00_COVER VZLET 16_engl - Take

Transcription

00_COVER VZLET 16_engl
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may 2006 • special edition for ILA 2006 airshow
Russia upgrades NATO’s
fighters
Ishim airlaunch project
Ilyushin Il-76
re-engining programme
IFC expands Russian airliners export
Russian aero engines for foreign customers
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May 2006
Editor-in-Chief
Andrey Fomin
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Andrey Yurgenson
Columnists
Alexander Velovich
Vladimir Shcherbakov
Special correspondents
Alexey Mikheyev, Victor Drushlyakov,
Yevgeny Yerokhin, Andrey Zinchuk, Valery Ageyev,
Alina Chernoivanova, Natalya Pechorina,
Yury Ponomarev, Sergey Popsuyevich,
Piotr Butowski, Alexander Mladenov, Miroslav Gyurosi
Design and pre-press
Grigory Butrin, Irina Dynga
Web support
Georgy Fedoseyev
Translation
Yevgeny Ozhogin, Egor Kokryashkin,
Alexander Makarenko, Andrey Bystrov
Cover photo
Miroslav Gyurosi
Publisher
Aeromedia Publishing House Ltd.
Director General
Andrey Fomin
Deputy Director General
Nadezhda Kashirina
Marketing Director
George Smirnov
Executive Director
Yury Zheltonogin
Published with support from
Russian Knights foundation
News items for “In Brief” columns are prepared by editorial staff
based on reports of our special correspondents, press releases of
production companies as well as by using information
distributed by ITAR-TASS, ARMS-TASS, Interfax-AVN, RIA Novosti,
RBC news agencies and published at www.aviaport.ru, www.avia.ru,
www.gazeta.ru, www.cosmoworld.ru web sites
The magazine is registered by the Federal Service for supervision
of observation of legislation in the sphere of mass media and
protection of cultural heritage of the Russian Federation.
Registration certificate PI FS77-19017 dated 29 November 2004
Dear readers,
You are holding another special
issue of the Take-off magazine – the
supplement to Russian national aerospace magazine Vzlyot. Its release
has been timed with the ILA 2006 air
show in Berlin. As an international
event, the show, which has rated high
among similar aerospace gatherings,
determines the interest shown by
Russian and CIS aerospace companies. This year, Russia is going to have a pavilion of its own at ILA 2006,
in which major aerospace developers and manufacturers are to display
their hardware.
A major trend today is the growing scale of international cooperation in
high technology and sophisticated hardware development. Russia has
been on a par with the global trends. A case in point is its cooperation with
foreign players under the RRJ Russian Regional Jet project and SaM-146
engine for it, joint work of Russian and foreign cosmonauts on board the
ISS, just to name a few. Recently, new impetus has been given to the
upgrade of the MiG-29 fighters in service with several East European
countries that are NATO member states. In this issue, we publish some of
the results of the work done in this field. I hope the materials will be interesting to you, all the more so since one of the Slovak Air Force's MiG-29
fighters upgraded by Russian and a number of Western companies is to
be displayed in Berlin.
A month before ILA 2006, Moscow hosted dedicated exhibition
Engines 2006 where major Russian, Ukrainian and other aero engine
developers and manufacturers showcased their latest advances in aircraft
engine development. Indeed, they do have something to show off. Over
the past year, several major deal have been struck for export sales of
existing and future Russian aero engines, work has kicked off on introducing advanced powerplants to the Russian planes and a number of
sophisticated programmes is under way. Therefore, this issue places
emphasis on the latest achievements of the Russian aero engine makers.
Participants and visitors of the ILA 2006 air show will have an opportunity
to see some of them with their own eyes at the Russian pavilion.
By tradition, the magazine covers other promising aerospace programmes under way in both Russia and other CIS countries. We have
emphasized the key events in the Russian aerospace industry over the
past several months.
We are doing our best to provide our readers with the most complete
and reliable information on the hot news of the Russian aircraft industry,
the latest designs it has been working on and how Russian-made fixedwing and rotary wing aircraft are operated throughout the world. With such
information under one's fingertips, it is easier to analyse the situation on
the global market and take effective decisions. I would like to wish the participants of the ILA 2006 air show successful and fruitful work and assure
everybody that as usual Russian aircraft will never fail them.
Sincerely yours,
© Aeromedia, 2006
P.O. Box 7, Moscow, 125475, Russia
Tel. +7 (495) 198-60-40, 798-81-19
Fax +7 (495) 198-60-40
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.take-off.ru
Andrey Fomin
Editor-in-Chief
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contents
AIR FORCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
may 2006
Russian Air Force procurement in 2006 Tu-160 officially fielded at last Su-34's deliveries
to start in 2007 MiG-31BM kicked off trials Air Force to decide on upgrading its MiG-29s
Plans to upgrade Military Transport Aviation fleet Ka-52 back from firing range Mi-28N's
official trials Russian Knights got the World Cup! First Russian satellite-guided bomb tested
More details on Irbis radar to fit Su-35 fighter
Russia upgrading NATO fighters
Slovak MiG-29s being converted to meet NATO and ICAO standards
10
Upgraded under the RSK MiG contract, in early December last year two Slovak Air Force MiG-29s found their way
home, the 1st Airbase in Sliac in central Slovakia. These were the first in the batch of ten single-seat MiG-29s and
two MiG-29UB twin-seaters to be enhanced under the Russian-Slovak deal signed on 24 November 2004. Acting
as the project integrator, RSK MiG teamed up with Rockwell Collins and BAE Systems as suppliers of new aircraft
equipment, and the LOT aircraft repair plant in the western Slovak city of Trencin, a place where the aircraft will be
upgraded. The project is unique, as it is the first time that a Russian company is involved in NATO aircraft modernisation. Miroslav Gyurosi and Andrey Fomin tell about MiG-29 fighters in service with Slovak Air Force and their
upgrade programme
Poland boosting its fleet of MiGs
Luftwaffe fighters to join Polish Air Force
14
Last year the Polish Air Force saw a number of MiG-29 fighters enter service. The aircraft are a gift from its NATO
counterpart, the German Luftwaffe, which inherited 24 of them from the East German Air Force after the 1990
reunification of Germany. The fighters have been extensively operated by Luftwaffe and have often taken part in
NATO exercises for over the decade. However, Germany decided to get rid of this WARPAC inheritance early in the
XXI century, and in 2002 it sold all of its 23 MiG-29s to Poland at a symbolic price of 1 Euro. Once in Poland, the
aircraft headed for the Bydgoszcz aircraft repair plant. After a slight refurbishment the first ex-Luftwaffe MiGs
arrived at the Malbork airbase last summer. The first MiGs to undergo a major overhaul that extended their service life until 2018 came to Malbork from Bydgoszcz in December 2005. As soon as the rest aircraft arrive at
Malbork, the Polish Air Force will have the largest MiG-29 fleet of 36 aircraft in Eastern Europe, except CIS countries. Piotr Butowski reviews the history and prospects of Polish MiG-29 fleet
AIRSHOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
17
Sukhoi fighters as symbol of “Victory Eagle” in China
CONTRACTS AND DELIVERIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
New record in Russian arms export
President Putin brings $7.5 billion from Algeria
India receiving upgraded Il-38SDs India to upgrade first Su-30MKIs and sell Su-30Ks
SAAB to deliver avionics for Su-30MKMs
RSK MiG sums up foreign trade results
Be-103 to appear in China soon Ukraine delivers four An-32Ps to Libya UUAZ delivers
more helicopters to Asia Five Ansat helicopters operate in South Korea Venezuela mastering
Mi-17V-5s Ka-226 to be assembled in Jordan?
Russian AL-55I engine for Indian trainers
26
On 18 March 2006 the NPO Saturn Association embarked on bench tests of the first AL-55I turbofan prototype,
designed to be mounted on the Indian HJT-36 training aircraft. In fact, it is the first time the national aircraft enginebuilding industry has developed a new power plant especially for a foreign customer. However, AL-55I designers
are not going to stop at that. They plan to design a whole family of AL-55 engines with a thrust of 1,700–3,500 kgf,
which may be mounted on a wide range of trainers, combat trainers, and light combat aircraft. The tests of the first
AL-55I are timed with the 90th anniversary of the NPO Saturn and the 60th anniversary of the Lyulka Scientific
Centre, Saturn's Moscow affiliate office. Andrey Fomin describes the AL-55I project and programme status
INDUSTRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Decree on United Aircraft Corporation signed
Maiden flight of third Yak-130
An-70 gets its first certificate Kamov gearing up for certification in Europe
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contents
Alexander Novikov:
“New engine-making association is needed”
30
Commercialisation of the Klimov RD-33MK turbofan engine to fit the Mikoyan MiG-29K (MiG-33) carrierborne
fighter under development for the Indian Navy and development of the first examples of the Klimov TV7-117ST
turboprops to power the future Ilyushin Il-112V airlifter are high on the Russian aircraft engine industry's priority list. The modified RD-33MK has begun its long-time endurance tests. A TV7-117ST mockup has been
approved and the trials of its gas generator have kicked off. The Chernyshev Moscow Machine-Building
Enterprise, which is about to celebrate its 75th anniversary, is productionising these engines. Chernyshev's
Director General Alexander Novikov was kind enough to talk with Take-Off's Andrey Yurgenson on the status of
the programmes and other advanced efforts pursued by the plant
Salut arms Chinese Air Force
32
Last November Rosoboronexport signed a $550 million contract on delivering 180 AL-31F engines to be
mounted on Sukhoi Su-27SK and Su-30MKK aircraft to China. The contract was awarded to the Salut Moscow
Machine-building Production Plant (MMPP Salut), the traditional exporter of AL-31F engines to China. The
new contract allowed Salut to reach the all-time high production rate in the past 15 years: the 2006 production plan envisions manufacturing about $600 million's worth of products, which amounts to about 90% of
Salut's production output in 1991. At the present time MMPP Salut derives 83% of its profits from exports,
but its management is positive that sooner or later the trend will be reversed and upgraded AL-31Fs, developed and manufactured by Salut, will be fitted on the Russian Air Force fighters. Take-off's correspondents
Piotr Butowski and Viktor Drushlyakov have recently visited MMPP Salut and examined priority programmes
of the enterprise
COMMERCIAL AVIATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Russian civil aviation in 2005 RRJ receives first firm orders Su-80GP gearing up for
maiden flight Aviakor to deliver three An-140s to Yakutiya First M-101T delivered to Dexter
IFC's export breakthrough
PS-90 gives IL-76 a new life
40
Ilyushin Il-76 transports started to be fitted with new power plants a year ago. At that time the first Il-76TD90VD was being equipped with new PS-90A-76 engines under a contract with the Volga-Dnepr Group in
Tashkent, and the modified D-30KP-3 Burlak engine was undergoing bench tests in Rybinsk. The programme of retrofitting Il-76s with new power plants has made much progress over the past year: the
Il-76TD-90VD has undergone most flight tests and has recently been certified by the Aviation Register of the
Interstate Aviation Committee with regards to noise-abatement requirements; Il-76TD-90s have been fitted
with PS-90A-76 engines under a contract with an Azerbaijani air carrier; and the flagship Il-76MD-90 in
service with the Russian Air Force has been re-engined with PS-90A-76 turbofans and submitted for flight
tests in Voronezh. Viktor Osipov tells about the progress made in retrofitting Il-76s with new power plants
in the past year
COSMONAUTICS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
42
New ISS crew to celebrate 45th anniversary of Gagarin's spaceflight Giants to tender for
Clipper President, Defence minister to give boost to GLONASS A space suit or a satellite?
Riding MiG to orbit
Ishim programme
46
A novelty unveiled by Kazakhstan's Kazcosmos company at the Asian Aerospace 2006 show in Singapore late
in February was a project of the Ishim air-launched space rocket system designed to quickly orbit small spacecraft by means of a LV launched from the Mikoyan MiG-31I aircraft. The Ishim is a joint Russian-Kazakh programme pursued by Kazcosmos in cooperation with Russia's RSK MiG Corp. and MIT Moscow-based Institute
of Heat Technology. Andrey Fomin and Igor Afanasyev review the project and its prospects
AIRSHOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Ambitious reconstruction plans for MAKS venue
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air force | in brief
According to numerous public
statements by Russian Defence
Minister Sergey Ivanov, the governmental defence procurement in 2006
will grow by 54 billion rubles – an
increase of more than 20% over
2005 – to total 236 billion rubles
(about $8.3 billion). Some of this
money is to be paid for advanced aircraft for use by the Russian Air Force.
According to RusAF's chief, Gen.
Vladimir Mikhailov, his service in
2006 is to receive several Su-34 aircraft, whose testing is due to be
completed this year, and several
Mi-28N helicopters whose Stage A
official flight trials kicked off last
summer (see a relevant article in this
issue). The official tests of the
Yak-130 combat trainer are slated to
wrap up by year-end, and deliveries
of the 12 LRIP (low-rate initial production) combat trainers to the Air
Force might have started by then
under the existing contract.
In addition, according to Gen.
Mikhailov, RusAF is intent on continuing to buy upgraded Su-27SM
fighters. As is known, under the
three-year deal clinched by the service and KnAAPO in 2004, the manufacturer will have upgraded the first
24 in-service Su-27 fighters before
the end of 2006. The first seven
Su-27SMs were delivered on
23 December 2004. Another 10 aircraft were to be upgraded in 2005.
KnAAPO upgraded 11 fighters last
year – one plane more than planned.
For the company to fulfil its part of
the deal, it will need to modernise six
fighters more this year.
The Air Force chief also said that
work has been going on to update
Su-24M tactical bombers and Su-25
attack aircraft. At present, the
Alexey Mikheyev
Russian Air Force procurement in 2006
Su-24M2 and Su-25SM aircraft are
nearing the end of their official tests.
“We have taken up a proactive
upgrade of the MiG-31,” Gen.
Mikhailov added. The first MiG-31BM
has kicked off its trials last year (see
this issue for the relevant article). The
service chief has mentioned again
that similar upgrades would cover
the in-service MiG-29 fleet as well,
but the RusAF has not decided yet
which standard the MiG-29s are to be
upgraded to. There are two upgrade
options on offer – the MiG-29SM and
MiG-29SMT.
The first re-engined Il-76MD-90
airlifter, a dedicated Tu-214 derivative and several helicopters could be
procured among other things this
year.
Tu-160 officially fielded at last
Alexey Mikheyev
The 30 December 2005 decree by
the Russian President fielded the
Tu-160 strategic bomber with the
Russian Air Force. Actually, the
bomber has been operated by the
service since 1987 when the first aircraft were delivered to the 184th
Heavy Bomber Air Regiment at
Priluki AFB, Ukraine. By late 1991, as
many as 19 Tu-160s had been stationed there. Following the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Russia had to
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activate its Tu-160 fleet virtually
from scratch. Six brand-new
bombers fresh from the Gorbunov
KAPO plant in Kazan were deployed
to Engels AFB vic. Saratov in the
early 1990s. Then, after the protracted talks with Ukraine, eight more
planes of the type arrived at Engels
AFB in 2000, and the rest of the
Tu-160s in Ukraine were disposed
of, with the disposal paid for by the
United States. The KAPO plant deliv-
ered another new bomber in the
same year.
Thus, a 15-ship Tu-160 fleet had
been concentrated at Engels air
base by the beginning of the new
century. In the wake of the tragic
crash on 18 September 2003,
14 aircraft remained in inventory of
the 121st Heavy Bomber Air
Regiment, 37th Air Army. The
bomber fleet was expected to be
beefed up in 2004, then in 2005.
However, according to Lt.-Gen. Igor
Khvorov, chief of the Long Range
Aviation Command, the military
began to receive another Tu-160
from the manufacturer after it had
been overhauled and partially
upgraded. The bomber is due to
enter operation this spring to
become the 15th aircraft of the type
in the 37th Air Army's inventory.
This done, RusAF is to launch an
upgrade of the rest of the aircraft.
The bulk of the tests under the
upgrade programme have been
completed. The programme provides for fitting the Tu-160s with
cutting-edge avionics and the latest
long-range cruise missile. It looks
like this prompted the Russian
president to sign the long-awaited
decree. Truth be told, RusAF's chief,
Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov, admits
that Vladimir Putin's famous hourslong flight on the Tu-160 Pavel
Taran (side number 03) on
16 August 2005 could play its role.
The Supreme Commander-in-Chief
was very pleased with the sortie
and, possibly, facilitated the decision to field the bomber officially.
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Russian Defence Minister Sergey
Ivanov paid a visit on 23 March to
the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production
Association named after Valery
Chkalov (NAPO) where he was
briefed on the status of developing
the advanced tactical strike aircraft,
the Sukhoi Su-34 (Su-27IB). The
defence minister and the company's managers discussed the production plan of the Su-34, which
operational evaluation is slated for
next year. Pilots and engineers with
the 4th Combat and Conversion
Training centre (CCTC) in Lipetsk
will be first to master the plane. A
month ago, CCTC's chief, Maj.-Gen.
Alexander Kharchevsky, said that
the first two aircraft were to be
delivered “in the near future”.
During the opeval at CCTC, flight
and ground crews are to be converted, maintenance procedures
determined and combat training
techniques and schedules devised.
According to a Sukhoi
spokesman, under the three-year
governmental contract, NAPO
shall deliver to the Air Force
24 Su-34s to activate the first air
regiment operating the advanced
strike plane. Further down the
road, the Su-34 is to oust the
Su-24M tactical bomber from the
inventory. To maintain the combat
capabilities of RusAF's strike fleet
during the Su-24M's ouster,
Sukhoi has been running a programme to upgrade the existing
Su-24M bombers. The programme
is aimed at extending their service
life, enhancing their navigation
and attack precision and expanding their combat capabilities.
The Akhtubinsk-based Defence
Ministry's State Flight Test
Centre has completed the flight
trials of the Sukhoi Su-24M2, an
upgrade of the Su-24M. The
Su-24M2 was employed in the
MiG-31BM kicked off trials
The programme on upgrading the
MiG-31 interceptor fleet in service
with the Russian Air Force has finally resumed. In December, the first
MiG-31BM prototype upgraded by
the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod
arrived to MoD's State Flight Test
Centre in Akhtubinsk for further testing. Its upgrade in line with design
documentation from RSK MiG Corp.
and Tikhomirov-NIIP institute, developer of its fire control system, was
completed in mid-2005, with the aircraft stating to fly in Nizhny
Novgorod in September. Now, it is
going to do the same in Akhtubinsk.
The upgraded interceptor got the
improved Zaslon-AM passive
phased-array radar with an
advanced software package and an
up-to-date cockpit display system
wrapped around colour LCDs. The
aircraft is to carry the latest longrange active radar-homing air-to-air
missiles, RVV-AE medium-range
and R-73 dogfight missiles. Its navigation and ECM aids are to be modernised as well.
www.take-off.ru
RSK MiG Corp. offered to
upgrade the in-service MiG-31Bs as
far back as 1998, and the upgraded
interceptor demonstrator was
unveiled to the media at LII airfield
in Zhulovsky as early as January
1999. Then, it was displayed at the
MAKS '99 air show. However, the
programme ground to a halt further
down the road. Over the past years,
it has changed both in terms of subcontractors and systems to be modernised, on the one hand, and the
purpose of the efforts, on the other.
In particular, emphasis on the interceptor's ground-attack capability
has been decreased. The new
upgrade package has won the support of the Air Force's top brass,
prompting the Ministry of Defence
to fund the programme at long last.
Two upgraded interceptors are to fly
at the first stage of trials. Another
one could join them later on. Once
the trials have been completed, the
existing fleet of MiG-31Bs will be up
for upgrade that is expected to be
done by Sokol.
Alexey Petrov
Su-34's deliveries to start in 2007
combined Russian-Chinese exercise in 2005, including life fire
exercises. Simultaneous overhauling and upgrading the
Su-24M have been mastered by
NAPO. According to Sukhoi's
spokesman, the company has
made a three-year contract with
the Air Force for upgrading the
current Su-24M fleet to Su-24M2
standard, with the first two aircraft ready for delivery.
Air Force to decide
on upgrading its MiG-29s
This year the Russian Air Force is
to place emphasis on upgrading the
combat aircraft and helicopters it
operates. Particularly, work will be
continued on the Sukhoi Su-27SM,
Su-24M2, Su-25SM and Mikoyan
MiG-31BM programmes. At a news
conference in January, RusAF's
chief, Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov, mentioned the need for upgrading the inservice MiG-29 fighters. However, in
spite of the early MiG-29SMT prototypes were built and offered to the
service as far back as the late 1990s,
RusAF was in no hurry to buy them
since the price was pretty steep.
Recently, the situation has changed.
The customer and the developers
seem to have agreed in January on
the in-service MiG-29s' upgrade
acceptable in terms of cost and
effectiveness. Two options were on
the table. One was more expensive
but more effective - the MiG-29SMT
mounting a cutting-edge Zhuk-M
radar. The other was the cheaper
MiG-29SM with its upgraded N019M
radar and a limited number of the
latest trimmings.
In all probability, the MiG-29SM
offered by RSK MiG Corp. in 2005
is to become the standard to be
used in upgrading the Fulcrum
fleet. RSK MiG Corp. unveiled
some details on this 'low-cost'
MiG-29 upgrade variant at the
LIMA 2005 air show in Malaysia
last December. On the whole, the
MiG-29SM offered to RusAF is
very similar to the Belorussian
MiG-29BM. Four BelAF MiG-29s
were upgraded to the MiG-29BM
standard by the 558th Aircraft
Repair Plant in Baranovichi with
the assistance of RSK MiG Corp.
and Russkaya Avionika company.
Therefore, for the Russian Air
Force to decide on an upgrade
variant for its fighter, the service
needs consent of Belarus that paid
for MiG-29BM's R&D. The talks
are underway.
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Plans to upgrade Military Transport Aviation fleet
Voronezh to Il-76MD-90 standard.
In addition, in 2007, the branch is
expected to start taking delivery of
latest Ilyushin Il-76MFs powered by
the same engines but featuring a
greater lifting capacity. Based on the
outcome of the first stage of the official trials, the Air Force issued its
preliminary conclusion paving the
way for the TAPC corporation in
Tashkent (Uzbekistan) to kick off
Il-76MF
full-rate
production.
Antonov An-124 Ruslans will keep
on handling outsize cargo shipment.
Touching upon the sensitive
issue of buying Antonov An-70 airlifters, Vladimir Mikhailov stressed
Meeting the media early this
year, the Air Force chief, Gen.
Vladimir Mikhailov, offered the service's view on the future of the
Military
Transport
Aviation
(Russian acronym – VTA).
“Until 2015–2020, Ilyushin Il-76
airlifters will have made up the
mainstay of the Military Transport
Aviation (about 70%) both in terms
of strength and combat capabilities,” the service chief said.
Being re-engined with the
advanced PS-90A-76 turbofan
engines, part of the existing
Il-76MDs will have been upgraded
by the VASO aircraft plant in
that the aircraft conceived as a
medium airlifter had 'grown fat',
with RusAF's Military Transport
Aviation already heaving the Il-76
as a heavylifter. So, the service
chief sees no need for acquiring
the An-70. As far as a future medium replacement for the obsolete
An-12 is concerned, the Air Force
is pondering two options – the
Ilyushin Il-214 and the Tupolev
Tu-330VT. The former could be codeveloped with foreign participation, since India displayed interest
in it. The latter is heavily commonised with the Tu-214 airliner in
production at the KAPO aircraft
plant in Kazan. However, due to the
lack of the funding required, the
Tu-330VT programme has been
put on hold. Thus, Gen.
