinese aircrafts (ARJ21 and C919) are less advanced and full of western parts.

By 2030 this production rate of Russian civilian planes should be considerably higher and allow also exports, and by that time a widebody alternative with modern large engines.will be probably available.

Also, Boeing and Airbus do not have new project which should enter service in the next 5 years, and neither the wester aircraft engine manufacturer do.

This means that once Russia will have certified the PD35, they will have reached the west and possibly start working on the next generation aircraft and engines.

Airbus produces about 800 planes a year, Boeing about 600. This is what the declining industry in the West looks like...

Keep in mind that Airbus and Boeing are constantly receiving subsidies from US and EU
and have so for the last 30+ years. Without a 15 year brake like the russian companies.

Keep in mind that Airbus and Boeing are constantly receiving subsidies from US and EU and have so for the last 30+ years. Without a 15 year brake like the russian companies. wrote:

Of course, it only shows the gap between the Western civil aviation industry and the Russian one. Especially since many people here write about how Western industry is collapsing, etc.

I have to agree. There is no comparison. And can't be, as Airbus and Boeing maintain a monopoly. Hopefully that will start to change now, given how everyone has seen that Russia's airliner fleet has been sanctioned.
But Russia and China still have to come up with competitive models in these segments, and set up a supply & repair network for them.
TL; DR - it's do-able but it's an ambitious task that can take another decade if not longer.

You are not seeing the big picture Arrow... the Russian civil air industry didn't go quietly... the west went out of its way at every level to suffocate and destroy Russias capacity to make aircraft for the civilian market and their level of success could be easily seen by counting the number of western aircraft types Russian airlines were using.

Claiming the west still dominates the field is amusing because they have just incentivised the Russians to actually fund and support their civil aviation industry... something they had been actively suppressing these last 25 years.

Western production supports not just the west but also much of the rest of the world and for a long period even included Russia so of course it was rather big, but now Russia and even China is starting to make their own planes what is the future for these western power houses?

They got military sales which meant they were never going to go bust and during lean patches they could rely on a few orders from their military to keep them profitable, but of course they also had their intelligence agencies sniffing out deals and opportunities to win contracts around the world.

Russian civil aircraft design is starting again but starting with an enormous backlog of orders from its own country and these orders are likely to be followed up with export orders to BRICS countries who don't like buying from the west in general... that is the point of BRICS... a group of countries that don't want to deal with the west.

All I can say is don't buy Boeing or Airbus shares... I see another Boeing worker who was going to speak at a trial regarding their products and services has died in mysterious circumstances...

Not really sure why Airbus and Boeing production numbers are relevant in a thread about Russian civil aviation news...

But Russia and China still have to come up with competitive models in these segments, and set up a supply & repair network for them.
TL; DR - it's do-able but it's an ambitious task that can take another decade if not longer.

The hardest part is decent modern engines and they put that in place already even if it takes time they will get to a point of having an advantage over western aircraft just because of the better engines.

BTW another factor... if you look on a previous page you can see the Russian government is investing billions of rubles in upgrading and improving airports and air fields... you talk about aircraft production in the west, how about how much they are spending on infrastructure?

The markets who would buy the Russian Civil planes will be smaller countries in Asia and Africa. Maybe Cuba to start replacing their aging jets. India will continue to buy western as they still are about 2 decades behind in thought process and think they are gaining something politically by buying western.

I wrote in my post that we are not talking about volumes of production.

But most of the large aircrafts (widebody) are sold outside of Europe.

What I said and mean is that once you have a technology in place, developed and stable supply chains (without risks of sanctions) you can increase production.

If I am not mistaken, airbus produces now about 600 a320 family aircraft per year.

In 2030 yakovlev should be able to produce 72 mMc21 a year and probably in the future even more.

Even if this amount is much less than what Airbus does, it is more than enough for the needs of Russia. After they will have covered the urgent needs of Russia, they will be able to export to friendly countries. And maybe in the future it will be able also to export to neutral countries like Qatar, Singapore, Malaysia, Mexico, etc.

Russia did not have that until now, as it stopped being able to produce something for the civilian market long time ago.

Once everything previously delivered only by the west is available also by alternative independent sources (with complete supply chain sanction proof and independent from the west, the sanctions will have not such power anymore.

Here I am not talking about aircrafts, engine and aircraft systems: I am talking about everything, from mobile phones, to house supplies, to personal computers, chips, to good clothing, cars, various ranges of home and office furniture (both High end and IKEA like) industrial products and industrial tools, CNC machines, bearings, etc etc.



Furthermore, what I mean is that some companies like Boeing are not innovating anymore. They are just enjoying the results of previous investments and researches. What I mean is that in the aeronautical industry there is a lot of inertia.

Unless you make large safety crimes, you do not see the results of your efforts (or lack thereof) until many years later.

This is the reason Russia needs at least 8 years in which no new western civilian aircraft is imported.

By the way, another whistleblower from Boeing supplier Spirit was found dead. No comment.

Fortunately for Russia the west is handing them the perfect opportunity to get off western shit they have been selling at top price for decades.

The west is essentially creating a very capable competitor... one that has all the elements it needs to do everything including the titanium parts the west probably couldn't do better with.

France doesn't make the titanium hot bits in their own engines... they get those parts from the US.

When Russia started on its PD series the French offered to let the Russians make the titanium hot parts in their engines to keep using their engines and get them off a dependency on the US. Ironically when the European space agency stopped cooperating with Russia they had to turn to the US to launch their rockets and their terms were not as flexible as Russian terms...

But it is the direction their governments are choosing.

Russia does not need to make more planes than Boeing or Airbus... Russia is not a 12 year old child who has to be the best or they are nothing.

