MOSCOW, August 19 (RIA Novosti) - Engines for Russia's new Superjet 100 regional airliner will be certified later in 2009, a senior official at the PowerJet company announced at the MAKS-2009 air show on Wednesday.
PowerJet, a joint venture by France's Snecma and Russia's NPO Saturn, has designed the SaM146 engine for the Superjet a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Russia's Sukhoi Civil Aircraft company in cooperation with a number of U.S. and European aircraft makers.
"We are certain that the certification process will be completed this year," Yury Basyuk, executive vice president at PowerJet, said.
The company started the SaM146 engine certification program in February 2009 and plans to run certification tests in line with European, the U.S. and Russian standards, which would allow the plane to operate without restrictions anywhere in the world.
Basyuk said as of August, the aggregate operation of the SaM146 engines provided for the certification program, including test bench and flight tests, amounted to 4,200 hours, including 1,600 hours in flight.
The official added that the SaM146 engine features high reliability, low maintenance costs, and efficient fuel consumption. It also meets all environmental and noise-reduction standards adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Meanwhile, Vladimir Prisazhnyuk, president of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft said on Wednesday that the first 18 Superjet 100s are expected to be delivered to customers, including Aeroflot and Armavia, in 2010.
Sukhoi plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China.