Mikhailov's plans to get a cuttingedge medium airlifter as early as
2008 look a bit too optimistic.
The situation is somewhat better
as far as the future tactical airlifter
is concerned. It is to succeed the
Antonov An-26. The Ilyushin
Il-112V is expected to be the successor. Some money are allocated
to pay for developing it, and Gen.
Mikhailov is hopeful that the aircraft could complete its maiden
flight in 2007.
with success in autumn 2002, with
the maiden flight fulfilled on 25 June
1997. Early in 2000, pilots with the
344th Army Aviation Combat and
Conversion Training Centre (CCTC)
in Torzhok evaluated the machine
and praised its flight characteristics.
Although Stage A had been passed
over three years ago, the customer
has not released its preliminary conclusion. As is known, the Air Force's
top brass has opted for the
Mil Mi-28N combat helicopter as its
primary future type. At the same
time, the RusAF chief, Gen. Vladimir
Mikhailov, has repeatedly said that
the service is not about to reject
Kamov's machine but “the Ka-52's
deliveries will be limited to the
requirements of special units”. The
customer's current priorities and
also the meagre funding of the programme are the cause of the slow
pace of the test programme.
Nonetheless, Kamov with its single
Ka-52 flying prototype, compared
with Mil's three prototype choppers,
manages to pass a test after test,
including live firings.
In April, a high-ranking Turkish
military delegation visited Russia.
Turkish pilots flew a series of familiarisation missions on the Ka-52 at
Kamov's flight base vic. Moscow
and at the 344th CCTC in Torzhok.
The flights included firing the cannon and rockets. They show the
reviving interest of the Turkish military in Kamov's helicopter; hence,
the Ka-50-2 Erdogan still has a
chance to win the protracted Turkish
tender.
Ka-52 back from firing range
Kamov JSC
Kamov JSC
Kamov JSC
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take-off may 2006
Andrey Zinchuk
cannon and S-8 rockets and antitank
missiles, including those it had never
launched before. Thus, the tests
proved the machine was capable of
employing various types of guided
weaponry.
On-board weapons were tested
during the second stage of the
Ka-52's official test programme,
whose first stage – flight performance evaluation – was completed
The Kamov Ka-52 twinseat combat helicopter has wrapped up
another stage of its official tests
recently. During the trials at RusAF's
and aircraft industry's proving
grounds, the helicopter used all of its
onboard weapons. Despite difficult
weather conditions, its avionics suite
was like a clock-work, ensuring fire
control within the parameters specified. The helicopter fired its 2A42
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Mi-28N's official trials
www.take-off.ru
main rotor hub, refined automatics of the powerplant and fuel system, etc. Both prototypes were
powered by Klimov/Motor Sich
TV3-117VMA
engines
with
2,200 hp of takeoff power each.
However, future production
machines are to be fitted with
upgraded
Klimov
VK-2500
engines 2,400 hp each.
In 2003, Gen. Vladimir
Mikhailov announced that the
Mi-28N had been selected as the
main future combat helicopter of
the Air Force, the service to procure about 50 machines until
2010. The Mi-28N's principal
advantage over its rival, the
Ka-52, was said to be its lower
production and operating costs
(the Russian Army Aviation's
structure is designed to accommodate Mil's machines) and the
feasibility of using its systems to
upgrade the in-service Mi-24
attack helicopters.
At the same time, for the Air
Force chief's words to convert to
deeds, a lot of technical snags will
have to be ironed out first. First of
all, the VR-29 reduction gearbox,
which can transfer power up to
5,100 hp, will have to be brought
up to snuff in terms of reliability
and service life. There are several
problems with special equipment.
Following the rejection of the initially-planned Almaz-280 mastmounted radar from Almaz
(Moscow), the issue of a radar for
the Mi-28N has been unresolved
for a long time. Recently, the N025
radar under development by the
GRPZ plant in Ryazan has been
offered to equip the Mi-28N. As of
last year's autumn, the first examples of the N025 were being
bench-tested by the developer. The
first radar to fit the helicopter was
slated for delivery in late 2005, but
the first production Mi-28N (side
number 032) completed its maiden
flight with no radar (it even lacked
the characteristic mast-mounted
radar fairing).
Unveiled at the MAKS 2005 air
show, the N025 is the X/Ka-band
radar, with the X-band used for
acquiring aerial threats out at
20 km and clouds out at 100 km
and the Ka-band used for groundmapping, ground threat acquisition out at 10 km and automatic
terrain-hugging.
The Tor optronic station
under development by the
Krasnogorsk-based
Zverev
Optical-Mechanical
Plant
(KOMZ) is to become the
Mi-28N's primary targeting system. The Tor is a moving module
that houses behind its two flat
windows the optical, TV and
thermal-imaging search and
track channels, each featuring
both wide and narrow fields of
vision. The Tor has been under
development for quite a while,
with the programme hampered
by the company's financial
problems. The Mi-28N's second
optronic system is designed for
helicopter's piloting. At present,
the machine mounts the turreted
TOES-521 system from the Ural
Optical-Mechanical
Plant
(UOMZ) for this purpose. A helmet-mounted target designator
is being tested as well.
Obviously, the Mi-28N will be
able to enter service only after
all of its systems have been
tested through and through and
brought up to snuff as far as
reliability and effectiveness are
concerned.
Rostvertol JSC
The first production Mi-28N
helicopter took off for its maiden
flight at Rostov-on-Don on
27 December 2005, with Air Force
Commander-in-Chief
Gen.
Vladimir Mikhailov attending the
event. The machine with side
number 32 was made by the
Rostvertol company using updated production documentation and
is the baseline model. Last spring,
the Russian Ministry of Defence
ordered three first production
Mi-28Ns from Rostvertol for them
to shoulder the bulk of the official
tests. The one with side number
32 was the first of the series with
the rest to be built 2–3 months
one after the other. Details of the
FY 2006 budget draft became
known in mid-December 2005,
with the draft providing for MoD
to buy eight Mi-28Ns in 2006 (the
first three have been mentioned
above, while the other five are to
be ordered this year).
The machine that took off in
Rostov-on-Don proved to be the
third flying Mi-28N. The first prototype – the OP-1 (side number
014) – was made by Mil Moscow
Helicopter Plant a decade ago and
first flew on 14 November 1996.
However, the first stage of its
flight tests was short. The tests
resumed on 24 April 2002 when
the machine was fitted with an
advanced VR-29 main gearbox
(until then, the machine had been
equipped with the VR-28 reduction gearbox that had limitations
on transferring max power of both
engines). The OP-1 no longer
flies. Instead, it is used for ground
testing of advanced avionics.
The second flying Mi-28N
(OP-2, side number 02 – currently
024) was made by the Rostvertol
production plant. It flew its maiden mission on 25 March 2004 and
started Stage A of the official trials in late June 2005. It has
logged over 100 flight hours to
date. Compared to the first prototype, the OP-2 embodied a number of key design improvements,
getting advanced rotor blades and
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Russian Knights got the World Cup!
Centre, Merited Pilot of Russia),
Guards Lt.-Col. Igor Shpak (commander of the team), Guards
Lt.-Col. Oleg Ryapolov (qualified
as pilot-sniper), Guards lieutenant-colonels Oleg Yerofeyev,
Andrey Alexeyev, Victor Melnik
and Alexey Kotomkin (all qualified as 1st class pilots).
This year's air show at Al-Ain
is the second event, in which the
Kubinka AFB display pilots took
part. Last year, they performed
hors concours as a composite
team on two Su-27UBs and two
MiG-29UBs and were given a
nickname Russian Swifts by the
local media. This time round, the
Russian Knights came first by
right. This spring, both Kubinkabased display teams – the Swifts
and the Russian Knights – celebrated their 15th anniversary by
pulling off impressive aerobatics
in the skies over their home
base.
Konstantin von Wedelstaedt
The Russian Knights, the Air
Force's display team flying
Sukhoi Su-27 fighters, came first
at FAI's 23rd world cup aerobatic
championship at Al-Ain (UAE).
The international jury gave the
team 12 scores (9,495 points).
France's Breitling Jet Team on
five Czech-made L-39s came second
with
10
scores
(8,930 points). The third place
was taken by the South African
Sasol Tigers flying four Czechmade
L-29s
(8
scores,
7,720 points). In all, display
teams from 35 countries competed in the world cup championship
and at the air show in Al-Ain.
The five Russian Knights on
three Su-27 fighters and two
Su-27UB combat trainers arrived
at Al-Ain accompanied by an
Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter. The team
included the leader, Guards Col.
Igor Tkachenko (deputy chief of
the 237th Aircraft Demonstration
First Russian satellite-guided bomb tested
8
take-off may 2006
Su-34, the KAB-500S can be carried by the multirole fighters of the
Su-27/Su-30 family, e.g. the
Su-27SM2, Su-30MK2, Su-30MK3,
Su-35, etc. as well as the future
fifth-generation fighter being developed under the PAK FA programme. The coordinates of a target can be fed to the KAB-500S's
guidance system by the carrier aircraft before release. The weapon's
precision remains the same round
the clock in any weather.
The bombs weighs 500 kg, features a 380-kg HE warhead and
measures 3,000 mm in length and
350 mm in diameter, with the control
surfaces' span equalling 750 mm.
According to Region's promotional
materials, the KAB-500S can be
released from an altitude ranging
from 500 m to 10,000 m at a speed
of 550–1,100 km/h, with its range
equalling 2–9 km and accuracy
being within 5–10 m.
According to the Kompas company's web page, the PSN-2001
satnav receiver also is to fit the
new version of the Kh-25M air-tosurface tactical guided missile
(information on the missile
dubbed Kh-25MSE was unveiled
at the MAKS 2005 air show). In
the near future, the receiver is to
fit other air-, ground- and sealaunched high-speed small-size
weapons as well.
An export version of the bomb,
designated as KAB-500S-E, was
unveiled by Region at MAKS
2003, and last September, the
KAB-500S, along with other
air-launched PGMs, was displayed at Akhtubinsk during a
show on the occasion of the
85th anniversary of GLITs (see
photo).
Andrey Fomin
According to Russian missile
technology web site www.missiles.ru, advanced Russian smart
bomb KAB-500S with a satellite
guidance system completed its official trials in February. The weapon
was tried out at MoD's State Flight
Test Centre (Russian acronym –
GLITs) in Akhtubinsk. The new
bomb is tailored for use as part of
the weapons suite of the Sukhoi
Su-34 tactical strike aircraft.
The KAB-500S was derived by
the Region company, a division of
the Tactical Missiles Corporation
from the KAB-500 family of guided
bombs in cooperation with the
Kompas design bureau (Moscow).
Its guidance system is wrapped
around the 24-channel Kompas
PSN-2001 satnav receiver relying
on the GLONASS satellite navigation system.
The new precision-guided
weapon is designed for eliminating
small-size surface threats pinpointed in advance. In addition to the
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More detail on Irbis radar to fit Su-35 fighter
www.take-off.ru
The emitter wrapped around the
Oliva (Olive) solid-state exciter
and two Chelnok (Shuttle) travelling-wave tube amplifiers provides
a max peak power of at least
20 kW on search frequencies, an
average power of 5 kW and a
medium discrete continuous illuminating-frequency power of at
least 2 kW. The fore-channel
receiver based on a low-noise
head-end amplifier receives and
handles initial processing of HF
signals with a noise figure of
3.5 dB. Initial digital signal processing is handled by the programmable signal processor
based on the Solo-35.01 digital
computer while data processing
and radar's control is performed
by the Solo-35.02 digital computer. Both computers constitute the
EKVS-E digital computer system.
Development of the Irbis-E
radar relies on several proven
devices from the Bars radar
mounted on the Sukhoi Su-30MKI,
including the clock driver, low-frequency
and
high-frequency
receivers and exciter. The Irbis-E's
EGSP-27 twin-stage gyro drive is a
derivative of the Bars radar's single-stage drive, the EGSP-6A. The
sophisticated
phased
array
embodies solutions proven in
developing the phased arrays of
the Osa and Bars radars. The
receiver's amplifier is derived from
the Chelnok travelling-wave tube
driver developed under the N011M
radar programme (the N011M is
the Bars's predecessor) and tested
as part of the avionics suite of a
Su-27M prototype (side number
712) at the flight test stage, having
provided a considerable increase
in the radar's range.
The Irbis features a simultaneous 30-target acquisition and
tracking capability in the trackwhile-scan mode. It engages two
targets simultaneously with two
semi-active radar homing missiles
and up to eight targets with eight
active radar homing missiles,
including four of the targets out at
300 km or more. In the ground-
attack mode, the radar handles
terrain mapping (both ground and
water) and ground target acquisition in the low-resolution 'realbeam',
medium-resolution
Doppler beam sharpening (DBS)
and high/extra-high-resolution
adaptive synthetic aperture focusing modes. Operating against aerial and ground threats at the same
time, the Irbis-E maps the ground
while keeping an eye on airspace
or tracking an aerial threat with
precision sufficient for attacking it
with active radar homing missiles.
The system features a head-on
acquisition range of at least
350–400 km for aerial targets with
the 3 sq.m radar cross-section
(RCS) and a pursuit acquisition
range of at least 150 km with a target traveling at 10,000 m or higher.
The Irbis-E spots 'super-lowobservable' threats with the
0.01 sq.m RCS out at 90 km. when
identifying a tight multiple target at
a range of 50 km, its resolution is
50–100 m in range, 5 m/s in speed
and 2.5 deg. in angular coordinates.
As a derivative of the Bars radar,
the Irbis features far superior characteristics than its predecessor,
namely an operating frequency
band that has been expanded more
than twofold, the aerial target
acquisition and azimuth tracking
zone that grew from 70 deg. to 120
deg., a far greater range, enhanced
ECM immunity, etc. In these terms,
the Irbis is on a par with the latest
foreign designs, surpassing most
of US and west European passive
and active phased-array radars and
rivaling the most sophisticated
system in the class – the
AN/APG-77 radar of the USAF's
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
Tikhomirov-NIIP
Recently, Tikhomirov-NIIP institute unveiled rather detailed information on the advanced Irbis
phased-array
radar
system
designed for use on advanced
Sukhoi Su-27 derivatives, the
Su-35 and Su-27SM2 in the first
place. Last year, the company took
out advertisement permission for
the Irbis, which enables us to
mention design features and capabilities of the advanced radar.
The Irbis (Ounce in Russian)
radar system, which TikhomirovNIIP has been developing since
2004 under supervision of Chief
Designer Vladimir Zagorodny
based on the experience in developing the Bars (Panther) and Osa
(Wasp) passive phased-array
radars, is designed for operating
as part of its carrier's avionics
suite to acquire and track aerial
and surface threats, IFF them,
identifying the class and type of
aerial targets, gauging the number
of aircraft within the multiple targets, low-, medium and highdegree resolution ground-mapping, information support of obstacle avoidance capability, correcting
navigation systems, ranging, cueing radar-homing missiles, etc.
The Irbis-E is a multifunction
X-band passive phased-array radar
mounted on a gyro drive operating
in azimuth and banking – the socalled twin-stage gyro. The radar
relies on the EKVS-E computer system wrapped around the Solo-35
digital computer. The 900 mm
diameter passive phased-array
antenna, which has the vertical
polarisation and 0.4-millisecond
electronically-scanned directional
pattern keying, features a scan
zone of at least 60 deg. in azimuth
and elevation by means of the electronic beam steering. In addition,
an azimuth/banking electrohydraulic actuator mechanically
steers the array 60 deg. in azimuth
and 120 deg. in lateral plane, with
the vertical polarisation being able
to be abandoned for the horizontal
polarisation to enhance waterborne
threat observation conditions.
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RUSSIA UPGRADING
NATO FIGHTERS
SLOVAK MIG-29s
BEING CONVERTED TO MEET NATO AND ICAO STANDARDS
The Legacy of Czechoslovakia
The Slovak Air Force dates back to early
1993. Having split up, the Czechs and Slovaks
decided to halve their formerly common fleet
of 20 MiG-29s. Thus, nine MiG-29 singleseaters and one MiG-29UB together with 70
MiG-21s, 23 Su-22M4/UM3K fighterbombers and 13 Su-25K attack aircraft
formed the backbone of the Slovak Air Force.
While ageing MiG-21s and Su-22s were discarded after a while and more sophisticated
but still obsolete Su-25s were sold to Armenia
after being removed from service in late 2002,
those MiG-29s are still in service. Their number even more than doubled in the mid-90s
due to deliveries from Russia.
Czechoslovakia was second only to eastern
Germany among former Soviet allies in
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take-off may 2006
Europe to get fourth generation MiG-29s in
1989. A year before 15 Czech pilots took a
refresher training course at the Lugovaya airbase in Kyrgyzstan. The first MiG-29 landed at
the Zatec airbase northwest of Prague in the
spring of 1989, and as soon as 24 April the
Czech crew took off to fly the aircraft around.
In June 1989 Czechoslovakia took delivery of a
batch of nine MiG-29 variant A (type
“9-12A”) aircraft, while ten more planes,
including one twin-seater, were supplied to
Czechoslovakia in September that year. All of
these aircraft joined the 11th fighter regiment
(Stihaci Letecky Pluk) headquartered at Zatec,
to be divided in 1992 between newly independent Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Slovakia put its ten MiG-29s at Sliac and
tailored there the 1st fighter airbase, which
was composed of nine MiG-29 variant A
fighters (old, i.e. Czechoslovak, side numbers
3709, 3911, 5113, 5515, 5817, 7502, 8003,
8605 and 9308) and one MiG-29UB twinseater (old side number 4401) that came to
Sliac in the autumn of 1992. The new markings featured a white cross with two horizontal bars against the red background and blue
lower part, and new four-digit numbers
appeared on the fins. As far as the painting is
concerned, some aircraft were left with their
old green-and-brown camouflage, while others received new colour schemes.
Replenishment from Russia
Unlike the Czechs, who opted to get rid of
Soviet-produced weapons, discarded its ten
MiG-29s in 1994 and later sent them to
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Poland in exchange for helicopters, their
neighbours chose to develop cooperation
with the Russian military, because on the one
hand, potential NATO membership was not
expected before early XXI century, while on
the other hand, western aircraft were too
dear for them. Russia's weapons cost less and
were offered as repayment of a $800m debt to
Slovakia.
Such cooperation resulted in a $176m
three-year defence contract signed in March
1994, which provided for delivery of advanced
MiG-29 aircraft, air-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guided weapons. It took
Russia three months to provide the customer
with five MiG-29 (type “9-12B”) single seat
fighters and one twin-seater. The rest of the
batch was delivered in 1995, bringing the overall number of MiG-29s in service with the
Slovak Air Force to 24.
During the 1997 visit of then Russian
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to
Slovakia, agreement was achieved to further
defence cooperation between the two countries in 1997–99. During the first stage of
such cooperation programme four more
MiG-29s, Su-39 attack planes, aircraft
engines and ammunition worth $450m were
to have been supplied to Slovakia. A number
of contracts, worth $600m, to deliver
MiG-29 fighters, Ka-50 combat helicopters
and surface-to-air missile systems were to
have been concluded subsequently, but
Andrey FOMIN,
Miroslav GYUROSI
Photos by Miroslav Gyurosi
www.take-off.ru
Left: the first upgraded Slovak MiG-29 during a
test flight, December 2005
Bottom: a dozen Slovak MiGs slated for upgrade
include two twin-seaters. The photo shows the
first MiG-29UB upgraded to NATO standards
things just didn't work out as planned. Those
previously delivered twenty-something
MiG-29s have remained the backbone of the
Slovak Air Force. Although Slovakia was
officially admitted to NATO on 15 April
2003, the Russian planes will remain in service with its Air force, at least until the first
half of the next decade. Nevertheless, if
Russian-made planes want to serve a NATO
country and partake in joint exercises, they
have to meet certain NATO requirements
and demonstrate interoperability with
weapons produced in the USA and western
Europe. This is the goal of the aforementioned MiG-29 upgrade programme that was
launched last year.
Upgrade
The idea behind the fighters upgrade programme is to make their avionics capable of
interoperating with that of allied troops, and
to enhance the cockpit in order to ensure
more efficient fighting abilities. To this end
the aircraft will feature new communications,
navigation and IFF systems. Single-seat
MiG-29s will be fitted with the AN/APX-113
transponder produced by BAE Systems. The
British company is delivering AN/APX-113
transponders under a five-year contract
signed on 11 June 2003, which provides for
the installation of IFF systems on the Slovak
planes, helicopters and ground vehicles being
upgraded to NATO standards. Four of the
transponder's antennae are installed in front
of the cockpit canopy, while the fifth one is
fitted on the lower surface of the aircraft nose.
The MiG-29UB has a different version of the
transponder, the AN/APX-117, whose
antennae are slightly different. Both types of
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Top: improved MiG-29UB No 5304 in a Sliace airbase hangar
Top right: advanced MiG-29 cockpit: the MFI-54 multifunction colour LCD instead of the familiar
IPV display and the PUS-29 control panel located below the head-up display
Bottom right: MiG-29UB's rear cockpit now also features the MFI-54 multifunction colour LCD
instead of the IPV display
Bottom: new aerials became main visual differences of MiG-29AS aircraft upgraded to NATO and
ICAO standards
aircraft are fitted with the AN/ARC-210
radio, AN/ARN-147 navigation receiver for
VOR/ILS capability, and the AN/ARN-153
digital receiver for TACAN landing. All of
these systems are produced by Rockwell
Collins. The newly installed airborne systems
are connected via a data bus compliant with
the MIL-STD-1553B standard.
Changes in the cockpit management system consist in the installation of the pushbutton-rimmed MFI-54 multifunction colour
LCD instead of the old IPV monochrome TV
display, that used to provide information from
12
take-off may 2006
the radar and the KOLS optronic sighting
system, and was located in the upper right
hand side of the instrument panel, and the
PUS-29 control panel located under the
head-up display. Both the display and the
control panel are delivered to Slovakia by the
Russian Avionics company. The instruments
now have Imperial System units rather than
metric ones.
Upgrade of ten MiG-29s to NATO standards will cost Slovakia $69.6m, of which
some $50m is the repayment of Russia's foreign debt to Slovakia, while the remaining
$19m will be invested by the Slovak Defence
Ministry.
The first flight of the MiG-29 side number
6728 was carried out by RSK MiG senior test
pilot Pavel Vlasov on 1 December 2005.
A week later he took off in the upgraded twinseater side number 5304. Shortly after, three
Slovak pilots started an intensive MiG-29UB
training course to get certified as instructors
and train other Slovak pilots.
The Trencin aircraft plant had finished
upgrading two more MiG-29 aircraft by the
early 2006. The remaining eight MiGs now
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under upgrade are to join the Slovak Air
Force by the mid of this year. By the late April
Slovak Air Force received five upgraded singleseat fighters and a pair of twin-seaters,
which then got new designations MiG-29AS
and MiG-29UBS respectively (S–for
Slovakia). Following the customer's request
modernisation of the rest MiG-29s to be
upgraded has been postponed and this break
is used for six upgraded MiG-29s operational
tests finalisation, Slovak pilots training and
scheduled fielding of the upgraded aircraft
with the Slovak Air Force combat alert forces.
