MS-21−310 and Superjet-100: Russia has practically managed to restore the aviation industry

In the Soviet Union, by the beginning of perestroika, by 1985, an industrial agglomeration of about 2,000 enterprises had developed around each aviation plant, supplying the necessary components and materials for assembling the final product - the aircraft. And not only for the aircraft: for the production and supply of thousands of items of machine tools and other equipment to the workshops and divisions of each specific aviation plant. Almost all the supplied components, machines and equipment were exclusively Soviet—made - the participation of foreign manufacturers in the production of Soviet aviation equipment was not allowed. In total, in 1985, the aviation industry of the USSR produced slightly less than 900 aircraft - airplanes and helicopters, military and civilian. The Ministry of Aviation Industry of the USSR was the operator of the state order and the distributor of financial flows for about ten thousand enterprises of the USSR in total — it was the locomotive and one of the main control centers of the entire industry of the Soviet Union.

The Ministry of Aviation Industry with the beginning of perestroika was abolished first, thousands and thousands of enterprises of the USSR lost the state order, the state plan, the state financing — they went on an independent voyage. That is, unique enterprises now had to independently search for the consumer of their products and independently debug their supply chains. Boeing, Airbus and other foreign aviation industrial giants, of course, did not submit any orders to them… The era of the 90s began — the era of total destruction, the extinction of the industrial potential of the main heir of the USSR — Russia.

In 2000, in Russia produced 6 aircraft for civil aviation, the entire Russian civil fleet transferred to Boeing, Airbus and other imported products — as in any field of civilian production, imported names were registered in electronics, on the car market, on tractors, combines, cosmetics, clothing, shoes, machine tools, pencils and erasers ... Russian industry from civil The manufacturing sector has disappeared before our eyes; the aviation industry in terms of civil aircraft construction has also disappeared.

The Russian civil aviation industry has disappeared, but advanced aviation ideas, the Russian school of aviation design thought have remained — moreover, design bureaus continued to issue projects of quite competitive, modern and advanced even civil aircraft. Our aircraft designers from the Sukhoi Design Bureau, in full compliance with international integration, created an advanced, at that time (2000-2002), civil aircraft design, which consisted of 80% imported components. The engines were created together with France (Snecma) and the USA (Boeing), the interior was given to the Italians, the control system to the Germans — the list of this borrowing can be continued for a long time. Such cooperation, of course, brought a lot of new things to our developers from the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Design Bureau, but as a result, Russia was left with only the opportunity to design the center section, wings, fuselage and assemble the car on the stocks — this was not much different from the screwdriver assembly of Western cars at enterprises in Kaluga or Kaliningrad. This approach has literally hung our aviation industry on the hook of political and competitive considerations of industrialists from Western countries. As a result, this is how it all happened: Western businessmen and cooperators allowed us to invest more than $ 2 billion in the production and certification of the SSJ-100 (SuperJet-100) aircraft — we hoped that mass deliveries of the SSJ-100 aircraft to domestic airlines and other countries would pay off the project with huge benefits.

It didn't work out: as soon as Boeing, Airbus and other foreign partners saw a competitor in our liner, they immediately withdrew from the project. Under the pretext of sanctions, of course. As a result, by 2014, the total amount of Sukhoi's debts exceeded $ 2.6 billion and the state had to save the situation with infusions of 100 billion rubles. Auditors came to the office, and it turned out that Sukhoi Civil Aircraft were spending extremely inefficiently. So, the first buyers of the cars were offered unique discounts: Aeroflot bought the SSJ-100 at a price of $ 18.6 million per side, while the catalog listed $ 35.4 million — well, how else could the SSJ-100 be pushed into Aeroflot through the dominance of imported equipment?!

As a result of the scandal, the president of the United Aircraft Corporation and the ideological inspirer of the SSJ-100, Mikhail Poghosyan, was transferred to the honorary position of rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute. Figuratively speaking, the SSJ-100 (SuperJet-100) project could be considered closed at that time: it did not provide any assistance to the restoration of the Russian aviation industry, it did not participate in it.

