Moscow. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrey Kislyakov) The Russian Regional Jet (RRJ) is the most ambitious and dynamic national aviation industry program.
The first RRJ prototype is scheduled to make its maiden flight next year.
Being a new next generation airliner, the RRJ family is highly advanced, economical, has excellent flying characteristics, equipped with the latest in avionics and has a modern customer support infrastructure.
Russia is definitely going to enter the regional aircraft world market. In late November 2005, Sukhoi Civil Aviation (SCA) Concern and Concord Aviation, a leasing company from Dubai, signed a contract for the delivery of 40 95-seat RRJ-95s.
At the same time the market is active at home as well. SCA signed an 820-million-dollar contract with Aeroflot for the delivery of 30 RRJ planes also in November. In addition, it had earlier concluded a tentative agreement on RRJ deliveries with Sibir Air. The Financial Leasing Company is also expected to be a major customer.
The Russian Ministry of Industry and Power Engineering views the RRJ as one of its most promising projects, thereby giving domestic civilian aviation companies the chance to compete against the world's leading producers. It is going to invest 36 billion rubles into the RRJ's production. At the same time, the RRJ is a strictly commercial project, and the government will get its money back from aircraft sales.
This is the first Russian experience involving the pre-sales of an aircraft, which is still in the R&D stage and doesn't have an actual flying prototype yet.
The RRJ is not an entirely domestic product but an offspring of broad international cooperation. The world's leading component producers are involved. Its SaM146 PowerJet engine is being produced by the joint venture of the French Snecma (Safran Group) and the Russian firm Saturn. The first SaM146 will be tested on an Il-76 test bed-flying laboratory in March 2006. Next October the engine will power the first RRJ prototype into the skies.
Other foreign producers include: Tholes (avionics), Liebherr (control systems), Honeywell (auxiliary power unit), Messier Dowty (chassis), Intertechnique (fuel system), Hamilton Sundstrand (power supply unit), and Air Cruisers (rescue equipment), to name but a few. Russian companies are participating in the development and manufacture of individual units in many cases.
Equipped with foreign components, the aircraft will receive international airworthiness certificates. Both domestic and foreign experts agree that the RRJ-95 is equal to the RRJ-60 and RRJ-75 of the same family and will have a high export potential. Importantly, it will be competitive in the Western market: its price will be 10%-15% lower than that of its foreign competitors. As for Russian buyers of RRJ, the Government is ready to reduce, or even cancel import duties on all deliveries within the project.
Experts predict that in the next 15 to 20 years the world market may require about 800 RRJs, of which about 300 to 350 aircraft will remain in Russia. The first deliveries will begin in 2008. This is a realistic time scale since jigless assembly, a technique borrowed from Boeing, reduces the labor-output ratio and, consequently, construction time by 30%.
As for the Ukrainian rival An-148, it first took to the skies in December 2004. Certification is supposed to be completed in the first half of 2006. From the project's inception, serial production of the aircraft was awarded to the Voronezh Aircraft Factory (VASO), and Ukranian Aviant. But after the presidential elections in Ukraine, and a subsequent cool-off in bilateral relations, VASO shelved the project. Only recently the An-148 has received the green light. In late November, VASO and Antonov ASTC concluded a license agreement for launching the aircraft into commercial production in Russia in 2006.
Sukhoi and Antonov could avoid being rivals, if Sukhoi launched the production of 95-110-seat longer-range aircraft (3,000 km-5,000 km), while Antonov produced the 70-80-seat planes of shorter range (1,000 km-2,000 km). Russia is definitely interested in the An-148 project, because Russian enterprises produce 69% of the aircraft component parts.
In Russia, the Ilyushin Finance Co, (IFC) is in charge of aircraft sales, operational and financial leasing. It already has tentative agreements with Russian companies for the purchase of 54 aircraft. The Ukrainian airline Aerosvit wants to buy 10 An-148's from the Voronezh assembly plant, and Kazakhstan, another seven. VASO plans to assemble about 250 aircraft in 10 years.
The license agreement gives Russia the right to develop the basic An-148 version into a military transport, special aircraft, cargo and cargo-passenger planes. In expert estimate, the Russian armed forces and other power structures may require up to 200 such aircraft for the maritime patrol service, units of radio-electronic warfare, radio-technical and tactical reconnaissance, the airborne command center, and as a refueler.
Importantly, the An-148 program will keep VASO busy in the near future.