MiG-29 pilots are to clock about 80 flight
hours this year, and maybe 110 hours later on.
As of now, the Slovak Air Force has in service
21 MiG-29 aircraft (18 single- and three
twin-seaters), 12 of which are to undergo
upgrade. They are expected to remain in
service until 2012–15.
Top: maiden flights of the first upgraded
Slovak MiGs were carried out by RSK MiG
senior test pilot Pavel Vlasov. The photo
shows him signing in a pre-flight inspection
log-book of a Slovak mechanician
Right: this MiG-29UB (side number 4401)
hasn't been converted to MiG-29UBS stadard
yet. Would it be upgraded in the future along
with the rest eight Slovak Fulcrums is a matter
of time
Bottom: by late April 2006 the Slovak Air
Force had received seven upgraded aircraft –
five MiG-29s and a pair of MiG-29UBs.
The picture shows the first upgraded MiG-29
with side No 6728
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POLAND BOOSTING
ITS FLEET OF MiGs
LUFTWAFFE FIGHTERS TO JOIN POLISH AIR FORCE
First arrival
MiG-29 fighters first appeared in Poland in
1989, when the country was a Warsaw Pact
member. The contract to provide the Polish
Air Force with 12 MiG-29 fighters was signed
in the spring of 1989. As early as in
June–August 1989 four MiG-29 variant A
(“9-12A”) single-seat aircraft and three
MiG-29UB twin-seaters arrived at the Minsk
Mazowiecki airbase, the home base of the 1st
fighter regiment of the Polish Air Force located east of Warsaw. Another five fighters came
14
take-off may 2006
Last year the Polish Air Force saw a number of MiG-29 fighters enter service. The aircraft are a gift from its NATO counterpart, the German Luftwaffe, which inherited 24 of
them from the East German Air Force after the 1990 reunification of Germany. The fighters have been extensively operated by Luftwaffe and have often taken part in NATO exercises for over the decade. However, Germany decided to get rid of this WARPAC inheritance early in the XXI century, and in 2002 it sold all of its 23 MiG-29s (one aircraft
crashed in June 1996) to Poland at a symbolic price of 1 Euro. Once in Poland, the aircraft headed for the Bydgoszcz aircraft repair plant. After a slight refurbishment the first
ex-Luftwaffe MiGs arrived at the Malbork airbase last summer. The first MiGs to undergo a major overhaul that extended their service life until 2018 came to Malbork from
Bydgoszcz in December 2005. As soon as the rest aircraft arrive at Malbork, the Polish
Air Force will have the largest MiG-29 fleet of 36 aircraft in Eastern Europe, except CIS
countries.
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Top: the first five MiG-29G aircraft sold to Poland still with Luftwaffe colour scheme,
September 2003
Left: this MiG-29 side No 4120 (No 2918 in Luftwaffe) was produced on 20 November 1988.
Overhauled and upgraded by WZL-2 in Bydgoszcz, it has an extended specified life of 4,000 hours
or 40 years, i.e., theoretically, it can remain in service until 2028! The fighter has been in service
with the Polish Air Force 41st tactical squadron in Malbork since January this year.
Bottom: one of the first four German MiG-29Gs that joined the 41st squadron at the Malbork
airbase in June 2005 in a hangar
Piotr BUTOWSKI, Poland
Photos by author
to Poland on 30 October 1990 to join the
1st 'Tadeusz Kosciuszko' squadron of the
1st 'Warsaw' fighter regiment stationed at
Minsk Mazowiecki.
12 Polish MiG-29s at the Minsk Mazowiecki
airbase to be consequently organised into the
1st 'Warsaw' tactical aviation squadron with
22 MiG-29 fighter planes, which is today's
strength of the squadron.
The swap
When the Warsaw Treaty organisation
ceased to exist, Poland chose to join NATO
together with the Czech Republic and
Hungary, which happened in March 1999.
Since NATO membership involved adoption
of NATO standards, Poland decided to give
up buying Russian weapons and was eyeing
possible purchase of American F-16 or F-18
or French Mirage 2000 fighters, when all of a
sudden the Czech government offered them
ten MiG-29 aircraft in exchange for 11 W-3
Sokol helicopters. The Polish government
accepted the offer, despite the plans to join
NATO, and the deal was signed on 20
December 1995. Two days later four singleseat and one twin-seat MiG-29s arrived in
Poland. Another five aircraft followed suit in
January next year. Ten Czech planes joined
www.take-off.ru
Handsome price
The contract of the century under which
Germany was to sell 23 out-of-service
MiG-29 aircraft discarded from to Poland at
a symbolic price of 1 Euro was signed in
Berlin on 29 January 2002. The Polish move
to beef up its fleet of Russian-made fighters
was explained as a stopgap measure necessary
to improve national air defence until the
country got American aircraft, standard for
all NATO members. The contract also provided for the delivery of engines, spare parts
and a large batch of MiG-29-compatible airto-air missiles. Although the deal was, on the
face of it, gratis, Poland spent some $30m on
training, maintenance and repairs. Together
with 'free' aircraft Poland had to buy, at full
value, a whole brigade of armoured vehicles
and equipment, including 128 Leopard 2A4
tanks, armoured personnel carriers and
means of communication.
Having acquired German MiG-29s, the
Polish government revised its plans to buy
60 F-16C/D multirole aircraft and in
December 2002 it decided to cut this number
to 48.
The hand-over ceremony took place at the
Luftwaffe Laaga airbase in MecklenburgPomerania on 26 September 2003, when the
first five aircraft were delivered to Poland
(German single-seat aircraft were designated
MiG-29G, while MiG-29GT stood for twinseat fighters). The rest 18 aircraft had been
handed over to Poland by August 2004.
Before they could join the Polish Air Force
they had to undergo maintenance and overhaul at the WZL-2 aircraft repair plant in
Bydgoszcz.
Russian aid
Concerned about keeping their fighters in
good shape, the Polish government decided
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air force | report
Second life of Luftwaffe planes
up their phase-in in order to go on with pilots
training.
Simultaneously, their equipment was commonised with that of other 22 MiGs in service with the 1st squadron stationed at Minsk
Mazowiecki. For instance, formerly German
aircraft were fitted with the Suprasl identification system, the SC-10D2 transponder and
the ANV-241MMR VOR/ILS navigation
system. The AN/ARN-118 short-range
radiotechnical navigation system and the
GPS Trimble 2101 satellite navigation system
receiver were integrated with the rest of the
navigation equipment. Furthermore, the
Russian-made A-323 short-range radiotechnical navigation system and the KOLS-29
(”23S”) combined infrared tracking set and
laser range finder were restored after having
been partially stripped by the Germans as
they never used them.
The batch of German MiG-29s set the
Polish Air Force leadership thinking about
how to best use them. The ultimate decision
was to tailor a second Polish Air Force
squadron armed with MiG-29 fighters – the
41st tactical squadron headquartered at the
Malbork airbase, the former home of
MiG-21bis aircraft.
The first batch of four planes came to
Malbork on 7 June 2005. It included three
combat aircraft (old Luftwaffe No 2904, 2912
and 2905 were replaced with new ones –
4111, 4113 and 4118 respectively) and a combat trainer (side No 4115 instead of old
No 2923). The Polish decided to keep the
Luftwaffe designation MiG-29G for singleseat aircraft and MiG-29GT for twin-seaters.
The above aircraft saw condition inspections
and scheduled maintenance procedures
rather than major overhaul, which extended
their service life for another 100–110 flight
hours or 18 months. This was done to speed
The first four ex-Luftwaffe aircraft were
followed in December last year by two
MiG-29s overhauled in Bydgoszcz. First
came MiG-29UB side No 4123 (No 2925 in
Luftwaffe), then MiG-29 side No 4120
(No 2918 in Luftwaffe). These aircraft saw
major overhaul at the WZL-2 plant, which
drastically boosted their service life and
allowed for their on-condition operation
and maintenance. The Polish Defence
Ministry wants ten former German aircraft
to get major overhaul at the Bydgoszcz plant.
The order is fulfilled in cooperation with
RSK MiG, whose experts assess the technical condition of the aircraft, develop overhaul procedures and prepare documents for
further aircraft operation.
In addition to the aircraft that have
already been overhauled ( side No 4120 and
4123), six single-seat MiG-29s side
in the autumn of 2002 to resume its ties with
RSK MiG Corp., which resulted in an overhaul and spare parts delivery contract.
Overhaul is being carried out by the WZL-2
plant, which used to take care about Polish
MiG-29s with assistance provided by the
558th aircraft repair plant in Baranovichi,
western Belarus. RSK MiG was responsible
for MiG-29 condition analysis, spare parts
delivery, and post-overhaul quality control
assurance. Moreover, RSK MiG provided
free of charge available aircraft systems malfunction data. The contract also provides for
cooperation between WZL-2 and RSK MiG
to set up a comprehensive logistics system
and to ensure technical assistance for future
upgrade of MiG-29s in accordance with
Polish requirements.
Replenishment in Malbork
No 4101, 4103, 4104, 4116, 4121 and 4122
(respective Luftwaffe No 2907, 2916, 2917,
2901, 2910 and 2921) and two MiG-29UB
twin-seat combat trainers side No 4105 and
4110 (respective Luftwaffe No 2924 and
2922) will see major repair. The ten aircraft
chosen for major overhaul have the least
total flight hours ranging from 1,150 to
1,600. MiG-29 fighters that were built in the
late 80s-early 90s last century and the ones
Poland operates have a specified life of 2,000
flight hours or 19 years. Major overhaul and
upgrade will extend their life to 4,000 hours
or 40 years, which is possible thanks to
advanced fault diagnostics procedures and
equipment, reinforcement or retrofitting of
some airframe elements, replacement of
some assemblies.
Overhauled and upgraded aircraft will
require less scheduled maintenance, and it
will be possible now to perform all such
maintenance procedures on site, whereas
until now an aircraft had to be overhauled by
the plant twice in a lifetime regardless of its
condition. New maintenance procedures
and increased service life will reduce the
cost of one flight hour of the upgraded
MiG-29 by 40 per cent.
Overhaul and upgrade of the ten aircraft
are to be completed already this year.
Approximately at the same time, by the end
of 2006, the first four ex-Luftwaffe MiG-29s
operating in Malbork since June 2005 will
have used up their service life. They may also
undergo overhaul and upgrade which will
extend their life until 2018, but no decision
has been taken so far. Two planes with side
No 4112 and 4119 (ex-No 2908 and 2910)
will become training aids in the Defence
Ministry's flying school in Deblin. The
remaining seven ex-German MiG-29s will
be cannibalised.
MiG-29GT side No 4115 (ex-No 2923) twin-seat combat trainer is one of the four aircraft that joined the 41st squadron in Malbork without overhaul.
Their service life was extended until December 2006, but their future is vague
16
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airshows | in brief
Sukhoi fighters as symbol of 'Victory Eagle' in China
From 15 to 22 March, the city of
Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, in central
China hosted a large-scale aviation
festival dubbed Victory Eagle and dedicated to the 60th anniversary of ending the Second World War. Sukhoi
jets, which are very popular in China,
were the salt of the event. Invited to
perform at the festival were RusAF's
Russian Knights display team on
Su-27 fighters, LII's test pilots Anatoly
Kvochur and Alexander Pavlov who
arrived on a Su-30 fighter with an Il-78
tanker plane in tow, and Svetlana
Kapanina on a Su-26M sports plane.
The festive mood of the show was
jazzed up by the Chinese and Russian
media's rumours about a 'dead lock'
to be performed by the Russian aircraft by flying through the unique cavern called Tianmen (Chinese for 'sky
gate') – a 131-m-high arch in a rock
with a minimum width of 28 m and a
depth of 60 m. Brave Hungarian pilot
Peter Besenyei is the only one who has
dared to pass via the cavern on a piston-engined aerobatic plane.
According to the Chinese media,
to watch the 'dead lock', one would
have to buy a ticket worth as much
as $840 (!), and those willing to see
such a reckless stunt were aplenty.
The Chinese media followed by their
Russian colleagues would have the
Russian Knights, then Kvochur and
then Kapanina fly via the cavern.
Fortunately, the common sense pre-
www.take-off.ru
vailed, and the Russian pilots decided against risking their lives for
nothing. Besieged by reporters and
friends excited by the rumours,
Anatoly Kvochur said before departing for China that in technical terms,
flying a Su-27 through the cavern
was feasible (the Su-27's 14.7 m
wingspan was twice as little as the
cavern's minimum width) and he
was ready to accomplish the mission
if it were given to him. By this, he
made it clear that such an adventurism was not planned for China. As
far as the Russian Knights are con-
cerned, they are servicemen, and
there is no commander who would
risk the lives of his subordinates just
for the hell of it.
In Zhangjiajie, the Knights completed their traditional five-ship, two-ship
and solo performance, having routinely won the hearts of the public with a
tight formation of rather heavy large
fighters (this picture from the Chinese
media shows five Knights against the
backdrop of the Tianmen cavern in
question; however, according to
expert opinion, it is a trivial photo
imposition produced by placing the
image of the fighters on that of the terrain). Even the weather that was not
too conducive to the show managed to
ruin the effect the Russian Knights'
performance in China.
In addition to his breathtaking aerobatics and simulation of taking up
from the Il-78, Anatoly Kvochur could
not resist his favourite jumpy trick – a
high-speed flypast several metres over
the tarmac with landing gear up (see
the picture).
Svetlana Kapanina on her Su-26M
sporting a fancy paintjob and the
inscription 'Born in USSR' (see the
picture) pulled off impressive aerobatics as well.
According to the Xinhua news
agency, the live performance of the
Russian pilots on Sukhoi planes was
watched by over 100,000 people, with
live broadcast of the event giving tens
of millions of Chinese to appreciate the
flying skills of the Russian Knights,
Kvochur and Kapanina.
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contracts and deliveries | in brief
New record in Russian arms exports
The results of 2005 Russian arms
exports have recently been summed
up. The overall profit, derived from
2005 arms exports, has exceeded $6
billion for the first time in Russian
history. The lion's share of arms
exports ($5.2 billion) was enjoyed by
Rosoboronexport, while the remaining sum was shared by other defence
cooperation entities such as RSK MiG
Corp., the Tula-based KBP
Instrument-Making Design Bureau,
the Kolomna-based KBM Machinebuilding Design Bureau, etc.
The main feature of 2005 exports
consisted in the fact that naval
materiel exports had exceeded aircraft exports for the first time in the
past few years. For instance, not a
single Sukhoi Su-27/Su-30 family
fighter was exported in 2005 (the
Irkut Corp. only continued shipping
off Su-30MKI sets to India for
licensed assembly).
Last year RSK MiG Corp. delivered
12 Mikoyan MiG-29SMT fighters to
Yemen (four new aircraft and eight
upgraded Yemeni MiG-29s), and
upgraded two Eritrean MiG-29s into
MiG-29SMTs. The Ulan-Ude Aircraft
Plant (UUAZ) exported 16 Mil
Mi-171Sh helicopters to the Czech
Republic, and Rostvertol exported
seven Mi-35s. Small batches of
Mi-17 family helicopters were also
delivered to Burkina Faso, China,
Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, Vietnam and
some other states. The first upgraded
Ilyushin Il-38SDs were prepared for
shipment to the Indian Navy: the fist
aircraft was delivered to the customer in January 2006, while the
other one is being prepared for delivery at the present time.
In 2005 the Sukhoi Company and
RSK MiG also developed the
Su-30MKM and the MiG-29K/KUB
under contracts with Malaysia and
India respectively. Their prototype
tests are expected to start in 2006. In
addition to that, both companies fulfilled a great number of contracts on
delivering spare parts and providing
maintenance to aircraft, exported
earlier. In 2005 Sukhoi derived in
excess of $240 million from this
work, and RSK MiG received over
$90 million.
A number of new contracts on
arms and materiel exports, worth
over $9 billion, were signed last year.
Besides the Algerian contract, ratified
at the top level in 2006, the biggest
aerospace deals of 2005 included
contracts on exporting 34 Ilyushin
Il-76MD transports and four Il-78MK
tanker planes, as well as large batches of AL-31F, AL-31FN and RD-93
turbofan engines to China, and a contract on developing, exporting, and
establishing licensed production of
the AL-55I engine with India.
Experts believe that contracts on
delivering new batches of Su-27SK
and Su-30MK aircraft to Indonesia,
Su-33K and Su-27KUB to China,
Su-30MK to Thailand, upgrading
MiG-29 in India and Malaysia, establishing licensed production of the
MiG-29M/M2 (MiG-35) in India, and
delivering MiG-29SE to Egypt, as well
as MiG-29 fighters to a number of
other African states may be signed in
2006 or the near future.
President Putin brings $7.5 billion from Algeria
Piotr Butowski
Russian President Vladimir Putin
paid the long-awaited visit to Algeria
on 10 March to adopt big-ticket contracts on delivering arms and materiel
to Algeria, signed in late 2005 - early
2006, in exchange for writing off the
Algerian state debt. According to
Rosoboronexport Director General
Sergey Chemezov, $7.5 billion's worth
of contracts on delivering arms had
been signed with Algeria within three
months preceding President Putin's
visit, and other agreements, worth
$2–3 billion, are expected to be signed
in the near future. Negotiations
18
take-off may 2006
between Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Algerian President Abdelaziz
Bouteflika resulted in Russia agreeing
to write off the entire Algerian debt,
amounting to $4.7 billion, and Algeria
to make contracts on delivering Air
Force, Air Defence, and Army arms
and materiel to Algeria, signed in late
2005 - early 2006, irreversible. Aircraft
deliveries account for the lion's share
of contracts, endorsed by the two
presidents.
Russia will export to Algeria
34 upgraded MiG-29 fighters
(28
MiG-29SMTs
and
six
MiG-29UBTs), 28 Su-30MKI fighters
(according to experts, the aircraft to
be exported to Algeria could be designated Su-30MKA), and 16 Yak-130
combat trainers for a total of $3.5 billion. At the same time Algeria will
transfer 36 early-series MiG-29s, procured from Ukraine and Belarus, to
Russia for it to overhaul, upgrade and
export them to other states. In addition to aircraft, Algeria will also
receive T-90S main battle tanks,
S-300PMU2 and Tunguska air defence
systems, Metis and Kornet ATGMs,
while Algerian T-72 tanks and ships
will be handed over to Russia for overhaul and modernisation. The contract
signed envisions an option of procuring additional batches of MiG-29SMTs
and Yak-130s.
The arms will be paid for in compliance with a complicated scheme, envisioning writing off part of the Algerian
state debt to the USSR. In a nutshell,
Russia will write off the Algerian state
debt in exchange for real money for
big-ticket deliveries of new materiel,
which allow Russian defence contractors to secure a sufficient workload and
derive good profits. According to mass
media, just the contract on delivering
MiG-29SMT fighters (see photo) alone
may cost about $1.6 billion.
Trade-in is another feature of the
contracts signed. For instance, Algeria
will offset part of the MiG-29SMT payment by returning MiG-29s, procured
from Ukraine and Belarus in 19992002, to Russia. Ukraine delivered five
MiG-29s to Algeria in 2000, and
Belarus exported a total of 31 MiG-29s
to Algeria in 1999-2002. All of them are
in a satisfactory condition with quite a
long remaining service life of the airframe, which will allow RSK MiG to
upgrade them into MiG-29SMTs and
export once again.
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Leonid Priadka
www.take-off.ru
outside Moscow. The upgraded aircraft also tested its new armament at
firing ranges of the Russian Defence
Ministry. For instance, the Tactical
Missiles Corporation press-service
said that on 14 November 2005 the
Il-38SD successfully tested the new
Kh-35E anti-ship missile (right photo).
After the work was completed in
December 2005, the first Il-38SD was
delivered to the customer and prepared a ferry flight to India. It took off
Moscow's Domodedovo airport on
11 January (see photo below). On the
following day the aircraft refuelled at
the Kyiv-based Borispol airfield, and
on 15 January it arrived at its home
base in Goa.
Il-38 (side number IN303) was the
next to undergo upgrade in Russia. It
was upgraded and tested in 2005. At
the moment the aircraft is completing
its final tests (see photo above), and
will soon return to India as well. The
third aircraft (IN301) was delivered to
Russia in June 2005.
Unfortunately, the remaining two
Il-38s from INAS 315 (IN302 and
IN304) were lost in a mid-air collision
with each other just outside the
Dabolim airfield on 1 October 2002. In
order to fulfil the contract the Russian
side has agreed to replenish the loss,
suffered by INAS 315, with two Russian
Il-38s in the inventory of the Russian
Alexey Mikheyev
On 15 January 2006 the first Indian
Air Force Ilyushin Il-38SD multi-role
patrol aircraft, modernised in Russia,
arrived at the Dabolim airfield in the
Goa State (Indian Navy Hansa airbase).
The aircraft had been overhauled and
upgraded by the Russian Ilyushin
Company and the Leninets Holding
Company. The aircraft was fitted with
the cutting-edge Sea Dragon sighting
system and new weapons.
Under the contract, signed by
Rosoboronexport and the Indian
Defence Ministry in September 2001
(according to the Interfax Military
News Agency, the cost of the contract
amounts to $205 million), Russia was
to have upgraded all five Il-38s in
service with Indian Navy Air Squadron
315 (INAS 315). India procured three
of them from the USSR in 1977, and
another two in 1983. The first of them
(side number IN305) arrived in Russia
on 29 March 2002. The aircraft underwent the first upgrade stage directly at
the Ilyushin Company in Moscow, and
on 3 July 2002 the first Indian upgraded Il-38SD, piloted by test pilot
Vladimir Irinarkhov, made its maiden
flight from the Moscow Central
Airfield (Khodynka), situated almost in
downtown Moscow (though, the aircraft still lacked certain nose-mounted
systems, for instance, the electronic
intelligence system, mounted inside a
box over the forward fuselage).
Follow-up refinements and tests were
conducted at the Ilyushin Company
base in Zhukovsky, and then at the
Leninets Holding Company and the
Pushkin airfield of the 20th Aircraft
Repair Plant outside St. Petersburg.
The aircraft was painted by the ATDesign company at the Bykovo airport
Alexey Mikheyev
India receiving upgraded Il-38SDs
naval aviation. They will also be
upgraded into Il-38SDs. At the same
time western mass media report that
India intends to diversify its fleet of
maritime patrol aircraft. For instance,
India has shown great interest in the
US P-3C Orion aircraft, which the US is
ready to lease. Air Forces Monthly
reported in January 2006, that US
Congress had already been asked to
grant permission to transfer the first
two Orions to India.
In the meantime Russia continues
the state tests of the first upgraded
Il-38N anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
aircraft, equipped with the Novella
sighting system. The tests have been
conducted since November 2002,
and the aircraft made its maiden
flight in spring 2001. In fact, the
Indian Il-38SD is the export version
of the Russian Il-38N, though it differs in its equipment and armament.