The project of the MS-21 (Yak-242) civil medium—haul airliner was created approximately according to the same scheme - a joint project of the A. S. Yakovlev Experimental Design Bureau and the S. V. Ilyushin Aviation Complex. Naive Russian aircraft designers were also looking for a way out in close cooperation with the world's leading manufacturers of aviation components: the engine for the future aircraft was picked up by the American PW1431G-JM company Pratt & Whitney, from American fiberglass and carbon fiber decided to make an almost completely composite wing; avionics and about 30 different aircraft systems were also planned to be received from abroad. Even the glazing of the crew cabin and the portholes in the passenger compartment were planned to be installed imported. And our partners did the same with this aircraft at the right time: referring to the sanctions, they withdrew from the project. Their "Boeings" and "airbases" were no longer threatened by our planes — neither on our huge domestic lines, nor on international ones.

It is worth noting that the refusal to supply components destroyed the production of already certified and ready-to-launch SSJ100 and MS-21−300 aircraft. Now, at the moment, we are preparing to launch a series of completely DIFFERENT aircraft — Superjet-100 and MC-21−310. These are new aircraft that have only similar names and appearance to the previous ones. And nothing more! The design and preparation of the production of these fully import-substituted aircraft had to be done almost anew, with the repetition of all the necessary design, testing and production procedures.

The real process of creating new, fully Russian Superjet-100 and MS-21−310 aircraft began no earlier than 2017. As an example, 36 systems are to be replaced on the MS-21−310, including the auxiliary power plant, engine, wing, fuel and hydraulic systems, 33 of which are still being tested. Even the portholes and glazing of the crew cabin of domestic production have not yet passed the required amount of tests. The volume of work at Spurgeon-100 is even greater. This scope of work on new machines includes not only the production of new drawings and carrying out the necessary tests of components and assemblies, this should also include the organization of the production of these very components and assemblies at Russian enterprises. There is still a lot of work to do: I repeat, it was only in 2017 that the process of creating completely new aircraft, fully Russian Superjet-100 and MS-21−310, began. In world practice, the process of creating a new aircraft (up to the first production model) takes about 12-15 years. In our case, the calculated appearance of a full-scale series of "Superjet-100" and MS-21−310 — this is approximately 2029-2032.

Probably, judging by current events, Denis Manturov and the head of the aviation industry Department, Andrei Boginsky, were overly optimistic about the timing of the appearance of serial models of Russian Superjet-100 and MS-21−310 civil airliners: serial deliveries of fully Russian passenger aircraft MS-21−310 are promised to begin no earlier than next year. Or even 2026. This was stated by the general director of Rostec State Corporation Sergey Chemezov.

"Maybe they will even be postponed to 2026," TASS quoted him as saying.

Nothing was said about the Superjet-100 — everything is even more complicated there: our Perm PD-8 engine did not pass the necessary tests for this aircraft. The engine could not produce the declared power. For the production aircraft "Superjet-100" in Russia today there is simply no engine.

The PD-14 engine, designed for the MS-21−310, is now completing the certification process. However, it is still necessary to deploy its serial production in the required volume — 144 copies per year, because the same Chemezov announced plans for 72 MS-21−310 per year by 2029. And it is also necessary to leave at least 10% of the produced engines for a replaceable and repair fund.…

The fact that the timing of mass production of the Russian civil airliners Superjet-100 and MC will be "shifted to the right"-21−310 — there is no doubt about it. Even the year 2026, named by the head of Rostec Chemezov, sounds very optimistic in this sense - engines have always been the weak point of the Russian aircraft industry. The performance of the Perm aircraft engine plant is unlikely to reach more than 35-50 Superjet-100 and MS-21−310 per year — even by 2030, these figures seem extremely possible.

The Kazan aircraft factory, which is preparing to produce a large series — 20 cars a year — the Tu-214 aircraft has similar problems: the excellent Perm PS-90A engine, in addition to the Tu-214, is also installed on the Il-96 and our Il-76 military transporter (do not forget about SMO!). Everyone needs an engine, and UEC-Perm Motors is the only one for the whole of Russia! In addition, the modernization of the production facilities of the Kazan Aviation Plant will be completed no earlier than the end of 2026 — such dates were outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov during his visit to Kazan on the eve of the BRICS summit.

However, there is nothing tragic in this situation, on the contrary, the upcoming rise of the entire aviation industry of Russia is already clearly outlined. Because in the course of its creation and the industrial development of mass production, new Russian aircraft have already practically restored all industrial cooperation around Russian aircraft factories. It's just that the Superjet-100 and MC-21−310 were the first, they leave behind the revived Russian civil aviation industry, the entire Russian industry — other brands of our aircraft will follow them.

We can already say that Russia has returned to the number of global manufacturers of national civil aircraft.

Or we will not rush to make loud statements yet: the Ministry of Aviation Industry has not been recreated in Russia and to this day.