Russian civilian aviation is having a rebirth and I look forward to the introduction of new engine types that will allow a range of new aircraft types that had to be cancelled over the last 30 years because there was no money and then no engines...

New design computer based systems will allow vastly more types to be properly tested and only designs with real potential need go through the expensive process of prototyping and testing.

This is an exciting new time for Russia... and the western companies and governments can go **** themselves... because that is essentially what they have done.

I suspect that there will be a big increase in joint Russia/Iran civil aircraft production. At a minimum like the Boeing/Airbus deals with China doing all fitout in a bare fuselage.

Russia keeping all the high end elements.

Arrow wrote:Airbus produces about 800 planes a year, Boeing about 600. This is what the declining industry in the West looks like...

They will feel the decline when China starts producing its own planes and forbids Boeing and Airbus inside China. Their lower price will attract all the "poor" countries to buy them which is 80% of the world's countries.

Russia will buy its own planes and probably forbid the airspace to any airbus or boeing by removing their licences no matter which country owns it to fly in russian airspace like the west did for russian made planes. Flight to Asia will be extremly expensive wheb using them.

Boeing crashes and bad news aren't helping too.

Isos wrote:
They will feel the decline when China starts producing its own planes and forbids Boeing and Airbus inside China. Their lower price will attract all the "poor" countries to buy them which is 80% of the world's countries.

They need engines first before the US sanctions the LEAP powerplant.

I have seen news reports recently of Boeing complaining... it managed to find alternatives to Russian sources for things they were getting the Russians to make for their planes, but the volume of production has increased and the alternative suppliers can't keep up with the increasing demand so they are not going to be able to produce at the rate they want to...

Of course if their engineers keep dying off at the rate they are going it is going to be a bigger problem anyway.

Would you work for a company that whacks its whistleblowers?

Especially when peoples lives are at stake with safety.

JohninMK wrote:

Isos wrote:
They will feel the decline when China starts producing its own planes and forbids Boeing and Airbus inside China. Their lower price will attract all the "poor" countries to buy them which is 80% of the world's countries.

They need engines first before the US sanctions the LEAP powerplant.

They are probably working on this. Russian PD-14 is also coming anyway and could be used as an alternative which would oblige the westerners to shut up during negociations and accept anything chinese ask.

They already ordered 300 C-919. They will replace all their small and medium planes very quickly for domestic ones.

Il-96-400 can be bought for the heavy class.

Boeing and Airbus will be at war for what's left of chinese orders for western aircraft and will sell anythi g just to make money.

For the next 5 years it will be difficult for Russia to export PD-14 engines for different applications, i.e for a C919 without western subsystems instead of the CFM leap.

My understanding is that by 2030 they should be able to produce around 150 PD-14 engines per year, but such number is barely enough for the MC-21 production rate (72 aircrafts per year).

Most probably Russia will have to increase both the supply chain and the final assembly lines if they want to be able to export also.

Russia has also developed all the needed internal systems for the SJ100 and for the MC-21, if China needed Russia could invest into expanding production in order to supply them with internal systems instead of western suppliers.

China is also working on its CJ-1000 turbofan, but I do not know how close they are to get a reliable and usable product.

If China needs them in enormous volumes then Russia could set up production for engines for Chinese aircraft engines in China with the expensive high tech stuff still being made in Russia and assembled in China the way the US makes the hot bits and titanium bits for French engines...

Russia has a lot of different engine types they need to get into serial mass production so contracts to make engines make sense while keeping the high tech stuff made in Russia for commercial secrecy.

I know that the CJ-1000 is undergoing flight testing, what I do not know is how good is it, especially since China has no experience with modern gas turbine engines.
(And apparently also their modified RD33 (RD93) made for the Pakistani jets have several issues).

Furthermore, when is it a brand new development and not just a small evolution and you do not have parallel experience with other modern engines, you may have many years going from the first flight test to entry into service.

PD-14, as am example, started flight tests on a il-76 test bed in 2015, 9 years ago.

About an eventual production of Russian engines for china, I do not know, Russia would have to be cautious in order to avoid transferring important technology which has spent many years and money to develop.

Unless of course China will help Russia on similar endeavours with technology transfer in other sectors, like latest generation fabs and chip production.

I never wrote anything about low production rate being a cost for Russia. I just said that you need to invest in additional trained workforce and infrastructure across the entire supply chain if you want to increase production rates.

Russia does not need to worry about producing enough aircraft to meet the worlds needs. Its focus should be meeting Russian needs first.

The biggest mistake the west made was designing new stuff and then jealously controlling and monopolising the technology spending energy and resources keeping it all secret and all in house so they could over charge for the product.

This has bitten then in the arse with China and with Russia because now they are limiting or denying access to this technology then Russia and China have to develop their own technology and they wont just copy what the west is using now, they will work with new design techniques with new materials and new aerodynamic designs all of which likely weren't available when the west developed its technology, to produce something that is actually better and cheaper.

China is making new engines.... good for them, but this is the Russian Civil Aviation thread, so not so relevant to discuss here.

If engines were easy everyone would be making their own.

Isos wrote:Boeing and Airbus will be at war for what's left of chinese orders for western aircraft and will sell anythi g just to make money.

European companies from Germany, UK, France and others will be pleased to sell any aircraft engine technology to China. Germany, Czech Republic are already selling dual use nuclear technology to China.

With energy prices in Europe being rather higher than they used to be and rather unlikely to ever be as low as they were I suspect quite a few European companies are looking at shifting production... they could go to the US but that is a lot of red tape, or they could go to China where materials and other resources are also there... it is a manufacturing centre... so supply chains will be easier and shorter and cheaper.

Either way there is a language barrier... but learning Chinese has to be easier than learning when someone is blatantly lying to you to your face.