Ilyushin Director General Viktor
Livanov told the Red Star newspaper
on 23 January that the company
expected the customer to draft a preliminary report on the first stage of
the Il-38N state tests in the near
future, after which Russian naval aviation Il-38s might be upgraded in
compliance with the pattern. Most
Il-38s still in service with the
Northern and the Pacific Fleets are
expected to undergo the same
upgrade.
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The Russian-Indian contract of 1996
on delivering 40 Sukhoi Su-30MKI
multi-role fighters envisioned that
when the customer received the final
batch of aircraft, previous batches
would be refined and upgraded to the
level, specified by the contract. As is
known, given the large amount of work,
aimed at developing, testing, and refining Su-30MKI avionics, the aircraft
were delivered to Indian in several
stages. In 1997 Indian received the first
eight Su-30Ks, which considerably differed from Su-30MKI in avionics,
armament, airframe, and power plant.
Under an option, India received another ten Su-30Ks in 1999, while the first
batch of ten Su-30MKIs arrived in India
only in 2002. Another 12 Su-30MKIs
were delivered there the following year,
and the final ten aircraft arrived in
2004. Unlike aircraft from the first two
batches (designated Su-30MKI Mk1
and Su-30MKI Mk2), final Su-30MKI
Mk3 aircraft had their weapons control
system capabilities capitalised on to
the full extent. For instance, aircraft of
the first batches did not enjoy all
modes of operation of the Bars radar
and could not use a number of weapon
systems. When the final ten aircraft,
Piotr Butowski
India to upgrade first Su-30MKIs and sell Su-30Ks
meeting contract requirements to the
full extent, were delivered to the customer, the issue of upgrading aircraft
delivered earlier loomed high on the
agenda.
According to the Indian press, officials from the Indian HAL Corporation
and the DRDO Agency met Russian
experts on 6 January 2006 to discuss
upgrade of Su-30MKIs, delivered to
India earlier. The negotiations resulted
in agreeing to carry out such upgrade
at HAL facilities in India. All 22 Mk1 and
Mk2 aircraft (delivered in 2002 and
2003 respectively) are expected to be
upgraded into Su-30MKI Mk3s until the
turn of 2006.
At the same time, upgrade of the
first 18 Indian Su-30Ks, which had
seen wide mass media coverage, has
been deemed inexpedient, as they differ from the Su-30MKI too much. In
this light it has preliminary been decided that India will return all 18 Su-30Ks,
delivered in 1997 and 1999, to Russia
in exchange for new Su-30MKIs to be
exported to India by Irkut. Provisions of
the deal and the number of aircraft to
be delivered to India are yet unknown.
However, the press has already published information on a possible fate of
Indian Su-30Ks. According to certain
sources, they may be procured by
Belarus, with the preliminary agreement to this end reached last
December. The fact that one of the
Su-27UB fighters in service with the
Belarussian Air Force was upgraded at
the 558th Aircraft Repair Plant in
Baranovichi, assisted by the Russian
Avionics Design Bureau, operating as
part of Irkut, in early 2004 is another
argument for such a scenario. The
upgraded
aircraft,
designated
Su-27UBM1, is an exact match for the
Su-30KN multi-role fighter, manufactured by Irkut in 1999, which in its turn
is an upgraded version of the production Su-30K. Thus, given the fighter
fleet modernisation, announced by the
Belarussian Air Force, the chances are
that Indian Su-30Ks will be sold to
Belarus and upgraded at the 558th
Aircraft Repair Plant. The aircraft may
be delivered to their new customer by
the turn of the year, if a corresponding
contract is signed in the near future.
SAAB to deliver avionics for Su-30MKMs
Andrey Fomin
Certain details on avionics to be
mounted on Su-30MKM multirole fighters, developed for the Royal Malaysian
Air Force (RMAF), were made public at
the LIMA 2005 show, held in Malaysia
in late 2005. As is known, the airframe,
the power plant, and major aircraft systems, mounted on the Su-30MKM will
be the same as those of Su-30MKIs in
20
take-off may 2006
service with the Indian Air Force.
However, avionics will feature a number
of considerable modifications, first and
foremost, pertaining to replacing
Israeli-produced systems. For instance,
the electronic countermeasures (ECM)
suite, fitted on the Su-30MKM, will
comprise Russian- and South Africanmanufactured systems.
The South African SAAB
Avitronics, operating as part of the
Swedish SAAB Group, demonstrated
system prototypes to be mounted on
the Su-30MKM, including the
MAW-300 missile approach warning
system (the Su-30MKM will carry six
MAW-300 sensors), the LWS-310
laser illumination warning system
(four sensors), and the EWC electronic warfare controller. A SAAB
Avitronics official told Take-off that
mock-ups of the aforementioned systems were transferred to Sukhoi in
2005 to place them onboard the
Su-30MKM. The South African company is ready to deliver operational
versions to the Russian flagship contractor to conduct flight tests. The
official also noted that other
Su-30MKM ECM components (elint
system, jammer and chaff/flare dis-
pensers) would be of Russian make.
It is worth mentioning that until now
not a single Su-27/Su-30 family aircraft has been equipped with similar
ultraviolet and laser equipment.
A Sukhoi official said that despite a
certain lag in the Su-30MKM development, caused by the customer's delay
in adopting the final set of aircraft systems, the Su-30MKM research and
development were conducted in compliance with the timeframe, agreed on
by both parties. Su-30MKM prototypes are to be submitted for flight
tests later in 2006, with deliveries to
Malaysia expected to be started in
2007 and to be completed in 2008.
Under the $1 billion contract, signed in
August 2003, Malaysia is to receive a
total of 18 Su-30MKMs. They have
already been launched into production
at the Irkut Corp.
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RSK MiG Corp. summed up the
results of its activities in 2005 and outlined short-term priorities at a pressconference, held in Moscow on
19 April. Just like before, export contracts account for the lion's share of
the corporation's revenue, equalling
about $230 million. In 2006 RSK MiG
has delivered four new MiG-29SMT
fighters to Yemen and upgraded eight
MiG-29s, exported to Yemen earlier,
into MiG-29SMTs. In addition to that,
another two MiG-29 fighters, delivered
to Eritrea, have been converted into
MiG-29SMT in a similar way. RSK MiG
has also supervised upgrade of the
first four Slovak Air Force MiG-29s
under NATO and ICAO standards (see
article in this Take-off issue). Another
eight aircraft, envisioned by the contract, will have been upgraded by the
turn of 2006.
Besides, in 2005 the corporation
secured contracts on delivering
weapons for MiG-29SE fighters, exported to Sudan earlier, and KSA-2 APUs
for Indian Air Force MiG-29s. It also
continued fulfilling the contract on
developing MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB
aircraft to India. The first MiG-29KUB
prototype was handed over to the
RSK MiG's Zhukovsky-based Fedotov
Flight Test Centre in April 2006. The aircraft may make its maiden flight this
May. The first MiG-29K single-seat
shipborne fighter, developed for the
Indian Navy, is expected to be submitted for tests by the turn of the year.
Under the recently launched re-branding programme, new-generation
Piotr Butowski
RSK MiG sums up foreign trade results
MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB shipborne
fighters will be designated MiG-33.
Several new big-ticket contracts
were signed in early 2006. The biggest
one envisions delivering 28
MiG-29SMT fighters and six
MiG-29UBT twin-seaters to Algeria. In
addition to that the corporation signed a
contract on delivering aircraft weapons
to India within the framework of the
MiG-29K/KUB (MiG-33) programme
option. It also secured a contract on
providing maintenance to Slovak
MiG-29s, and on 1 March 2006 RSK
MiG and Bulgaria signed $48 million's
worth of a contract on overhauling 16
MiG-29 fighters in service with the
Bulgarian Air Force and extending their
service lives until 2015. A separate
agreement could n be reached to provide modernisation of their avionics in
compliance with NATO standards. Five
Serbian MiG-29 fighters will also be
overhauled in Russia in the near future.
The contract with RSK MiG has recently been announced by the Defence
Minister of Serbia and Montenegro.
Serbia will allocate 10 million euros for
the project, which may start as early as
2006.
In 2006 RSK MiG Corp. continues
promoting baseline MiG-29 fighters in a
number of African states, and pursuing
upgrade of MiG-29s, delivered to India
and Malaysia. According to RSK MiG
Deputy Director General/Designer
General Sergey Tsivilev, the corporation
stands a good chance of fulfilling largescale deliveries of MiG-29M/M2
(MiG-35) fighters to India, and
MiG-29SE aircraft to Egypt and a number of other states in the near future.
At the present time MiG-29 fighters
are in service with 29 foreign states. A
total of 800 of 1,600 MiG-29s produced
have been exported. Many countries
operating MiG-29s start showing
increasing interest in upgrading their
fighters, manufactured in 1986-1996,
which are currently at their mid-service
life point. Sergey Tsivilev believes that
major MiG-29 markets include solvent
Asian, Middle East, and North African
states, requiring multirole fighters, solvent European NATO member-states,
needing to have their MiG-29s adapted
to NATO and ICAO standards, and
Asian and African states solvent on a
limited basis, requiring cheap multirole
fighters.
RSK MiG focuses considerable
efforts on improving the after-sale services of MiG-29 fighters, including operating aircraft depending on their state
and improving spare parts deliveries
and maintenance. The corporation is
getting ready to introduce the integrated logistic support system, combining
service centres and automated aftersale services and resource management systems. In 2005 a total of 42
MiG-29s shifted to a state-based operation, and spare parts for MiG fighters
were delivered to 23 foreign states within the framework of over 200 contracts
and agreements. RSK MiG revenues,
derived under these ventures, exceeded
$90 million in 2005. In addition to that,
the corporation signed 57 new contract
on providing after-sale services to MiG
aircraft and delivering spare parts with
Eritrea, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan,
Malaysia, Poland, Slovakia, Sudan,
Yemen, Zimbabwe, etc.
Be-103 to appear in China soon
www.take-off.ru
negotiations with the China Aero
Technology Import and Export
Corporation (CATIC) on delivering a
batch of five Be-103s to China in the
near future. China expects to procure a
total of 20 Be-103 amphibious aircraft
from KnAAPO in 2006-2007.
China has become the third foreign
state to certify the Russian light amphibian. In 2003 the Be-103 was certified by
the US Federal Aviation Administration,
and in September 2005 it received a
Brazilian airworthiness certificate.
Andrey Fomin
The Civil Aviation Administration of
China (CAAC) issued Type Certificate
No. VTC173A to the Russian Beriev
Be-103 amphibious aircraft in late
2005. The official certification ceremony took place on 14 January 2006,
when an official KnAAPO delegation,
headed by Sergey Drobyshev, head of
the KnAAPO Be-103 and Su-80 programmes department, and Zufar
Shaymardanov, chief of the KnAAPO
sales office, arrived in Beijing. The
Russian delegation also conducted
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21
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Ukraine delivers four An-32Ps to Libya
by Aviant earlier, and delivered to the
customer by the Antonov ASTC
Company.
Aviant has produced An-32 air
transports since 1983. As of the present time, the plant has manufactured
363 aircraft of various versions, with
most of them exported to hot-climate
states. At the moment the plant is fulfilling a contract on manufacturing five
An-32B transports for the UAE. The
aircraft are to be delivered to the customer by the turn of the year.
Aviant
Final acceptance reports on all four
Antonov An-32P fire-fighting aircraft,
fielded with the Libyan Arab Cargo air
carrier, were signed in January. Two
aircraft, which received Libyan registration numbers 5A-DRE and 5A-DRF,
were manufactured by the Kyiv-based
Aviant aircraft plant last year. The aircraft were delivered to Libya in late
December 2005. The other two
An-32Ps (registration numbers 5ADRC and 5A-DRD) were converted
from An-32 air transports, produced
UUAZ delivers more helicopters to Asia
Andrey Fomin
The Malaysian BOMBA Fire and
Rescue Air Operation Unit has recently
been equipped with a pair of new Mil
Mi-171 helicopters, delivered to
Malaysia by the Ulan-Ude Aircraft
Plant (UUAZ) in September 2004.
Prior to that BOMBA had already operated two Russian Mi-17-1Vs, manufactured by the Kazan Helicopters and
exported in 1998-1999. Malaysian
engineers converted the two helicopters into fire-fighting ones. Malaysian
authorities, satisfied with Russian helicopters, decided to procure another
batch of Mi-17s, with UUAZ selected
as the contractor. The agreement on
delivering two Mi-171Sh armed helicopters to the Malaysian Interior
Ministry was signed in July 2003. At
the same time the two sides cleared
major issues pertaining to exporting a
22
take-off may 2006
larger batch of ten UUAZ Mi-171Sh
combat transports to the Malaysian
Defence Ministry. The contract was
officially signed by Rosoboronexport
and the Malaysian AIROD state company at the Langkawi-based LIMA
2003 show on 1 October 2003.
UUAZ Mi-171Sh helicopters differed
from Mi-17-1Vs delivered by the Kazan
Helicopter Plant in their aft ramp and
weather radar nose fairing. In addition
to that, they were to be equipped with
foreign-produced avionics and South
African optronics. Part of the foreign
equipment was expected to be mounted on helicopters directly in Malaysia.
However, in 2004 Malaysian authorities decided against handing over the
two new helicopters to the police in
favour of fielding them with the
BOMBA, which was done after UUAZ
had delivered two Mi-171s with refined
airframes. On arriving in Malaysia, helicopters were fitted with certain special
search-and-rescue systems, but unlike
the Mi-171Sh they did not have any
armament or foreign avionics.
Commenting on the fate of ten follow-up helicopters, UUAZ Director
General Leonid Belykh told Take-off
that the customer had yet to decide on
specification requirements. Thus, the
contract has been suspended for the
time being.
As far as the two UUAZ helicopters,
already delivered to the BOMBA, are
concerned, Malaysian flight and
ground crews are satisfied with both
rotary-wing aircraft. Ground personnel, maintaining Mi-171s, told a Takeoff correspondent that the helicopter
featured a number of advantages as
compared with the Mi-17-1V. In late
2004 - early 2005 BOMBA helicopters
actively participated in a disaster relief
operation in South East Asia in the
wake of tsunami and lived up to their
reputation.
Helicopters, produced by the UlanUde Aircraft Plant, have recently made
their appearance in Vietnam.
Vietnamese mass media quoted the
Vietnamese Defence Ministry as saying
that UUAZ exported four Mi-171s to
Vietnam in late 2005, with all of them
entering service with the Vietnamese
Air Defence Forces. It was the first
delivery of the Ulan-Ude Aircraft Plant
to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Defence
Ministry noted that the Mi-171s
received would conduct search-andrescue operations and enforce security
of regional and international conferences in the country.
In early 2006 the Ulan-Ude Aircraft
Plant embarked on fulfilling the contract on delivering 24 Mi-171 utility
helicopters to China. The contract
was signed in late 2005. In addition to
that, according to the UUAZ pressservice, the plant has recently delivered a passenger version of the
Mi-171 and corresponding aircraft
equipment to the Chinese Fuavu
Aviation air carrier. The 24 helicopters, envisioned by the new contract,
are expected to be shipped off to
China in 2006. According to UUAZ
Director General Leonid Belykh, the
Chinese aircraft market demand for
the Mi-171 is assessed at at least 80
helicopters for the next few years.
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The Kazan Helicopters delivered
another two Ansat helicopters to South
Korea last December. It was the second
batch of brand-new helicopters, delivered by Kazan Helicopters to South
Korea under the contract, signed in
2004. The first three Ansats were
shipped off in December 2004. One of
them entered the inventory of the
Korean police, while the other two were
fielded with the South Korean Forestry
Aviation Office. The latter had also
received another two new helicopters
just before the 2006, and is bound to
get another Ansat in the near future. It is
worth mentioning that South Korea had
been the first to order and field Ansat
helicopters even before they became
operational in Russia.
The Ansat programme is one of
Kazan Helicopters' most rapidly developing projects. Last year the plant
manufactured the Ansat-LL flying test-
Kazan Helicopters
Five Ansat helicopters operate in South Korea
bed and delivered it to the Russia's
Radar-MMS Company. It also started
testing the Ansat-2RTs two-seat
reconnaissance and target designation helicopter prototype. The Kazan
Helicopters has manufactured and
submitted for tests the first Ansat-U
wheeled landing gear training helicopter, and is developing the Ansat-3 version with a longer fuselage. The
plant's contracts portfolio includes
contracts on delivering several dozen
Ansat helicopters to Russian and foreign customers.
Venezuela
mastering
Mi-17V-5s
The Venezuelan Armed Forces have
embarked on mastering new Mil
Mi-17V-5 helicopters. The first three
helicopters, built by the Kazan
Helicopters, were delivered to
Venezuela in late February, and the official handing-over ceremony took place
on 3 April at San-Felipe airbase. Under
the contract, signed in March 2005,
Russia is to export 15 Mi-17V-5,
Mi-35M, and Mi-26T helicopters, worth
a total of just over $200 million. The
contract also covers training
Venezuelan flight crews to man the helicopters in Russia. Venezuela plans to
procure at least three dozen Russian
rotary-wing aircraft, including several
dozen Mi-17V-5s, ten Mi-35Ms, and
three Mi-26Ts.
Kamov JSC
The Kamov Ka-226 and the Mil
Mi-26, displayed by the Kamov
Company and the Rostvertol Plant,
operating as part of Oboronprom
Company, were probably the most
outstanding Russian exhibits at the
SOFEX 2006 international show, held
in Amman, Jordan, on 28-30 March.
The show saw participation of over
300 companies, specialising in devel-
www.take-off.ru
oping and manufacturing special purpose means, in particular, those
employed for combating terrorism.
A heavy Mi-26, spotting UTair air
carrier markings, flew from Rostovon-Don to Amman, carrying a Ka-226
helicopter and its second removable
cabin onboard. Visitors of the show
could see demonstration flight of
both Russian helicopters during the
three days' show. Ka-226 aerobatics,
displayed by Kamov test pilots Vitaly
Lebedev and Oleg Krivoshein, generated considerable interest among
participants in the show. The
applause of King Abdullah II of
Jordan and Prince Feisal and the fact
that the Kamov Company was awarded for the best demonstration flights
at the closing ceremony are a proof
Kamov JSC
Ka-226 to be assembled in Jordan?
of the outstanding performance of
Russian pilots.
The Jordanian show saw the passenger version of the Ka-226, while its
second removable cabin was fitted with
medical equipment. Defence, special
forces, and emergency management
officials from various foreign states
examined the Russian helicopters with
great interest. The Ka-226 generated a
special interest of the UAE Civil
Defence Ministry delegation.
In the course of the show
Oboronprom Director General Denis
Manturov and Orangeville Consultants
Inc. CEO Majdi Al Yacoub signed a protocol on establishing a RussianJordanian joint venture, Oboronprom
Middle East, tasked with assembling
Ka-226s in Jordan. The joint venture is
expected to assemble and overhaul
Ka-226s, as well as promote the helicopter in the Middle East aircraft market.
take-off may 2006
23
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SUKHOI
A v i a t i o n
H o l d i n g
C o m p a n y
2 3 B P o l i k a r p o v a s t r . , M o s c o w , P. O . B o x 6 0 4 , 1 2 5 2 8 4 , R u s s i a
Tel.: + 7 (495) 940-26-63, 940-26-64, Fax: + 7 (495) 945-68-06
w w w. s u k h o i . o r g
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On 18 March 2006 the NPO Saturn
Association embarked on bench
tests of the first AL-55I turbofan prototype, designed to be mounted on
the Indian HJT-36 training aircraft. In
fact, it is the first time the national aircraft engine-building industry has
developed a new power plant especially for a foreign customer.
However, AL-55I designers are not
going to stop at that. They plan to
design a whole family of AL-55
engines
with
a
thrust
of
1,700–3,500 kgf, which may be
mounted on a wide range of trainers,
combat trainers, and light combat aircraft. The tests of the first AL-55I are
timed with the 90th anniversary of the
NPO Saturn and the 60th anniversary of the Lyulka Scientific Centre,
Saturn's Moscow affiliate office.
Andrey FOMIN
RUSSIAN AL-55I ENGINE
FOR INDIAN TRAINERS
Saturn started developing the new AL-55
turbofan in 1998. The new engine was
based on the worldwide popular AL-31F
afterburning turbofan, mounted on all versions of the Su-27-family aircraft. The
engine was developed by scaling down the
air-gas channel of its well-refined combat
prototype. But the AL-55 is by no means a
scaled down version of the AL-31F: it is
quite clear that it is impossible to simply
scale down dimensions of a successful
power plant to achieve high characteristics,
since the two engines differ 3.5-fold in their
maximum thrust! Nevertheless, contemporary mathematical modelling methods
reduced both the time and the cost of
developing a new turbofan considerably.
Many proven design solutions, tested on a
considerably larger power plant, were used
as a basis. The baseline AL-55, featuring a
thrust of 2,200 kgf, was expected to be
mounted on new training aircraft and combat trainers, while future light combat aircraft were to be fitted with the AL-55F
afterburning version, boasting a thrust of
3,200–3,500 kgf. If necessary both the
AL-55 and the AL-55F could be equipped
with a thrust vector control nozzle, once
again based on that of the AL-31F, refined
by that time.
AL-55 models and mock-ups had repeatedly been displayed at air shows since the
late 1990s, however, no one had expressed
26
take-off may 2006
much interest in the engine until 2004. It
was India, rather than Russia to become the
first customer of the AL-55. At that time
India was looking through options for powering the future HJT-36 training aircraft.
Saturn's AL-55I won the tender against the
famous French Larzac engine, mounted on
the Franco-German Alpha Jet trainers.
Larzac versions are also mounted on the first
prototypes of the Russian MiG-AT and the
Indian HJT-36 training aircraft. Cunning
Indian authorities chose a promising, if hard
approach: why fit the new training aircraft,
expected to constitute the mainstay of the
Indian Air Force training fleet in the near
future, with an obsolete power plant, if new
technologies can be acquired? The technologies in question were to help boost the
Indian aircraft engine-building industry as
well, since the AL-55 was expected to be
manufactured in India from the very outset.
As a result, in late June 2005 Delhi signed
a contract on developing the AL-55I for the
HJT-36 trainer, and the agreement on the
AL-55I licensed production in India was
signed at the MAKS 2005 air show two
months later. The importance of the contract was emphasised by the fact that the
signing ceremony was attended by Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The contract became a powerful incentive
for stepping up the development of the
engine, since the delivery of the first produc-
tion engines to the customer was only two
years away, an unprecedented timeframe for
contemporary engine-building. However,
Saturn was positive that it would cope with
the task, especially given the fact that the
engine development was already in full
swing.
As a result, the AL-55I mock-up was
manufactured and handed over to the customer as early as December 2005 for the
Indian side to try and fit it in the HJT-36's
engine nacelle. Separate units and modules
of the new engine simultaneously progressed
through bench tests. Combustion chamber
tests were conducted in November 2005, the
low-pressure compressor was tested in
December 2005, and the high-pressure
compressor in March 2006.
In order to step up the AL-55I development Saturn decided to team up to the Ufa
Engine Industrial Association (UMPO),
with the two companies agreeing to finance
the development and split risks 50/50.
Saturn was responsible for developing the
gas generator, and UMPO for the so-called
cold part of the engine.
The first AL-55I development stage envisions manufacturing five engines, with two
of them to be employed for bench tests, and
the other three for flight tests. T2 and T4 test
benches are being refined at Saturn's
Lytkarino-based affiliate to facilitate the
first development stage.
www.take-off.ru
NPO Saturn
contracts and deliveries | project
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contracts and deliveries | project
Areas of responsibility for manufacturing AL-55I modules and assemblies
By the turn of 2005 all strength, gasdynamic, and thermodynamic calculations
had been completed, performance characteristics had been determined, positive
assessment of the CIAM Central Institute of
Aviation Motors had been obtained, contracts with aircraft power plant designers had
been signed, and a contract on delivering a
12 kW starter, original bearings for the power
train, filters and heat exchangers for the oiling system had been signed. The Moscowbased NPO Saturn affiliate worked out a set
of design documentation for two manufacturers: the NPO Saturn's Rybinsk-based
plant was provided with drafts of the highpressure compressor, the high-pressure turbine, and the combustion chamber, while
UMPO received drafts of the low-pressure
compressor, the low-pressure turbine, the
intermediate casing, the bypass duct, the jet
nozzle, the central reduction gear, and the
power plant and oiling system gear box.
At the present time the Rybinsk and the
Ufa plants have carried out preproduction
preparations and received compressor and
turbine disk billets. They have also moulded
combustion chamber diffusers, low-pressure
turbine blades, and embarked on treating
compressors, etc. In addition to that Saturn
has developed special benches for testing
separate engine modules, for instance, the
low-pressure duct, the combustion chamber,
the high-pressure duct, the gas generator,
and the engine proper.
The AL-55I is a two-shaft turbofan engine
with a subsonic jet nozzle. The three-stage
fan and the five-stage high-pressure compressor with an adjustable intake at medium
peripheral velocities feature an overall pressure ratio of 22.9 at efficiency coefficients of
0.83 and 0.857 respectively. The wide-chord
compressors, boasting high aerodynamic
www.take-off.ru
characteristics, are based on the BLISK
technology (Blade plus Disk fabricated in
one piece). The engine features a light lowcapacity multi-chamber annular combustion chamber with a combustion ratio of
over 0.99, with a total pressure loss of about
6%, and a low level of exhaust radial and
peripheral inequality. High-efficiency single-stage high- and low-pressure turbines
with an open cooling system boast improved
gas-dynamics, moderate gas temperatures,
and high differential pressure. The efficiency coefficients of high- and low-pressure
turbines total 0.849 and 0.89 respectively.
The thrust loss for both ducts in the subsonic non-controlled jet nozzle does not exceed
1%. The engine is controlled by a digital
electronic control system.
The AL-55I operational efficiency is
achieved by its modular design, allowing its
damaged units or units with an exhausted
service life to be replaced directly in the
field. The engine comprises the following
seven major modules: the low-pressure compressor, the high-pressure compressor, the
combustion chamber, the high-pressure turbine nozzle, the low-pressure turbine nozzle, the high-pressure turbine rotor, and the
gearbox.
The AL-55I development programme
progresses at a high rate. The first full-scale
engine has been assembled and submitted
for tests by early spring 2006, i.e. just eight
months after the contract was signed. The
first start-up of the engine took place on 18
March. A total of six AL-55I engines are
expected to be assembled in 2006. In addition to that, the gas generator is to undergo
bench tests in May 2006. The first AL-55I
will be submitted for flight tests next year.
The flight tests will be conducted either on
the Russian Yak-130 combat trainer (in this
UMPO
1. Engine body
2. Exhaust unit
3. Low-pressure turbine
4. Power plant gearbox
5. Low-pressure compressor
NPO Saturn
6. Combustion chamber
7. High-pressure turbine
8. High-pressure compressor
Saturn is also responsible for assembling and
testing the engine
case one of its standard AI-222-25 engines
will be replaced with the AL-55I prototype),
or the Indian HJT-36. The first engine is to
be delivered to India only 24 months after
the contract was signed. "The programme is
unique, as far as the timeframe is concerned.
If we manage to comply with the timeframe,
we will set a milestone in the national aircraft engine-building industry," Saturn's
Designer General Alexander Sarkisov says.
On completing the flight tests, the AL-55I
will be launched into series production at
NPO Saturn and UMPO as well as into
licensed production in India.
Under the contract, India will receive 200
AL-55I engines, though, the number of
engines to be exported may increase considerably later on: India is looking into a feasibility of mounting a modified AL-55I on its
future HJT-39 twin-engine combat trainer.
Meanwhile, Saturn hopes that the Russian
aviation will acknowledge the engine as well:
the concept of developing a wide range of
modifications with a thrust of 1,700 to
3,500 kgf, based on the same gas generator,
allows the AL-55 to be fitted on the Yak-130,
the MiG-AT, etc. on short notice. Besides,
the Indian contract allows such engines for
Russian aircraft to be launched into production at low cost and on short notice.
take-off may 2006
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industry | in brief
Decree on United Aircraft Corporation signed
Almost a year sharp after the
historical session of the Russian
Sate Council's Presidium at TsAGI
Central
Aero-hydrodynamics
Institute in Zhukovsky on 22
February 2005, at which President
Putin voiced the concept of a
Russian integrated aircraft-making organisation, a year of protracted negotiations, Vladimir
Putin signed Presidential Decree
No 140 titled 'On the United
Aircraft Corporation JSC' on 20
February 2006. The decree has
been published by the president's
official web site www.kremlin.ru.
Given its special importance to
the future of the Russian aircraft
industry, its main part is quoted
hereinafter in full:
“To preserve and develop the
research and production capabilities of the Russian aircraft industry, ensure national security and
defence, pool intellectual, production and financial resources in
support of cutting-edge aircraft
development programmes, I
decree the following:
1. The following proposals of
the government of the Russian
Federation shall be approved:
- establishment by the Russian
Federation and stockholders of
Russian aircraft manufacturers of
the United Aircraft Corporation
JSC in Moscow; the stock of open
joint stock companies owned by
the federal government be introduced into the corporation's
authorised capital as the contribution of the Russian Federation in
28
take-off may 2006
line with the list in Addendum 1;
the share of the Russian federation in the authorised stock of the
newly established joint stock
company be equal to at least 75%;
- transformation of the state
unitary companies MiG Russian
Aircraft Corporation (Moscow)
and Kazan Aircraft Production
Association
named
after
S.P. Gorbunov into open joint
stock companies, with 100% of
their stock owned by the federal
authorities; later on, 100% of the
stock of each company be introduced into the authorised capital
of the United Aircraft Corporation
JSC as the contribution of the
Russian Federation aimed to pay
for additional stock issued by the
new joint stock company due to
the increase in its authorised
stock;
- establishment of the governmental commission on integration
of the aircraft industry of the
Russian Federation.
The introduction of the stock of
the joint stock companies in line
with the list in Addendum 2 to the
authorised stock of the United
Aircraft Corporation JSC as the
contribution of private stockholders be approved.
2. Development, production,
selling, operational support,
maintenance, upgrade, repair,
overhaul and disposal of military
and commercial aircraft in support of governmental and other
customers, including foreign
ones, as well as introduction of
high technologies and solution to
this sphere of aircraft development and manufacture, be the priority of the United Aircraft
Corporation JSC, its subsidiaries
and affiliated companies.
3. The Government of the
Russian Federation shall:
- take measures stipulated by
Para.1 of this decree until 1 April
2007 to determine private stockholders of the United Aircraft
Corporation JSC and their shares
in the authorised stock of the joint
stock company;
- establish the board of directors of the open joint stock companies mentioned by Addendum 1
to this decree prior to introducing
the stock of these joint stock
companies into the authorised
stock of the United Aircraft
Corporation JSC, having ensured
the interests of the Russian federation on the boards of directors of
the above joint stock companies
based on their shares of the stock
owned by the federal authorities;
- submit proposals about
amending the laws and regulations of the Russian Federation,
governing the military technical
cooperation with other countries
and providing for the joint stock
companies to retain the right for
foreign sales of military materiel
in case the president of the
Russian Federation decides to
have the federally-owned stock of
the above joint stock companies
introduced into the authorised
stock of other joint stock companies;
- submit a proposal for putting
the United Aircraft Corporation
JSC following its official registration on the strategic-company and
strategic joint stock company list
approved by Presidential Decree
No 1009 'On Approval of the List
of Strategic Companies and Joint
Stock Companies' dated 4 August
2004;
- bring its legal documents to
conformity with this decree.”
Paragraph 4 of the decree
amended the list of strategic companies and joint stock companies.
KAPO and MiG Corp. were struck
from Part 1 of the list approved by
Presidential Decree No 1009,
while the Sukhoi company with
the government's authorised
stock share of 100%, Ilyushin
(51%), KnAAPO (25.5%), Sokol
(38%), NAPO (25.5%) and
Tupolev (65.8%) were deleted
from Part 2.
Paragraph
5
declared
Presidential Decree No 135 'On
the Aviation Complex named after
S.V. Ilyushin JSC' dated 3
February 2004 null and void.
Paragraph 6 stated that the decree
would come into force on the day
of its signing, i.e. on 20 February
2006.
Decree No 140 has two addenda. Addendum 1 sets the list of
public corporations owned by the
federal government, whose stock
is to be introduced the authorised
stock of UAC. The list includes
Sukhoi (100% of its stock), V/O
Aviaexport
(15%),
Ilyushin
Finance Co. (38%), KnAAPO
(25.5%), Ilyushin Interstate
Aircraft Company (86%), Sokol
plant (38%), NAPO (25.5%),
Tupolev (90.8%) and Finance
Leasing Co. (58%).
Addendum 2 specifies the list
of joint stock companies whose
stock can be introduced into
UAC's authorised capital as a private stockholder contribution.
Aviastar-SP,
Ilyushin,
V/O
Aviaexport, VASO, IFC, Irkut,
Sokol, the Sukhoi design bureau,
Yakovlev design bureau, TAVIA,
Beriev, Tupolev and FLC are on the
list.
In early March, Russia's
Premier Mikhail Fradkov nominated
MiG
Corp.'s
Director
General/Designer General Alexey
Fyodorov for Director General of
the United Aircraft Corporation.
President Vladimir Putin has supported the nomination. Alexey
Fyodorov is going to be approved
as Director General of the UAC
after the corporation has been
registered.
www.take-off.ru
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industry | in brief
Maiden flight of third Yak-130
The
third
preproduction
Yakovlev Yak-130 aircraft conducted its maiden flight at the Sokol
plant's airfield in Nizhny Novgorod
on 27 March. It was flown by
Yakovlev's senior test pilot Oleg
Kononenko, commander of the
crew, and the State Flight Test
Centre's test pilot Col. Sergey
Shcherbina who had already
logged eight missions on Yak-130
No 01 under the official test programme.
The 43min. first flight was aimed
at checking the plane's basic systems and gauging its controllability
and stability. The aircraft developed a speed of 700 km/h at 6,000
m. The crew praised the outcome
of the mission, noting the aircraft's
preparedness for further testing.
The Yak-130 completed another
three flights under the factory test
programme within the three ensu-
ing days and then hopped to LII's
airfield in Zhukovsky to kick off the
official trials, in which the first and
second LRIP aircraft of the type
had been involved since May and
October 2005 respectively.
The official tests are to wrap up
in the end of this year, with the Air
Force to start taking delivery of the
early production aircraft. Under the
deal between Yakovlev and RusAF,
the first 12-ship batch of Yak-130
combat trainers is to be delivered
from 2006 to 2008.
The combat trainer's quick fielding with RusAF has paved the way
for it to the global market. Earlier
this year, the first export deal for
16 Yak-130s for the Algerian Air
Force was struck. Deliveries are
going to begin in 2008. The aircraft
will have the same power plant and
avionics suite as the Yak-130 to
enter in service with the RusAF.
An-70 gets its first certificate
The Aircraft Register of the
Interstate Aviation Committee
(IAC) issued the Antonov ASTC
company with the type certificate for noise compliance for
its An-70-100, a commercial
version of the An-70 airlifter.
The certificate confirms the
plane's compliance with the
noise requirements of Stage 3,
Addendum C, AP-36 Air
Regulations and Chapter 3, Vol.
1, Addendum 16 to the ICAO
Convention with the 3,4
EPNdB. The certificate entitles
the An-70-100 to operate without restriction on all international services.
Today, the An-70 airlifter
prototype carries on with its
official trials that are expected
to be completed this year. In
2006, the Aviant plant in Kiev is
to make the first two produc-
tion aircraft ordered by the
Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
The military might order a total
of 20 such aircraft over the
decade. There is no information on any other firm orders
for the An-70, including its
commercial derivative, the
An-70-100.
To spur the work under the
programme, Antonov National
Aircraft-building Corporation's
Director
General
Anatoly
Myalitsa late last year suggested Ukraine tycoons should
invest in the An-70 programme
“to contribute to improving the
image of the country”.
When the aircraft is ready for
full-rate production, new customers could crop up, because
several countries are known to
have shown interest in the
An-70.
Kamov gearing up for certification in Europe
www.take-off.ru
tors, Kamov has launched negotiations to work out a joint procedure for EC-wide certification of
its helicopters. With that, Kamov
could become the first Russian
aircraft manufacturer to certificate
its aircraft for compliance with
EASA's norms, having set standards for further programmes of
certificating Russian aircraft in
EU.
Mention should be made that
the Kamov company is the
Russian pioneer in promoting its
helicopters on the global commercial aircraft market. Thus, as far
back as 1969, the Kamov Ka-26
proved to be the first Soviet aircraft certified for compliance with
the FAR-29 standard. Another
Kamov machine, the Ka-32A11BC,
again was the first Russian aircraft certified in Canada.
The talks in Cologne resulted in
a joint memorandum defining further action to be taken for
Kamov's helicopters to be certified for compliance with EASA
regulations.
Kamov JSC
On 30-31 March, the German
city of Cologne hosted a routine
meeting of representatives of
Kamov
Company,
EASA
(European
Aviation
Safety
Agency) and IAC's Aircraft
Registry, who came to discuss
certificating Kamov Ka-32A11BC,
Ka-26 and Ka-226 helicopters in
Europe. As is known, all aircraft
lacking an EC type certificate will
be banned from the EC skies since
28 March 2007 in line with the
European Parliament's resolutions
EC1592/2002
and
1702/2003. Proceeding from this,
EC users of Russian helicopters
have expressed a grave concern
with the feasibility of their further
operation beyond the deadline.
There are over a dozen of
Kamov machines operated in EC.
Thus, six Ka-32A11BC helicopters
have been bought by Spain, two
by Switzerland (see one in the picture) and several Ka-26s have
been in service with Hungarian,
Romanian and Bulgarian operators. To accommodate the opera-
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ALEXANDER NOVIKOV:
“NEW ENGINE-MAKING ASSOCIATION
IS NEEDED”
Commercialisation of the Klimov RD-33MK turbofan engine to fit the
Mikoyan MiG-29K (MiG-33) carrierborne fighter under development for the
Indian Navy and development of the first examples of the Klimov TV7-117ST
turboprops to power the future Ilyushin Il-112V airlifter are high on the
Russian aircraft engine industry's priority list. The modified RD-33MK has
begun its long-time endurance tests. A TV7-117ST mockup has been
approved and the trials of its gas generator have kicked off. The
Chernyshev Moscow Machine-Building Enterprise, which is about to celebrate its 75th anniversary, is productionising the engines. Chernyshev's
Director General Alexander Novikov was kind enough to talk with Take-Off's
Andrey Yurgenson on the status of the programmes and other advanced
efforts pursued by the plant.
Mr Novikov, what are your company's priorities this year?
Today, Chernyshev operates to plan.
Speaking of dynamics, its annual growth
stands at 33–34% in terms of sales and
financial showings. Our 2006 orderbook is
30
take-off may 2006
full, being worth about $230–240 million.
Taking into account that the company
employs only 6,700 personnel, such an
orderbook is not bad at all.
Let us start with what we have got in fullrate production. The Klimov RD-33 family
of engines powering MIG-29 fighters
remains the backbone of Chernyshev's production programme. At present, we mostly
make Series 3 engines of the type. We overhaul earlier-built RD-33 Series 1 and 2
engines, but Series 3 products have started
arriving for overhaul as well.
Currently, a large volume of work falls on
the advanced engine, the RD-33MK,
designed to fit the MiG-29K shipborne fighter under the deal with India. Another RD-33
version ordered by foreigners is the RD-93.
We are to deliver 21 of them to China in 2006
to equip Chinese FC-1 fighters.
In addition, we have been running fullrate production of the Klimov TV7-117SM
turboprops powering the Ilyushin Il-114.
The programme has picked up pace, which
is a cause for optimism. Our company is
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Alexander Novikov was born in Alma-Ata in
1949. He graduated from the Rybinsk Aircraft
Technology College and started his career as a
fitter with the Rybinsk Engine Plant (now NPO
Saturn) where he climbed all rungs of the career
ladder all the way to Designer General of the
with such engines. Compared with its predecessor, the RD-33MK features a 700kgf
increase in thrust, a longer life and an automatic control unit, while retaining the
same size and virtually the same weight. It
is designed for on-condition operation.
This is good progress.
RKBM Rybinsk Engine-Building Design Bureau.
On the verge of the new millennium, he was
given a job with MiG Corp. as deputy Director
General for strategic planning and headed the
engine-making division. He assumed the office
of Director General of the Chernyshev JSC in
2001. Alexander Novikov has a Ph.D. in engineering and is a professor and a member of the
Russian Transport Academy. He has authored
numerous scientific works and inventions and
holds an Order of Friendship and Russian MoD's
medal For Bolstering Combat Camaraderie.
gearing up for commercialising its
advanced derivatives, the TV7-117ST,
designed for the Ilyushin Il-112V.
We have placed heavy intellectual and
production emphasis on making and
debugging a novelty of ours, the RD-1700
lightweight turbofan, to power the MiG-AT
trainer. And, finally, a few words on another thing we have never done before. We are
on the verge of productionising the Klimov
VK-2500 helicopter engine, had all relevant paperwork approved and devised a
productionising schedule. We will launch
production of the VK-2500 in late 2007.
What is the status of the RD-33MK programme, given that the MiG-29K is to begin
its tests this year and its deliveries are to
start in 2007?
As far as the RD-33MK is concerned,
the Klimov plant devises the documentation and we make all what has to be made at
the drop of a hat. The engines assembled
are given to Klimov for testing. Since the
engine's design has been determined, we
are going to start conducting the bulk of the
tests ourselves, e.g. cyclic and endurance
tests. The first RD-33MK was put on a test
bench in late March. Thus, the developer
and us work concurrently. The schedule is
tight, and there is no other way out.
The task the customer set to us is difficult –
making the engine repairable on site: at an
aircraft's workshop or even on deck. This
called for a considerable enhancement of
its modularity, and Klimov resolved the
problem. By the way, the MiG-29K is not
the only plane the RD-33MK could power
in the future. RSK MiG Corp. is pondering
the fitting the land-based MiG-35 fighters
www.take-off.ru
What is peculiar about commercialising
the TV7-117ST?
The engine differs from the TV7-117SM
we make in a centrifugal stage with the socalled 'above-rotor' disc. In addition, it has
somewhat different laws of control and different 'maths'. The degree of commonality
between the TV7-117ST and TV7-117SM
is going to be about 80%. No drastic
change in technology to make the
TV7-117ST will be needed, but manufacture of the centrifugal wheel will call for
advanced production we have been working on that and are going to order the
equipment soon. This year we are to make
four TV7-117STs, with all of them to be
shipped to Klimov for tests.
When is the long-awaited RD-1700 going
to fly?
The fifth RD-1700 is undergoing
endurance tests now. It has logged 25 hours.
We have gauged its basic characteristics,
with its thrust and combustion characteristics being very close to the design ones. I
am certain the engine is a success.
Another engine, No 6, has been given to
MiG Corp. to fit the MiG-AT. It is going to
be a so-called 'sloped' plane because one of
its engines is going to be French Larzac and
another one the RD-1700 that will be tested on the aircraft. This year, we are to do a
lot under the RD-1700 official test programme. The schedule has been approved,
and we have been sticking to it. The official
trials are to wrap up in late 2007.
The RD-1700 was designed to power the
MiG-AT, but fitting it to unmanned aerial
vehicles is being looked into as well. We
hope that the MiG-AT powered by our
engines will be in demand with the Russian
Air Force, even more so because a decision
has been made that MiG-ATs fitted with
Russian-made engines and avionics will
make up to 30–40% of the Russian trainer
fleet. MiG Corp. has been developing such
a version in earnest.
It is known that Russian aero engine manufacturers get a hefty chunk of their revenue
from overhauling the engines they made.
How high is overhaul on Chernyshev's priority list?
Indeed, we receive a sizable part of our
income from overhauling engines and mak-
ing spares for them. This concerns both the
RD-33 and previous-generation engines we
used to make to fit the MiG-23 and
MiG-27 (we are overhauling about 20
engines like that at the moment). We have
customers in about 40 countries. There is
no problem with spares to fit these engines,
which production was discontinued many
years ago, since we have retained the relevant equipment and tooling.
In all, we overhaul 90–100 engines annually. Chernyshev-made engines are in service
throughout the world. Therefore, overhaul is
a good and regular component of the company's income. We mostly overhaul engines of
our foreign customers. Unfortunately, we
have not made a single new engine for Russia
for the past eight years, and only four to six
engines arrive for overhaul every year, though
the Russian Air Force operates about 900
RD-33s, of which only 21 are covered by
warranty maintenance.
India is among the major RD-33 users.
The country learnt to overhaul it on its
own, fixing about 45 units a year. In its day,
Chernyshev assisted the Indians in building
the overhaul factory in Karaput. Nowadays,
we exercise follow-on supervision, with our
experts going to India twice a year for a
month to check if technological processes
are complied with. Nonetheless, we, too,
overhaul Indian-operated RD-33s –
25 engines a year.
The president has recently signed the
decree on setting up the United Aircraft
Corporation. What is your stance on integrating the aircraft manufacturers and aero
engine makers, in particular?
I think it is the right decision. However,
UAC is to consist of aircraft manufacturers,
including MiG Corp. comprising now four
engine manufacturers – Chernyshev,
Klimov, TMKB Soyuz and Krasny Octiabr.
We have an issue of how to retain the experience we have gotten. Therefore, we, the
four companies I have mentioned, believe
an aero engine association has to be set up.
There are sufficient relevant conditions for
doing this.
The four of us do our best to maintain
good relations; we run many joint programmes and share common interests.
Klimov and TMKB Soyuz work with our
company under long-term contracts. I
believe Chernyshev has good relations with
the both design bureaus, and all of us are
ready for integration, because we cover a
whole line of work in the aircraft engine
industry – engines to power helicopters,
commuter planes, light transports and light
fighters. We have well-coordinated plans
until 2020 in this field.
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Last November Rosoboronexport signed
a $550 million contract on delivering
180 AL-31F engines to be mounted on
Sukhoi Su-27SK and Su-30MKK aircraft
to China. The contract was awarded to
the Salut Moscow Machine-building
Production Plant (MMPP Salut), the traditional exporter of AL-31F engines to
China. The new contract allowed Salut to
reach the all-time high production rate in
the past 15 years: the 2006 production
plan envisions manufacturing about $600
million's worth of products, which
amounts to about 90% of Salut's production output in 1991. At the present time
MMPP Salut derives 83% of its profits
from exports, but its management is positive that sooner or later the trend will be
reversed and upgraded AL-31Fs, developed and manufactured by Salut, will be
fitted on the Russian Air Force fighters.
Take-off's correspondents Piotr Butowski
and Viktor Drushlyakov have recently visited MMPP Salut and examined priority
programmes of the enterprise.
Salut benefiting from Chinese contracts
AL-31F-family engines are manufactured
by MMPP Salut and the Ufa Engine
Industrial Association (UMPO). As is a tradition, Salut deals with Chinese exports, while
UMPO cooperates with the Indian Air Force.
Contracts with other states are fulfilled jointly by both enterprises. The Chinese Air Force
has fielded about 280 Sukhoi fighters since
1992, including 76 Su-27SKs and
Su-27UBKs,
76
Su-30MKKs,
and
24 Su-30MK2s, exported from Russia, as
well as up to 105 J-11 (Su-27SK) fighters,
licence produced in China. China received
the first batches of Su-27SKs and
Su-27UBKs in 1992 and 1996, and the new
engines to be produced by Salut under the
SALUT ARMS CHINESE AIR FORCE
recently signed contract will be mounted on
these very aircraft. The matter is that the service life of AL-31Fs, manufactured in the
1990s, amounts to 900 hours, and given
intensive operation of Su-27s in China, the
engines have to be replaced with new ones. It
is worth mentioning that though China has
bought the Su-27SK production licence, it is
not entitled to manufacture its own engines.
Although China is developing its own WS10
engine, new big-ticket contracts on delivering
AL-31Fs and AL-31FNs, placed with
Russian enterprise, mean that the Chinese
engine is still a long way from being launched
into mass production.
The November contract on delivering 180
AL-31Fs was preceded by another big-ticket
deal, signed in July 2005. Under the deal,
Salut is to deliver 100 AL-31FN engines to
be mounted on new Chinese J-10 fighters.
The first batch was shipped off last October,
while the last batch of AL-31FNs is expected
to be delivered in late 2006. In addition to
that, in early 2005 Salut signed a three-year
contract, worth $100 million, with China.
Under the contract, Salut is to overhaul
Top: the AL-31FN engine with lower accessories gearbox is specially designed and produced at
MMPP Salut to be mounted on the J-10 Chinese fighters
32
take-off may 2006
AL-31Fs delivered earlier and export necessary spare parts.
The AL-31FN (designated “izdeliye 39”)
is specially designed to be mounted on the
J-10 aircraft. It differs from the baseline
AL-31F (“99V”) in the lower layout of the
accessory-gear box, but main characteristics
remain intact. China procured nine
AL-31FN prototypes from the Lyulka-Saturn
company as far back as 1997. The engines
were fitted on the first J-10 prototypes. The
mass-produced AL-31FN made its appearance in 2000. It was designed by LyulkaSaturn and refined by the Salut Design
Bureau.
China
ordered
another
54 AL-31FNs for follow-up prototypes and
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AL-31F and AL-31F-M1
comparative characteristics
AL-31F AL-31F-M1
Increased afterburner thrust
Thrust, kgf
13,500
Specific fuel consumption, kg/kgf•h 1.96
Turbine inlet temperature, K
1,690
Air consumption, kg/s
119
Full throttle afterburner thrust
Thrust, kgf
12,500
12,500
1.97
Turbine inlet temperature, K
1,665
1,630
Air consumption, kg/s
113
114
Increased thrust without afterburner
Thrust, kgf
8,250
Maximum thrust
Thrust, kgf
7,670
7,670
0.77
Bypass ratio
Maximum diameter, mm
Length, mm
Dry weight, kg
First overhaul period, hours
Specified service life, hours
0.56
1,280
4,990
1,547
500
1,500
0.61
1,280
4,990
1,557
1,000
4,000
MMPP Salut AL-31F engines
low pressure compressor characteristics
Production
LPC
Stages
4
Diameter, mm
905
Pressure ratio
3.55
Piotr BUTOWSKI
Photos by Viktor Drushlyakov
AL-31F upgrading stages,
developed by MMPP Salut
first production J-10s. All 54 engines were
delivered to China by Salut in 2001–2003.
The Chinese J-10 fighter programme progresses at a rapid pace, thus, Salut may soon
secure new contracts from Russia's Oriental
neighbour.
AL-31F-M1
Developed for Russian Air Force
AL-31F-SM
On 23 June 2000 the Russian government
appointed the NPO Saturn flagship designer
and manufacturer of the power plant for the
future tactical fighter. Saturn was tasked with
development of an engine, now designated
“117S”. The engine is also expected to be
mounted on new versions of Su-27-family
fighters.
Under the programme, Salut was only to
manufacture units and assemblies of the new
engine, which was basically a deep modernisation of the AL-31F. Salut management was
AL-31F-M3
www.take-off.ru
KND924-4
4
924
3.68
KND924-3
3
924
4.2
not satisfied with the enterprise's role in the
project, thus in summer 2000 Salut embarked
on a gradual upgrade of the production
AL-31F on its own initiative in order to
develop an option to “117S”. The initiative
became a possibility after Salut established its
own design bureau in early 2000.
The first-stage upgrading engine, designed
by Salut, was designated AL-31F-M1
(“99M1”). Unlike the production AL-31F, it is
fitted with the modified 924-mm KND-924-4
four-stage low pressure compressor (LPC), and
the new KRD-99Ts integrated digital engine
controller. The higher output of the AL-31FM1 compressor results in the following two
advantages: on the one hand, it increases the
thrust by 6–15%, and on the other hand, it
reduces the turbine inlet temperature by 35 K
while maintaining the same thrust, which considerably extends the engine's service life.
The ninth AL-31F-M1 prototype started
flight tests on Su-27 flying testbed c/n 37-11
(side No 595) at the Flight Research Institute
on 25 January 2002. Later on the aircraft was
fitted with two such engines. Su-27 No 595,
powered by AL-31F-M1 engines, carried out
a total of 27 test flights. In addition to that, it
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had conducted six of ten state test flights by
the turn of 2006. The AL-31F-M1 state tests
are to be completed in 2006, after which the
engine could be launched into production
and mounted on Su-27 fighters in service
with the Russian Air Force in the course of
their overhaul and upgrade.
Prospects
In early 2006 Salut embarked on testing the
next upgrading stage engine, the AL-31F-M2
compressor is manufactured in compliance
with the “BLISK” technology (Blade plus
Disk fabricated in one piece). The innovations will increase the thrust of the
AL-31F-M3 up to 15,000 kgf.
It is common knowledge that new versions
of Su-27-family aircraft, first and foremost,
the Su-34 attack aircraft, recently launched
into production in Novosibirsk, and the
Su-35 future multirole export fighter to be
tested in 2006–2007, need more powerful
so-called special mode of operation, envisioning a short-term increase in turbine inlet
temperature by 75 K. However, this mode
reduces the service life of the engine considerably: AL-31F Series 3 has a service life of
only 700 hours (the first such engines had a
service life of only 300 hours), current
AL-31F Series 2 engines have a service life of
1,500 hours, while future AL-31F-M1s are
expected to have a service life of 4,000 hours.
In addition to that, the recent aircraft crash
Right: the KND-924-3 three-stage wide-chord blade compressor, developed by Salut and based on
the BLISK technology, will be mounted on the AL-31F-M3 engine
Bottom right: the thrust vector control nozzle, developed by MMPP Salut and based on the KLIVT
technology (developed by the St. Petersburg-based Klimov Plant), for upgraded AL-31F engines,
features a fully variable thrust vectoring
Bottom: the first upgrading stage AL-31F-M1 turbofan is to complete the state tests this year
(“99M2”), recently designated AL-31F-SM
(“99SM”), with its new designation emphasising that the engine may be mounted on
upgraded Su-27SM fighters. There are two
main features, inherent in the second-stage
modernisation: new turbine discs and modified KND-924-4 compressor vanes. The
modifications introduced resulted in increasing the AL-31F-SM afterburner thrust up to
14,000 kgf. It is also quite important that the
AL-31F-M1 and the AL-31F-SM are fully
interchangeable with the production
AL-31Fs, mounted on Su-27s. It only takes a
single retainer to fit a larger fan. Moreover,
earlier AL-31Fs can easily be upgraded up to
the level of AL-31F-M1 and AL-31F-SM by
a simple replacement of separate modules in
the course of overhauls.
Salut expects to start testing the third
upgrading stage engine, the AL-31F-M3
(“99M3”), in December 2006. The new
engine differs in the brand new KND-924-3
low pressure compressor, new combustion
chambers, and new turbine blades. The
KND-924-3 three-stage wide-chord blade
34
take-off may 2006
engines. The first Su-34s are powered by production AL-31Fs for the time being, but their
thrust is obviously insufficient for capitalising
on all capabilities of the 45-ton aircraft. At
the present time the aircraft may be fitted
with either “117S”, designed by NPO Saturn,
or the AL-31F-M1 (or AL-31F-SM), developed by MMPP Salut. However, Salut stands
little chance of securing a contract on retrofitting Su-34s with new engines, as the Air
Force has vested the right to select the power
plant with Sukhoi, which is known to prefer
working with Saturn for a number of quite
obvious reasons. Unfortunately, Salut should
not cherish an illusion to participate in
upgrading RusAF's Su-27s either, since the
Russian Air Force does not yet plan to fit the
aircraft with upgraded engines.
Salut stands a better chance of mounting
its new engines on aircraft in service with the
Russian Naval Aviation. At the moment all
Su-33 shipborne fighters are powered by
AL-31F Series 3 (“99A”) engines, produced
by Salut. Unlike AL-31F Series 2 (“99V”),
they have a thrust of up to 12,800 kgf at the
on the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier,
which took place in the Atlantic on
5 September 2005, clearly shows the advantages of increasing the thrust-to-weight ratio
of Su-33 fighters. Salut is negotiating a feasibility of retrofitting Navy's Su-33s with
AL-31F-M1 engines with the Russian Naval
Aviation authorities.
However, even in this case it may be difficult for Salut engines to make their way to
Russian shipborne aircraft. The circumstances being what they are, it will not be surprising if they are mounted on Chinese aircraft first. The work is already being done to
this end. Salut offers the AL-31F-M1 for
Chinese Su-27SK, J-11, Su-30MKK and
Su-30MK2 fighters as well as Su-33K carrierborne fighters, which China may procure in
Russia in the near future to equip its first aircraft carrier.
Another option consists in mounting the
AL-31FN-M1 with an increased thrust and a
fully variable thrust vector control nozzle on
new Chinese J-10 fighters. Salut manufactured the upgraded AL-31FN-M1 (“39M1”)
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prototype in 2005, and this year it expects to
complete its tests.
In 2000 Salut manufactured a pilot batch
of ten AL-31FP (“96”) engines, fitted with
the thrust vectoring system, designed by
Lyulka-Saturn. Later on the AL-31FP for
Indian Su-30MKI fighters was launched into
series production at UMPO, while Salut
embraced an approach of introducing the
fully variable thrust vector control nozzle.
The new system was based on the KLIVT
technology, developed by the St. Petersburgbased Klimov Plant for upgrading RD-33
engines, mounted on MiG-29 fighters and
Chinese FC-1 aircraft. Generally, the oneplane thrust vectoring system, inherent in the
AL-31FP, is quite sufficient for the twinengine Su-27 and Su-30 aircraft. However,
the single-engine J-10 boasts greater capabilities when fitted with a fully variable thrust
vector control nozzle. Thus, Salut purchased
the KLIVT system documentation from the
Klimov Plant, but considerably modified it
later on. Mock-ups of the AL-31F-M1 with
the fully variable thrust vector control nozzle
have repeatedly been displayed on Su-27
No 595 and 598 flying testbeds in Zhukovsky
since 2002. The real thrust vector control
nozzle mounted on the AL-31F power plant
has been undertaking long-term bench tests
at MMPP Salut in Moscow. Salut states that
the confirmed service life of the thrust vector
control nozzle totals 750 hours, and is
expected to increase up to 1,000 hours in the
near future.
Sukhoi and then some
Not by AL-31F alone
The AL-31F Series 30S (“53”) turbofan,
designed to retrofit Indian MiG-27M fighterbombers, is another version of the AL-31F,
developed by MMPP Salut. The enterprise
offered India to equip upgraded MiG-27Ms
with this engine in June 2003, and the programme has recently received a new incen-
In addition to fulfilling big-ticket Chinese
contracts on delivering AL-31F and
AL-31FN engines and developing their new
versions, MMPP Salut participates in a
number of other engine-building programmes as well. Jointly with its Ukrainian
counterparts the enterprise is getting ready
to launch into series production the new
Ivchenko-Progress AI-222-25 engine to be
mounted on the Russian Air Force Yakovlev
Yak-130 combat trainers. It has also been
involved in manufacturing IvchenkoProgress D-436-family turbofans for Beriev
Be-200 amphibious aircraft, Tupolev Tu-334
airliners, and new Antonov An-148 regional
jets since 1993. If Salut wins the power plant
tender for the future Yakovlev/Ilyushin
MS-21 short/medium-haul airliner, it will
manufacture yet another Russian-Ukrainian
AI-436T12 turbofan. In 2003 the enterprise
planned to have manufactured a number of
units and assemblies of the IvchenkoProgress D-27 propfan for the future
Antonov An-70 military transport, but the
work was suspended given the current stance
of the Russian Air Force.
In addition to that, Salut also overhauls
AL-21F-3A engines, employed on all versions of the Russian Su-24 tactical bomber,
and offers the upgraded AL-21F-3M version
with a 300 kgf greater thrust. It also overhauls R15B-300 engines, mounted on
MiG-25RBs. The Salut Design Bureau has
designed the 630 hp TV-500S turboprop
engine for the SM-92T aircraft to be submitted for bench tests this summer. It is also
worth mentioning that Salut derives 20% of
its profits from civil projects, first and foremost, industrial power plants, based on written-off aircraft engines.
However, no matter how vast the scope of
MMPP Salut's activities may be, there is no
doubt that manufacturing, overhauling, and
upgrading AL-31F-family engines constitute the backbone of its production programme. It would be unfair, if the company's
experience in this field were in demand only
abroad.
AL-31F engine, fitted with the fully variable thrust vector control nozzle, being bench tested at
MMPP Salut
www.take-off.ru
tive: MMPP Salut and RSK MiG Corp.
agreed to jointly finance retrofitting a
demonstration aircraft to test the AL-31F
Series 30S. In September 2003 the mock-up
of the engine was mounted on MiG-27M
c/n 01-01, and in March 2004 Salut
embarked on bench tests of the first and the
second full-scale AL-31F Series 30S engines.
The enterprise has recently assembled the
third engine of this type, designed to undergo
flight tests. The upgraded MiG-27M, powered by this engine, is expected to make its
maiden flight in the second quarter of 2006.
take-off may 2006
35
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commercial aviation | in brief
Russian civil aviation in 2005
Russia's civil air fleet
(as of early 2006)
Alexey Mikheyev
Mainline passenger airliners
Il-62M
Il-86
Il-96-300
Tu-154B, Tu-154M
Tu-204-100, Tu-204-300
Tu-214
Yak-42, Yak-42D
39
45
14
242
13
8
66
A310-200, 300
A319-100
A320-200
A321-200
B737-200, 300, 400, 500
B747-200
B757-200
B767-200, 300
4
8
7
3
29
3
14
19
Total
514
Regional passenger airliners
On 6 March 2006 the board of
the Federal Air Transport Agency
(FATA, Rosaviatsiya) held its annual meeting in Moscow to review the
2005 performance of domestic civil
aviation and set key tasks for the
current year. Transport Minister
Igor Levitin and FATA head
Alexander Yurchik delivered reports
at the meeting.
Despite 2005 having been a
challenging year for the industry,
Russia's 185 airlines secured a
combined growth of 3.4% in passenger kilometres and 3.9% in passenger traffic on the 2004 figures.
Russian carriers transported
35.1 million passengers, indicating
a 1.9% year-on-year growth in passenger kilometres for domestic
routes and 4.8% growth for international routes. The volume of
regional passenger traffic remained
unchanged from 2004; most passengers were transported between
Moscow and other Russian cities.
Cargo traffic declined for the second consecutive year, dropping
3.7% on 2004 to 25,000 t. The
most possible reason is that the
sector has not yet found an equal
replacement for the Chinese cargo
market recently lost by Russian
carriers.
Total profits of Russian airlines
grew by 10% to 180 billion roubles
(about $6.5bn), but carriers were
spending more than earning. Air
transport costs increased by an
average of 20.2% across all segments. Analysis shows that airlines' swelling expenses are direct-
36
take-off may 2006
ly dependent on the growing aircraft fuel prices, which averaged
16,300 roubles (about $580) per
tonne in 2005 and sent fuel surcharges up to nearly 40% of the air
transport costs.
The soaring fuel prices affected
the air fares. Prices for air tickets
increased by 13.7% in 2005, outstripping the inflation rate for the
first time in several years.
Additional expenses reduced the
aggregate profit of Russian airlines
to about 2.2bn roubles (about $80
million), 50% down on 2004.
Almost 50% of the carriers are
reportedly in poor financial standing. Profitability or at least lossfree performance is only attainable
by those few airlines which enjoy a
healthy traffic. Last year, 49.9% of
all passengers in Russia were carried by four major carriers: Aeroflot
(24.1%), S7 Siberia Airlines
(12.8%), Pulkovo Airlines (6.7%)
and KrasAir (6.4%). The top 15 carriers each flew more than 1bn passenger kilometres in 2005 and
together handled 81.4% of the
entire workload; the top 30 airlines
together accounted for 94.4% of
the total passenger kilometres,
while the remaining 155 companies
were left with a scanty 5.6%.
The competitiveness of Russian
airlines is impossible to improve
without a large-scale fleet overhaul.
This is the most urgent task of
national civil aviation. Deliveries of
new Russian-made aircraft did not
intensify significantly in 2005 as
compared to the previous years. A
total of 17 aircraft were delivered,
including five helicopters. Only six
new-generation mainline airliners
found their customers: two Tupolev
Tu-214s and four Tu-204-300s. The
remaining six aircraft were general
aviation, trainer and utility types:
two Antonov An-3s, two Beriev
Be-103s and two Myasishchev
M-101Ts.
Given the massive obsolescence
of Russia's passenger aircraft, this
slow rate of fleet renovation is only
exacerbating the crisis. Of a total
5,500 passenger aircraft, only
2,500 (or 46%) were serviceable in
2005 (see table). Russian carriers
currently operate 42 new-generation domestic airliners, which
accounts for just 1.7% of the total
passenger fleet. This is obviously
far from enough.
The recent strengthening of
international restrictions on operating obsolete types has moved
many Russian airlines to seek
equipment abroad, even despite the
high import duties. More than
30 foreign-made aircraft were purchased or leased in 2005, including
over 20 mainline airliners. Russian
airlines operate a total of 85 foreign-made mainline passenger aircraft; this is almost 2.5 times the
number of Russian-made new-generation passenger airplanes currently in operation, and 16% of the
country's entire mainline fleet.
Airlines that once had all-Russian
fleets are starting to switch to
Western types, and this trend will
continue.
An-24
An-38
Il-114
Tu-134A, Tu-134B
Yak-40
DHC-8-100
118
5
2
165
137
3
Total
430
Cargo aircraft
An-12
An-26
An-30
An-32
An-74
An-124-100
Il-76T, Il-76TD
26
56
14
3
18
21
72
B747-200, B747-300
DC-10-40F
Total
3
4
217
General aviation aircraft
An-2
An-3
An-28
Il-103
M-101T
L-410
387
11
9
3
2
10
Total
422
Business jets
BAe-125
Cessna 208B
Falcon 20
Falcon 900
Gulfstream
6
3
2
3
1
Total
15
Total fixed-wing
1,598
Helicopters
Ka-26
Ka-32
Mi-2
MI-8T, P, MT, MTV
Mi-10K
Mi-26T
W-3
AS-355N
BK-171
Total
Grand total
31
28
124
692
1
27
1
7
7
890
2,488
www.take-off.ru
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Late last year the Russian
Regional Jet (RRJ) programme led
by Sukhoi's subsidiary Sukhoi Civil
Aircraft Company (SCAC) passed a
milestone equally awaited by the
proponents and opponents of one
of the most controversial aerospace development efforts in the
newest history of Russia. On
7 December Russia's leading carrier Aeroflot named the winner in its
regional jet tender launched back in
2004. The RRJ's primary rival in
the tender was the Russo-Ukrainian
Antonov An-148 airliner, which is
being promoted by the IlyushinFinance leasing company and
actively lobbied by National
Reserve Corporation, a minority
shareholder in Aeroflot. The carrier's eventual choice was for the
RRJ. Aeroflot has agreed to buy
30 aircraft of the RRJ-95 95-seat
base model, to be powered by the
SaM146 engines currently under
development by Russo-French
company PowerJet. The contract is
reportedly valued at about $820m
in list prices, or about $27m per
aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled to
begin in November 2008.
Aeroflot says the RRJ family fully
meets the existing and future reliability, safety and operating efficiency standards, and will stimulate
Russian carriers into introducing
new domestic and international
routes. Aeroflot Director General
Valery Okulov says the RRJ's key
advantage is that it will enjoy global demand: "Aeroflot is the Russian
flag carrier, the trendsetter of
Russia's air transport industry, and
we are glad to make the RRJ-95, a
Russian aircraft, an integral part of
our plan to build a modern fleet."
The terms of the contract are not
being revealed, but Aeroflot is
believed to be targeting financial and
operating lease schemes. The principal provisions and price of the contract were unanimously approved by
the Aeroflot board at a 29 March 2006
meeting. An extraordinary general
meeting of Aeroflot shareholders will
be held on 16 May to vote on the deal.
Although Aeroflot chose the RRJ
over the An-148, it has not closed
www.take-off.ru
Andrey Fomin
RRJ receives first firm orders
the door on the losing bidder.
Okulov said shortly after the
announcement of the tender results
that the carrier's regional subsidiaries such as Aeroflot-Nord and
Aeroflot-Don might order An-148s.
Meanwhile, the RRJ secured its
first foreign customer at the recent
Dubai Air Show. On 22 November
2005 the little-known Dubai-based
leasing company Concord Aviation
placed a firm order with the SCAC
for 20 SaM146-powered RRJ-95s
with an option for a further 20. The
estimated value of the deal is about
$1bn (about $27m per aircraft in
list prices). Deliveries should begin
in 2009 and run until 2013. "Having
signed the launch contract today,
we are pleased to welcome our first
customer outside Russia," SCAC
Director General Viktor Subbotin
said after the signing ceremony.
"This means a true breakthrough
into new markets for the RRJ programme. We do believe the Middle
East to be a very promising niche
for the new RRJ family." Despite
sceptical remarks by certain journalists concerning the customer's
unknown track record, the CSAS
expresses confidence that Concord
Aviation will be a reliable partner in
promoting the RRJ to the Gulf, the
Middle East and northern Africa.
"We have no doubts that Concord
Aviation will fulfil the obligations it
has undertaken. The company's
staff have a strong background in
aviation industry and a good understanding of the market," says SCAC
commercial director Svetlana
Isayeva, adding that the customer
is backed by UAE and UK capital.
The SCAC views Southeast Asia
as another major market for the
RRJ. Regional sales manager
Anatoly Mezhevov said at the
Asian Aerospace exhibition in
Singapore in early 2006 that
Chinese, Indonesian, Indian and
Filipino carriers are among the
most likely regional customers for
the type. Mezhevov said he was
hoping to announce the first
orders from a Southeast Asian
country (most probably Indonesia)
before the end of 2006, and added
that unnamed US carriers could
also order the type. He noted however that deliveries to the USA
would not begin until 2009–11. In
the early spring of 2006 the SCAC
said it had 134 orders for the RRJ
including options and MoUs.
Mezhevov said in this connection
that the company is continuing
negotiations
with
SAS
Scandinavian Airlines over having
the RRJ shortlisted for the carrier's tender to replace its regional
fleet.
In the meantime, work continues
to build the first RRJ prototypes. In
February 2006 the KnAAPO plant
began assembling the first centrewing section. This phase is to be
completed by May, after which the
centre-wing will be mated to the
centre fuselage section (F2).
Simultaneously with that the F3 and
F4 fuselage sections will be built.
The first airframe will be assembled
after the Novosibirsk-based NAPO
plant delivers the F1 nose section
and F5 tail section in September
2006.
The first flight is tentatively set
for September 2007. Under the
SCAC's current schedule, certification should be completed in
October 2008; service entry is to
follow in November same year. If
the SCAS and PowerJet meet
these deadlines they will set a
world record for the fastest development of a new passenger aircraft complete with a new powerplant.
take-off may 2006
37
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The first preproduction Su-80GP
advanced turboprop commuter plane
(c/n 01-05) is undergoing final tests
by KnAAPO prior to beginning its
flight trials. By early spring, tests of its
avionics suite and fuel system had
been completed. The flight tests are
slated for May. One the first five missions have been flown, the aircraft will
kick off its certification tests to be
joined by the other two LRIP planes
(c/n 01-06 and 01-07) that have been
almost competed. The first prototype
of the Su-80 (c/n 01-02, reg. number
RA-82911) has been tested in
Zhukovsky since September 2001.
At the same time, KnAAPO is manufacturing the first production aircraft
of the type. There are two production
planes (c/n 02-01 and 02-02) in the
assembly shop. To date, the launch
customer for the Su-80GP was found
in the form of the PetropavlovskKamchatsky Aircraft Company interested in buying four aircraft of the type
to replace its Yakovlev Yak-40s. The
heavily sued Yak-40s no longer suit
the airline. To cap it all, their high fuel
consumption drives the price of tickets up, which is an obstacle for the
Kamchatka Peninsula's native willing
to fly more. In this respect, the
Su-80GP has a considerable advantage. With roughly the same flight
characteristics and seating capacity, it
burns an average of only 340 kg of
fuel per hour against the Yak-40's
almost 1,100 kg/h. Its fuel efficiency
totals 26.2 g/pass.-km while that of
the Yak-40 is almost 70 g/pass.-km.
given the current avgas prices that
exceed $800 per tonne in the Russian
Far East, the Su-80GP will enable the
airline to slash the fare by far.
However, the Su-80GP's price,
which is high enough, is a stumbling
block for the Kamchatka-based airline's transition to the advanced aircraft. The plane costs 205 million
rubles, or almost $7.5 million. The
Kamchatka Region's parliamentarians
and KnAAPO's representatives discussed various purchase options. If
the funding is secured, the first two
production Su-80GP would be delivered as early as 2007.
Aviakor to deliver three
An-140s to Yakutiya
Andrey Zhirnov
Su-80GP gearing up
for maiden flight
Early in March, the Aviakor plant
(Samara), Yakutiya airline and
Financial Leasing Company (FLC)
made a tripartite contract for three
Russian-made Antonov An-140-100
aircraft. The planes are to be delivered during the third and fourth
quarters of 2006. FLC is to buy
them from Aviakor within the year
and lease them to Yakutiya for
15 years.
The deal provides for the government to subside part of the leasing payments at the federal and
regional levels. The contract was
made in line with the agreement on
launching operation of the An-140
regional aircraft with the Republic
of Sakha (Yakutiya). The agreement
was made at the MAKS 2005 air
show in August 2005.
The three An-140-100s will
become the first airliners of the type
in service with a Russian air carrier
and the first production An-140
built in Russia (prior to that, aircraft
of the type have been made only in
Ukraine and Iran). Once they have
entered operation, four more
An-140-100s are to be delivered to
Yakutiya in 2007, with another five
to follow further down the road.
The first Myasishchev M-101T
aircraft made by the Sokol plant
(Nizhny Novgorod) under the Dexter
air taxi programme run by Russia's
Avia Management Group (AMG) was
handed over to the customer in a
ceremony held at the Cosmos business terminal of Moscow's Vnukovo
Airport on 3 March. The acceptance
report was signed by AMG
Chairman of the Board Yevgeny
Andrachnikov and Sokol's Director
General Mikhail Shibayev.
Russian new-generation M-101T
turboprop is the only certified plane
in its class. It can hop at 1,100 km.
Its pressurised cockpit allows flying
at an altitude of over 7,000 m outside turbulence. The controllable
five-blade propeller and enhanced
sound insulation prevent too loud
noise in the cabin. This provides
passengers with comfort compara-
38
take-off may 2006
ble to that on bizjets. The aircraft is
powered by a Czech-made Walter
M601F-32 and Honeywell avionics.
According
to
Yevgeny
Andrachnikov, the first Dexter aircraft “entering service is a milestone
in the evolution of Russian commercial aviation. From then on, Russia
launches development of a national
system of direct inter-city air communication”. In support of the
Dexter programme, the Russian
Ministry of Transport issued the Avia
Management Group in December
2005 with Operator Certificate
No 481 giving the green light to air
services by means of M-101T aircraft.
At the first stage slated to end in
late 2007, the Dexter programme is
to cover the Central, Volga and
Northeast Federal Districts, with the
company focussed on setting up a
Sergey Sergeyev
First M-101T delivered to Dexter
nationwide direct air communication system among Russian cities as
its strategic goal. Therefore, up to
250 aircraft are to be involved in the
endeavour.
The Avia Management Group was
established in October 2004 by
Industrial Investors and Kaskol
groups (75% and 25% respectively)
to implement the Dexter national air
taxi programme. To date, the AMG
has made a $67.5-million deal with
Sokol plant for 45 M-101T aircraft.
The Dexter air taxi start-up provides
for passenger and cargo services in
the scheduled taxi mode with flights
out of hubs every 1.5–2 hours. Both
scheduled and charter flights are
intended. On scheduled operations,
the fare is to cost 15–23 rubles/km
($0.5–0.8 per km) per seat and on
charter services, it is to cost
120–140 rubles/km ($4–5 per km)
for the whole plane. Initially, the Avia
Management Group plans to expand
its M-101T fleet to 250 planes.
www.take-off.ru
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The Ilyushin Il-96-300 airliner
(registration No CU-T1251) built
by VASO Voronezh-based aircraft
plant on order by the Cubana de
Aviacion air carrier arrived to Cuba
on 7 March. It is the second aircraft of the type made for export.
The first Il-96-300 (CU-T1250)
had been delivered to the Cubana
on the verge of the New Year – 30
December 2005. The construction
of the planes was paid for by the
Ilyushin Finance Co. leasing company (IFC) as well as by means of
short-term loans it had obtained
and by a short-term loan of a
Russian bank syndicate issued to
Cuba for buying the Russian aircraft. For the deal to succeed, the
government for the first time guaranteed the long credits provided
by Russian banks to foreign buyers of the Russian aircraft. In
December 2005, the syndicate of
major Russian banks (Vnesheconombank, Vneshtorgbank and
Roseximbank) and Cuban company Aviaimport S.A. signed an
agreement for a $94 million syndicated credit. The credit was for
Cuba to buy two Il-96-300 airliners
worth $110 million.
Now, the Island of Freedom has
two brand-new Russian-made
Il-96-300 long-range airliners. In
addition, Domodedovo Airlines'
Il-96-300 (RA-96006) has been wetleased by Cuba since last year. The
second Cuban aircraft, CU-T1251,
can be used both for routine passenger services and as a VIP plane
for top national leaders.
Meanwhile, Cuba is not about to
limit itself to the two airliners it
has received. Ilyushin Finance Co.,
Cuba's Aviaimport S.A. and
Cubana de Aviacion signed a contract for another five Russian airliners to be delivered to Cuba on
10 April 2006. The ceremony was
attended by Boris Aleshin, head of
Russia's Federal Agency for
Industry and IFC's chairman of the
board. Under the contract, the
Cubana air carrier will take delivery of two Il-96-300 long-range
and two Tu-204-100 medium-
www.take-off.ru
Oleg Panteleyev / AviaPort
IFC's export breakthrough
range aircraft as well as a Tu-204C
cargo plane in 2006–07.
Under the contract, IFC is the
supplier of the Russian-made aircraft. It is to bankroll their construction by the VASO (Voronezh)
and Aviastar (Ulyanovsk) plants.
The planes are to be delivered
under the Russian government's
industrial exports support programme, with the government to
provide a $500 million worth of
guarantees to this end in 2006.
The guarantees are intended for
the banks providing long-term
credits to buyers of Russian products. Guarantees worth $325 million, including the interest, have
been provided for the 12-year loan
under the contract for the five
Russian planes for Cuba.
The basics of the deal were
agreed on in March this year during a meeting of IFC's Director
General Alexander Rubtsov and
Ilyushin's Director General Victor
Livanov, on the one hand, and
Cuban President Fidel Castro, on
the other, in the wake of Cuba's
acceptance of the second
Il-96-300 under last year's contract. The delivery of the first two
Il-96-300s kicked off the development of the Russian aircraft
export financing system established by IFC and the syndicate of
Roseximbank, Vnesheconombank
and Vneshtorgbank.
However, IFC is not about to
limit itself to the Cuban market
alone. On 8 April 2006, IFC's leaders, Zimbabwe's minister of transport and Zimbabwe's reserve bank
chief signed in Moscow a memorandum of intent of this African
country to buy five Il-96-400 longrange wide-body aircraft from IFC.
The memorandum covers technical and financial terms, including the timeframe of delivering
three Il-96-400T freighters and
two Il-96-400M airliners in 2008.
A firm order for the aircraft is to
have been issued until 1 July 2006
and fulfilled under the current governmental industrial exports support programme in a manner similar to the Cuban contracts.
The cargo and passenger versions of the Il-96-400 are a derivative of the Il-96-300 long-range
wide-body airliner. They feature
the fuselage stretched by 9 m,
Perm
Engine
Company's
enhanced-thrust reduced-noise
PS-90A1 engines and latest
Russian-made avionics ensuring
full-automatic control of the plane
by a crew of two throughout the
world in any weather.
However, this is not the end of
the story. Early in April, IFC and
Chinese cargo operator Silk Route
Cargo Airlines Company Ltd
signed a memorandum of understanding on two Ilyushin
Il-96-400T cargo aircraft with an
option for three more. A firm contract is to have been signed until
mid-2006. The planes are to be
delivered through the use of an
export credit scheme (15% as the
customer's advance payment,
85% as the syndicated credit from
Russian banks guaranteed by the
Russian and Chinese governments
in a manner similar to the Cuban
deal). The planes are planned for
delivery within 20 months after the
advance payment for each of them
is made.
Thus, over the past year, IFC
has penetrated the international
aircraft market. This became feasible due to launching the customer
export crediting guaranteed by the
Russian government. Cuba,
Zimbabwe and China could soon
be followed by other nations of
Latin America, Africa and the
Middle East, with whom proactive
negotiations have been under way.
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commercial aviation | modernisation
PS-90 GIVES IL-76
A NEW LIFE
Ilyushin Il-76 air transports started
to be fitted with new power plants
a year ago. At that time the first
Il-76TD-90VD
was
being
equipped with new PS-90A-76
engines under a contract with the
Volga-Dnepr Group in Tashkent,
and the modified D-30KP-3
Burlak engine was undergoing
bench tests in Rybinsk. The programme of retrofitting Il-76s with
new power plants has made
much progress over the past
year: the Il-76TD-90VD has
undergone most flight tests and
has recently been certified by the
Aviation Register of the Interstate
Aviation Committee with regards
to noise-abatement requirements;
Il-76TD-90s have been fitted with
PS-90A-76 engines under a contract with an Azerbaijani air carrier; and the flagship Il-76MD-90 in
service with the Russian Air Force
has been re-engined with
PS-90A-76 turbofans and submitted for flight tests in Voronezh.
Viktor Osipov tells our readers
about the progress, made in
retrofitting Il-76s with new power
plants in the past year.
Given tougher noise-abatement requirements in Europe and a number of other states
in the past few years, one of the major requirements facing airliners consists in complying
with ICAO noise-abatement standards. As is
known, the existing fleet of Il-76s, which are
the main type of transport jets in Russia and a
number of other states, has been powered by
D-30KP engines, designed in Perm and massproduced in Rybinsk, for over 30 years. At the
present time Russia operates almost 500 such
aircraft, and another 300 Il-76s are in service
with foreign states. However, Il-76s, powered
by D-30KP engines, can no longer operate in
a number of countries as they turned out to be
too noisy for Europe and fall short of ICAO
Chapter 4 26 EPNdB requirements effective
as of 1 January 2006. Retrofitting Il-76s with
new power plants is the only way for them to
continue flying in European skies. It takes a
power plant, comparable to the D-30KP as far
40
take-off may 2006
as efficiency characteristics are concerned,
and at the same time capable of meeting contemporary and future international environmental standards, to achieve the goal.
The PS-90A-76, developed by the Permbased Aviadvigatel Company, is one of the
power plants capable of replacing the
D-30KP. The engine is based on the
fourth-generation PS-90A turbofan, produced for Tu-204, Tu-214, and Il-96-300
airliners since 1989. Four PS-90A-76
engines had undergone flight tests on the
new Ilyushin Il-76MF military air transport since 1995. The Il-76MF, developed
under a contract with the Russian Air
Force, features an increased lifting capacity, but has not been fielded so far. It was
decided to mount similar power plants,
upgraded to meet tougher environmental
standards, on Il-76TD and Il-76MD transports, manufactured earlier.
The PS-90A-76 successfully completed
state bench tests in late 2003, and on
10 February 2004 its designers received the
State Bench Tests Report and a Supplement
Type Certificate, enjoyed by the PS-90A
since 3 April 1992. The documents enabled
the Perm Engine Company to launch the
new version of the PS-90A into mass production.
The contract on upgrading the fist two
Il-76TD-90VDs, awarded by Volga-Dnepr,
gave a powerful incentive to the programme
of retrofitting Il-76s with new power plants.
The first of the aircraft embarked on flight
tests on 5 August 2005.
The Il-76TD-90VD underwent acoustic
tests at the Gromov LII Flight Research
Institute in August–September 2005. The
results achieved demonstrated that the aircraft, fitted with the PS-90A-76 engines with
an integrated noise suppressing system, met
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commercial aviation | modernisation
memorandum of understanding signed on
16 August 2005, it is to procure eight
PS-90A-76 engines for two Il-76TD-90s,
being upgraded in Tashkent. The contract on
delivering the first four engines to the
Azerbaijani air carrier was signed in Baku on
29 July 2005. As of the present moment all of
them have already been transferred to the
Tashkent plant (the first two were shipped off
the aircraft to call at any international airport
without any limitations.
It is worth mentioning that the Perm
Engine Company has decided to move on
and continue refining the baseline PS-90A
and its versions with regards to noise level.
According to experts, the Il-76TD-90VD is
expected to have a noise-abatement margin
of 12 dB with respect to ICAO Chapter 4
requirements in the near future. At the same
time, Alexander Inozemtsev, Perm Engine
Company Director General/Aviadvigatel
Designer General, says that the most valuable
feature of the PS-90A-76 is that it may be
mounted on both new aircraft, and existing
Il-76s to be retrofitted with new power plants.
Silk Way Airlines, Azerbaijan's largest air
carrier, operating as part of the state-owned
Azerbaijan Airlines Consortium, has
expressed considerable interest in the power
plant, manufactured in Perm. Under the
last year, and the remaining two in January
2006) and are undergoing ground tests as
part of the power plant of the flagship
Azerbaijani Il-76TD-90. The aircraft is
expected to make its maiden flight in the
near future. PS-90A-76s for the second Silk
Way Airlines aircraft, which may make its
maiden flight by the turn of the year, are
being prepared for delivery.
At the moment the Perm Engine
Company develops an engine service maintenance programme, ensuring a failure-free
operation of engines. By the way, Azerbaijani
officials point out that a high level of service
maintenance, provided by the Perm Engine
Company, played a considerable role in
awarding the contract to the plant. "Many air
carriers want to procure western aircraft, first
and foremost, due to the well-established
maintenance network. Service maintenance,
offered by the Perm Engine Company, is
Viktor Drushlyakov
requirements of the AP-36 Aviation
Regulations and complied with ICAO
Chapter 4 Annex 16, with the noise-abatement margin amounting to over 7 dB. The
Ilyushin Company, the designer of the
Il-76TD-90VD, received the Interstate
Aviation Committee Aviation Register noiseabatement certificate for the Il-76TD-90VD
on 12 January 2006. The certificate enables
www.take-off.ru
comparable to that of Rolls Royce or Pratt &
Whitney," Silk Way Airlines CEO Zaur
Akhundov says.
In addition to meeting noise-abatement
requirements, substituting the PS-90A-76 for
the D-30KP cuts back the engine operational
costs 1.7-fold. An upgraded Il-76 features
totally new advantages, such as an increased
lifting capacity, a greater flight range, and a
higher fuel efficiency. For instance, according
to the GosNII GA State Civil Aviation
Research Institute, the fuel efficiency of the
Il-76TD-90, powered by PS-90A-76s,
amounts to 193 g/ton-km, as compared with
217 g/ton-km of the Il-76TD, fitted with
D-30KPs. In addition to that, the PS-90A-76
has unlimited maximum mean time between
failures and service life. Only separate parts,
replaced during overhauls, have limited cycle
service life. The mean time between failures
of the PS-90A-76, mounted on the Il-76, will
amount to 7,000–8,000 hours, thus, minimising air carriers' expenditures on backup
engines.
However, the PS-90A-76 will not be
employed in civil aviation only. The Russian
Defence Ministry has shown a special interest
in the engine. According to Russian Deputy
Prime Minister/Defence Minister Sergey
Ivanov, the Perm Engine Company will be
awarded a contract on manufacturing four
PS-90A-76 engines for Il-76MD-90 military
air transports in 2006. "The Perm Engine
Company's high production rates and vast
experience in refining and maintaining aircraft power plants ensure the future of the
Il-76 aircraft fleet," Russian Air Force
Commander-in-Chief General of the Army
Vladimir Mikhailov says. General Mikhailov
and Perm Engine Company Director
General Alexander Inozemtsev signed the
first PS-90A-76 acceptance report at the
MAKS 2005 air show on 18 August 2005. The
first upgraded Il-76MD-90 aircraft had been
submitted for flight tests in Voronezh by the
turn of the year. It made its 22-minute maiden flight in Voronezh on 27 December 2005.
Shortly afterwards General Mikhailov said
that the Russian Air Force intended to procure at least 12 upgraded Il-76MD-90s over
the following few years.
The upgraded D-30KP-3 Burlak engine,
developed by NPO Saturn, is the closest rival
of the PS-90A-76 in the Russian aircraft
market. However, it only exists as a prototype
and is now undergoing bench tests. It
remains to be seen how long the PS-90A-76
will remain the only option for retrofitting
the national Il-76 aircraft fleet. However, for
the time being the Perm Engine Company
has enabled Il-76s to fly throughout the
world freely, meeting the toughest contemporary environmental requirements.
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cosmonautics | in brief
New ISS crew to celebrate 45th anniversary
of Gagarin's spaceflight
42
take-off may 2006
Roskosmos
the Discovery space shuttle,
which will bring a new crew member, ESA astronaut Tomas Reiter.
The launch of Discovery is slated
for early June. Besides docking
with Discovery, Williams and
Vinogradov are to dock with and
unload two Russian Progress
cargo vehicles. Their scientific
programme
also
includes
43 experiments and four extravehicular missions (one in accordance with the Russian programme and three with the
American one).
During one such EV mission
Williams and Vinogradov will play
golf, which will be the first time
somebody played golf in outer
space. “We will try to send the
golf ball in outer space using an
in August 1997 – February 1998
and carrying out five extravehicular (EV) missions. Expedition
13 mission will last six months.
For Marcos Pontes this is the
first space flight. For Brazil it all
started back in 1998, when its
Space Agency signed a contract
with NASA on the ISS project.
Under this contract Brazil was
allowed to carry out scientific
research onboard the ISS, but in
return it undertook to develop
some equipment for the space station. Later that year Pontes took a
training course in the USA, and his
flight onboard one of the shuttles
was slated for 2004. As it turned
out later, Brazil didn't have enough
money to develop equipment for
the ISS, which raised concern over
Pontes's flight. Worse, the issue
was put on ice until at least 2008
Roskosmos
Roskosmos
The 13th ISS expedition and the
9th visiting expedition took off
from the 1st launch site of the
Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6.30
Moscow time on 30 March 2006.
In about nine minutes the booster
burned out and the spacecraft
entered the orbit. At that moment
several data transfer channels got
lost, which caused a certain
degree of uneasiness in the
Mission Control Centre. Although
there were no problems with radio
and TV signals, flight telemetry
data were unavailable because of
faulty ground control equipment.
Fortunately, some time later the
problems were solved. Docking
took place early on 1 April (see
photo).
To make room for the Soyuz
spacecraft, expedition 12 crew
Valery Tokarev and William
McArthur re-docked Soyuz TMA-7
on 20 March, moving it from the
Zarya module docking adapter to
the axial adapter of the Zvezda
service module, where the
Progress M-54 cargo vehicle had
been docked before. This was the
eighth re-docking procedure in
the history of the ISS. The
autonomous flight of Soyuz
TMA-7 lasted for 22 minutes, and
it flew as far as 35 metres away
from the ISS while moving from
one docking adapter to the other.
Expedition 13 crew comprised
Russian
cosmonaut
Pavel
Vinogradov and US astronaut
Jeffrey Williams. They were
accompanied by Brazil's first
astronaut Marcos Pontes, who
will return to earth in ten days
together with expedition 12 crew,
William McArthur and Valery
Tokarev. Among expedition
13 members only Jeffrey
Williams, 48, is familiar with the
ISS, since he participated in its
construction as a crew member of
Atlantis in May 2000. His Russian
counterpart, Pavel Vinogradov,
52, worked only at the Mir orbital
station, staying there for 197 days
after the Columbia accident. In the
long run Brazil opted for a paytrip. It signed a preliminary agreement with Russia in the autumn of
2005, which was converted into a
full-fledged contract during
Brazilian President Lula da Silva's
visit to Russia.
One of the main missions facing expedition 13 is docking with
ordinary golf club. I have never
played golf, but Jeffrey showed
me how to do it a couple of times
in near-zero-G conditions,” said
the Russian cosmonaut. He didn't
mention, though, that 'space golf'
was a promotion gimmick of the
Russian Space Agency and
Element 21, a Canadian producer
of golf equipment.
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Giants to tender for Clipper
Invitations to tender for the
construction of a new generation
space shuttle to replace Soyuz
spacecraft
were
officially
announced on 18 January 2006.
With all the applicants present,
the tender committee included
the invitations to tender in the
official protocol and sent them
to working groups for analysis.
By 3 February experts and officials were to announce the winner, whose bid suited the
Russian manned space navigation and the national budget best
of all and who would, therefore,
get the government order.
The mission was next to
impossible, given the list of participants in the tender, which
included leaders of the Russian
manned space navigation such
as Khrunichev State Research
and Production Space Centre,
co-designer of all Russian-made
orbital stations, NPO Molniya,
designer of the aircraft components of the Soviet Buran space
shuttle, and RKK Energia,
designer of Soyuz vehicles that
take cosmonauts to the ISS.
Actually, the Russian Space
Agency invited them for close
tender back in mid-November
2005 as soon as the Federal
space programme for years
2006–2015 had been launched.
Although they never openly
voiced their preparations for the
tender, their official bids came
as no surprise.
Re-entry vehicle by the
Khrunichev Centre. The decision
to take part in the tender was
voiced by then Director General
Alexander Medvedev back in
September 2005. Although
Khrunichev Centre hadn't shed
light on the issue since then, it
was obvious that nobody should
expect some revolutionary
breakthrough. Their idea was to
upgrade the existing VA re-entry
vehicle, a derivative of the TKS
space transport vehicle. This
project dates back to the 1970s,
when it was converted into an
www.take-off.ru
unmanned module of the Salyut-7
and Mir orbital stations, unable
to compete with Soyuz spacecraft. The current bid is a VA
upgraded version featuring
greater
dimensions
and
advanced onboard systems that
could be launched into the orbit
by a large LV, which can be
either Angara, designed by the
Centre, or Proton.
Molniya's MAKS. Similarly,
NPO Molniya's bid is a wellknown project called MAKS or
Multipurpose
Aerospace
System. The project was
launched in the early 1990s and
was headed by Gleb LozinoLozinsky, chief designer of the
Buran space shuttle. The only
disposable element of the vehicle design is the external fuel
tank – MAKS is launched from
the mother aircraft, the Antonov
An-225 Mriya, their operating
life amounting to 100 space
flights and 800 launches
respectively. According to the
designers, if the project is
revived, it will not only allow to
continue with spaceflights, but
also make it commercially profitable. The overall cost of the
project is $3.5bn, but the actual
cost will drop to US $1.7bn,
given that a lot of work has
already carried out and there are
only some adjustments necessary. But no matter how technically sophisticated or economically attractive the project is, it
has a huge 'political' drawback.
Would any compos mentis person in Russia risk using the
Ukrainian mother aircraft to
launch Russian shuttles? And
what would make anybody think
better of it is the fact that only
one An-225 has been produced
so far and it happened nearly 18
years ago.
Energia's Clipper. Unlike its
rivals, Clipper, designed by
RKK Energia, is known not only
to experts. It enjoys greater
public attention and has the full
backing of the Russian Space
Agency or Roskosmos. In their
promotion campaign since
September 2004 Clipper designers have tried to convince the
public that their spacecraft is a
combination of the best features
the disposable Soyuz and the
Buran space shuttle could offer.
Furthermore, unlike Soyuz,
Clipper can take six people
onboard, can manoeuvre during
landing and can participate in
the future expedition to Mars.
According to Energia estimates,
Clipper will cost some $1bn,
which is nothing compared with
world prices (for instance,
upgrade of the Space Shuttle
programme after the Columbia
crash cost NASA roughly the
same).
No matter how cheap Clipper
might be, there's no such
money in Russia. That is why
the Russian Space Agency leant
over backwards last year trying
to find foreign investors: head
of the agency Anatoly Perminov
and Energia President Nikolay
Sevastyanov personally campaigned to highlight technological and economic advantages of
Clipper, while the models and
mock-ups of the shuttle moved
from one international exhibition to another. So far it was to
no avail. Roskosmos hoped to
get 51m euros from the ministers of the ESA member-nations
within two years to carry out
research on the project but they
said no.
Noteworthy is the fact that the
Russian Space Agency managed
to get a third of the necessary
sum from the government for
Energia's project – 10bn rubles
(some $350m) for a period of
10 years, that is why R&D activities on the space shuttle in the
Federal space programme are
codenamed 'Clipper'. Obviously,
Roskosmos announced the tender only because a state order
cannot be placed without a tender, according to the Russian
legislation. It looked, therefore,
that on the face of it one didn't
have to be a prophet to say who
will win the tender before it was
officially over.
Well, 3 February came and
went, but no winner has been
announced yet. The Rusian
Space Agency has extended the
terms of the competition,
because the documentation that
had been submitted was not
enough to choose the winner.
“The tender committee has
come to a conclusion that none
of the bids satisfies the requirements of the tender as regards
safety and technical and economic feasibility of the project
within the set terms,” said the
Press Service of the Russian
Space Agency. Headed by the
agency deputy head Viktor
Remishevsky, experts asked the
participants to render additional
feasibility evaluation of the
technological design solutions.
The final results of the tender
are believed to be officially
announced no sooner than this
summer.
Major requirements placed by
the Roskosmos are as follows:
the new generation shuttle
should be able to take a crew of
six people, deliver to and return
from the orbit at least 500 kg of
cargo with the crew at full
strength, be at least 80%
reusable, and perform at least
20 flights. Nikolay Moiseyev,
deputy head of Roskosmos,
noted that “important also is the
time of self-contained operation
of the shuttle.” “We think that
this time should be at least one
month. In the future the shuttle
should be able to reach the
moon and come back,” said
Moiseyev. According to the
Russian Space Agency, the
shuttle is to be built by 2013.
Development of Clipper will cost
the agency about 11.5bn rubles
(some $400m), while another
5bn rubles (roughly $180m)
should come as extrabudgetary
resources.
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President, Defence minister to give boost to GLONASS
Andrey Fomin
The Russian Space Agency
(Roskosmos) and the Defence
Ministry are speeding up the renovation of the orbital component
of
the
GLONASS
Global
Navigation Satellite System. If the
government appropriates funding
in due time, the national SATNAV
system may become operable by
2008, which is later than had been
planned in the early 2000s on the
one hand, but sooner than one
could hope for, given poor financing on the other.
Trial performance of GLONASS
began in 1993, and two years later
it was fully operable. With eight
satellites in each of the three
orbital planes flying circular
orbits, the system was able to
provide Russian users such as
vehicles, aircraft and ships with
continuous position finding and
other navigation parameters.
However, due to poor financing in
the late 90s the system started to
shrink, and in 2001 there were
only seven satellites in orbit.
Willing to remedy the situation,
the government adopted in 2001
the federal target programme for
the period 2002–2011 called 'The
Global Navigation System', aiming
to restore and upgrade GLONASS.
The programme, however, could
not solve the problem of financ-
44
take-off may 2006
ing; for instance, in 2002–04
GLONASS received only 72.5 per
cent of the earmarked amount; in
2005 as few as 2.552bn rubles
($90m) were allocated instead of
2.896bn rubles (about $100m).
As a result, modernisation ran
behind schedule. According to the
federal
target
programme,
GLONASS was to have had a minimum of 18 satellites in orbit in
2005, whereas their actual number amounted to only 14. Even the
launch of three satellites on
25 December last year gave only a
slight improvement in the system's efficiency. Given that a
number of satellites are beyond
their active operation limits,
experts say no more than
15 satellites will remain operational in 2006. With such rate of
renovation the system's 24 satellites will be upgraded no sooner
than 2010, while the target programme set the deadline for 2008.
Mind you, that modernisation of
GLONASS' rival, GPS, is in full
swing in the USA, and the EU has
started testing satellites for its
future Gallileo navigation system.
Roskosmos and producer of
Glonass satellites Reshetnev NPO
PM Scientific And Production
Association of Applied Mechanics
located
in
Zheleznogorsk,
Krasnoyarsk Area, have repeatedly expressed concerns about poor
financing. If the programme is
underfinanced, argue the experts,
the country will not be able to efficiently defend itself, for one thing,
and, for the other, the deficient
navigation system, as we have in
Russia, will never be able to compete with GPS in either the international or the domestic market.
Their concerns were in vain until
the president came to know about
it. Advocating the national
SATNAV system in the international market, President Putin signed
in early December last year a
Russian-Indian agreement on the
development, operation and uses
of GLONASS for peaceful purposes. This made him take a closer
look at the problems faced by
GLONASS. After a while, the government was tasked with stepping
up the renovation to have an operable system earlier than 2008.
Formally, the issue was settled
during Putin's meeting with the
ministers on 26 December 2005.
Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov
was just speaking about the
launch of three Glonass satellites
when the president interrupted
him and ordered that the system
should be upgraded as soon as
possible. “You should hurry up
because the system is much
needed,” said Putin, adding that
some companies and even
regions were already signing contracts with GPS. Roskosmos and
Defence Ministry were fast to
respond, and on 15 January they
had a number of proposals on
how to improve the system ahead
of schedule. During his meeting
with the president on 18 January,
Ivanov said that it was possible to
speed up the process and that it
would not require a lot of money:
as much as 1.5bn rubles (a bit
more than $50m) in 2006 would
be enough to catch up with the
schedule.
Despite the triumphant rhetoric, having 24 operational satellites in orbit by 2008 seems very
much unrealistic. Even with due
financing, in 2006 NPO PM will
build four Glonass-M satellites
with active operational life of
seven years (three will be
launched), and another five
upgraded satellites will be produced in 2007 (six will be
launched). Therefore, given the
present condition of the system,
only 18 satellites will be orbited
by 2008. But even such minimum
required number of satellites can
ensure continuous positioning.
Defence Minister Ivanov, touring the Siberian Federal District,
visited NPO PM on 21 March and
was briefed on the progress of the
GLONASS programme. After his
meeting with the company's management, Ivanov said that
GLONASS would offer its services
to Russian customers, both military and civilian, in late 2007,
while in 2009 it would approach
the international market. NPO PM
Deputy Designer General Vladimir
Bartenev added that the schedule
had been shifted a couple of days
before Ivanov's visit. In particular,
the new Glonass-K satellite, which
is more lightweight, boasts better
performance and has a guaranteed service life in orbit of
10–12 years, will be tested in
2008 rather than in 2010.
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The ISS astronauts placed an
unusual satellite into Earth's
orbit in February this year.
SuitSat is actually an old Orlan-M
space suit full of special radio
equipment. Hundreds of radio
fans across the globe were able
to receive its signals.
The Orlan-M-14 suit was delivered to the ISS on 16 September
2001. The ISS-4 crew commander Yuri Onufrienko was the first to
try it on for extravehicular missions on 14 and 25 January
2002. Later that year on 16 and
26 August Russian astronaut
Valery Korzun, a member of the
ISS-5 mission, used it for EV
missions, too. The fifth, and the
last time the suit was used was
only six months later, when the
ISS-8
mission
commander
Michael Foale carried out an
extravehicular
mission
on
27 February 2004. The suit was
clocked a total of 20 h 45 min in
outer space. Although the suit
had been designed for 12 spacewalks and could be used several
times more, its shelf life expired
in August 2004 and it was to be
scrapped.
When spaceflights were carried out by means of Salyut
spaceships, cosmonauts used
to leave suits in the space vehicle and these would burn
together with the vehicle during
the atmospheric entry. The destiny of space suits didn't
change much with the appearance of orbital stations Mir and
ISS: this time they would burn
together with Progress cargo
spacecraft. Actually, there was
a possibility to avoid incineration by bringing them back with
the help of American space
shuttles and even earn some
money at auctions, where they
were pretty popular. But after
the February 2003 tragedy of
Columbia this option was out of
the
question
for
the
Orlan-M-14. Nevertheless, a
brilliant plan of scrapping it in a
most useful way was developed.
www.take-off.ru
NASA
A space suit or a satellite?
RKK Energia Corp. designers
and students of Bauman Moscow
State Technical University and
Moscow Aviation Institute suggested that the suit should be
used as a satellite. Both the
Russian Space Agency and NASA
favoured the idea, and the ball
started rolling in mid-2004. A
year later, in September 2005,
Progress delivered equipment for
the future satellite to the ISS,
whose crew, Valery Tokarev and
William McArthur, got down to
the assembly. The astronauts
filled the old suit with batteries
and equipment that could send
radio (145.99FM) and video signals (in SSTV format). The satellite was named RadioSkaf in
Russian and SuitSat in English.
But RKK Energia gave it another
name Ivan Ivanovich. It had been
a tradition to give such names to
the mock-ups of cosmonauts that
'manned' Vostok spaceships for
test purposes before Yury Gagarin
flew into space.
During an extravehicular mission on 4 February 2006 Valery
Tokarev and William McArthur
switched on the equipment and
pushed SuitSat away from the
ISS. Many experts in space
industry agreed that the view of
the 'astronaut' drifting away from
the ISS was an astronaut's worst
nightmare. Tokarev, however,
didn't seem horrified at all when
he softly said good-bye to Ivan
Ivanovich.
After a while, still working in
outer space, the astronauts wondered if there was a contact with
SuitSat. The Mission Control
Centre said that there was.
Although the signal was not as
strong as planned, more than a
hundred radio fans in Japan,
Russia, Great Britain, Spain,
France and the USA received it
during the first several days.
SuitSat sent pre-recorded messages in five languages and different images.
Despite killjoy estimates of
some experts, SuitSat managed
to stay in orbit for more than 10
days. Of course, the suit will burn
in the atmosphere following some
weeks of free flight, but as the
project technical director Sergey
Samburov said in mid-February,
the experiment was a success,
especially in terms of attracting
public attention to space technology. For instance, SuitSat was a
unique training aid for students of
Russian technical educational
establishments. If the Russian
Space Agency backs the idea, old
space suits can continue their
service as satellites. “The year
2007 will see three space-related
anniversaries – 100 years since
Sergey Korolev was born,
150 years since Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky's birthday, and
50 years since Sputnik 1 was
launched into outer space. It
would be symbolic to time the
launch of another SuitSat to coincide with these remarkable
dates,” said Samburov.
As of mid-February, Ivan
Ivanovich was still in orbit, but its
signal was getting weaker. Radio
fan Bob King was the last one to
receive signals from SuitSat,
which happened on 18 February.
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cosmonautics | project
Alexander Velovich
RIDING MiG TO ORBIT
Andrey FOMIN,
Igor AFANASYEV
A novelty unveiled by Kazakhstan's Kazcosmos company at the Asian Aerospace
2006 show in Singapore late in February was a project of the Ishim air-launched
space rocket system designed to quickly orbit small spacecraft by means of a LV
launched from the Mikoyan MiG-31I aircraft. The Ishim is a joint Russian-Kazakh
programme (the Ishim is a river flowing in both countries) pursued by Kazcosmos
in cooperation with Russia's RSK MiG Corp. and MIT Moscow-based Institute of
Heat Technology.
Kazakh initiative
On 22 August 2003, the Kazakh media
reported a routine trip of Premier Danial
Akhmetov to the Aktyubinsk region.
According to Kazinform, Akhmetov paid a
visit to the Sary Shagan proving ground on
the western bank of Lake Balkhash and the
town of Priozersk. Kazinform reported that
Danial Akhmetov also visited “the hangar of
the MiG-31 planes” situated at the proving
ground. Since the early 1990s, the hangar has
been housing the two mothballed MiG-31D
prototype aircraft designed to turn into a formidable weapon system but proving not
needed in the wake of the change in the international situation and the collapse of the
Soviet Union. A decision has been taken to
use the aircraft for peaceful purposes. Kazakh
and Russian scientists and designers suggested the planes be easily converted for air
launch of an advanced LV able to orbit smallsize communications, weather, remote
sounding and cell phone repay satellites.
For this purpose, Kazakhstan has both the
aircraft and a most sophisticated proving
ground in the world, featuring complex
telemetry, tracking and spacecraft control
infrastructure. Conversion of the MiG-31Ds
to MiG-31I standard (I standing for Ishim) is
to be handled by the aircraft's developer, MiG
Corp. The Institute of Heat Technology
46
take-off may 2006
(MIT) is to develop the LV. The institute is
known for its top-notch Topol-M and Bulava
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).
The news of Kazakhstan and Russia's
intent on developing the Ishim system was
unveiled soon after Kazakh Premier Danial
Akhmetov met MIT's Director General Yury
Solomonov on 23 March 2005. During the
meeting, it was stated that Kazakhstan and
Russia have all they need to develop the
Ishim system – carrier aircraft and airfields.
Yury Solomonov stressed MIT could quickly
develop and make the new solid-propellant
launch vehicle, which will “guarantee its
operating safety and allow the booster to do
without toxic fuel components”.
The Kazakh government issued resolution
No 989 specifying the programme 'Space
Exploration in the Republic of Kazakhstan
for 2005–07' pursued inline with presidential
decree No 1513 dated 25 January 2005.
Chapter 2 of the programme was beefed up
with Paragraph 2: “The Ishim air-launched
space rocket system shall be derived from the
MiG-31D aircraft.” The cost of deriving the
Ishim was set at 18.4 billion tenge (about
$144 million) for 2005–07. The Kazakh
prime minister tasked all those concerned,
including national oil and gas producer
Kazmunaigaz, to ensure timely financing of
the programme.
Carrier
Having entered service exactly 25 years
ago, on 6 May 1981, the MiG-31 supersonic interceptor spawned off several upgrades
and dedicated derivatives, one of which is
the MiG-31D as part of the Contact preorbit air-launched rocket system from the
Almaz design bureau (now the NPO Almaz
Research And Production Association
named after A.A. Raspletin). In 1983,
Mikoyan's technical proposal on such an
aircraft was approved, with the government's resolution released on 27 November
1984 giving the green light to the programme. The preliminary design of the
MiG-31D was approved by the customer in
1985. Technical records for making prototypes were completed and handed over to
the aircraft plant in the city of Gorky (now
Nizhny Novgorod) in the same year.
The MiG-31D was developed in response
to US programme ASAT, under which an
F-15 derivative was to launch two-stage
solid-propellant missiles to take out spacecraft in orbit. The MiG-31D was derived
from the production MiG-31 and embodied
some of the innovations featured by the
MiG-31M upgrade. To enable the aircraft
with a large rocket under its belly to maintain its directional stability, its wingtips were
fitted with large triangular winglets. The
first prototype (side number 071) was built
in late 1986 and flight-tested by Mikoyan's
test pilot Aviard Fastovets and test navigator
Leonid Popov on 17 January 1987. The second prototype (side number 072) was completed a year later and flight-tested by
Anatoly Kvochur and Leonid Popov on 28
April 1988.
www.take-off.ru
46-47_Ishim_engl.qxd
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Page 47
cosmonautics | project
Ishim small-size launch vehicle general layout
1 – rear section with foldable
grid-type empennage
2 – first stage
3 – second stage
4 – third stage engine
5 – jettisonable parts of the third
stage body
6 – booster and payload adapter
7 – payload
8 – payload nose cover
5
8
6
7
4
3
PROGRAMME
The development testing stage had been
over by the early 1990s, and both aircraft
were redeployed for further tests to the Sary
Shagan proving ground on the west bank of
Lake Balkhash (Kazakhstan) where all
advanced air-defence and missile-defence
missile systems had been tested. However,
the trials remained incomplete due to the
collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991,
with the MiG-31Ds inherited by the newlyindependent republic of Kazakhstan. The
planes had been mothballed in an airfield
hangar at Sary Shagan for over a decade
until they proved to be needed again under
the purely commercial Ishim programme.
Mention should be made that the Ishim
programme is not the only attempt at converting the MiG-31 for orbiting commercial
payloads. As far back as 1998, Mikoyan proposed to use the MiG-31 interceptor for
deriving the MiG-31S capable of launching
a LV from an altitude of about 17,000 m at a
speed of 3,000 km/h. The LV then was to
loft 40–200kg commercial spacecraft in
orbit. The first experimental launch was
slated for as early as 1999–2000.
About the same time, a group of scientists
with the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI)
suggested the use of the MiG-31S for
launching the two- or three-stage Micron
LV powered by hybrid rocket motors and
able to orbit small satellites weighing up to
200 kg. Another MAI proposal provided for
using the MiG-31S as a carrier of a versatile
multipurpose rocket plane for suborbital
research missions. The rocket plane was designated as ARS (Aerospace Rally System).
Another way of commercial use of the
MiG-31 was proposed by EADS. At the
www.take-off.ru
2
5
KazKosmos
ISHIM
1
MAKS 2003 air show, RSK MiG Corp. and
EADS signed a memorandum of understanding on 22 August 2003 to derive a suborbital aircraft from the MiG-31. “An
Arabic investor” was supposed to be
involved in the project. The joint MiGEADS programme dubbed MiG-bas was
intended for bringing up to 12 space tourists
on suborbital flights. The tourists were to be
seated in a special capsule carried by a
MiG-31.
However, whatever advantage were promised by each of the projects, none was destined to come true. Neither MiG Corp. nor
MAI – not even EADS – could find
investors. It looks like only the joining of
Kazakhstan interested in developing its
space industry to the space-oriented
MiG-31 programme made the latter to get
out its hibernation again.
What can Ishim do?
According to the information released by
Kazcosmos in Singapore in this February,
the Ishim system comprises two MiG-31I
platforms, an underbelly three-stage launch
vehicle and an airborne command post
derived from Ilyushin Il-76MD transport.
The takeoff weight of a MiG-31I carrier
with a LV booster on board is to be 50 t and
the range to the launch point 600 km. The
launch is to take place at an altitude
between 15,000 m to 18,000 m at the carrier aircraft's speed of 2,120–2,230 km/h.
All of the stages of the three-stage LV
under development by MIT include solidstate non-toxic rocket motors. The LV
weighs 10,300 kg and measures 10.76 m in
length and 1.34 m in diameter. Its rear end
features lattice-type control surfaces. The
payload bay under the nose shroud is 1.4 m
in length and 0.94 m in diameter.
The missile blasting off from a MiG-31I
is to insert 160kg spacecraft into circular
46deg. 300km orbit or 120km spacecraft
into 600km orbit. The orbital parameters
can vary widely, including elliptical, heliosynchronous, equatorial, polar, 115-deg.inclided and other orbits.
The Ishim system can be operated from
an airfield in Kazakhstan and from Class 1
airfields in the country of the customer.
According to Kazcosmos's spokesman, the
Ishim can orbit a spacecraft within only
20 days after a request is received and an
advance payment is made, which enables
the customer to beef up its satellite constellation quickly in case of its disruption.
According to MIT, the work on the
launch vehicle for the Ishim system are on
schedule, with the rockets to be ready for
trials as early as 2007. By then, RSK MiG
Corp. is to have converted its MiG-31Ds to
MiG-31I standard. Thus, the Ishim will be
able to start lobbing microsatellites in orbit
very soon.
A number of UK, Israeli and Italian companies have shown their interest in the programme. Talks are underway between the
Kazakh government and foreign companies
interested in effective and inexpensive space
exploration and specialising in inserting
small commercial satellites into low orbit.
In addition, the Ishim is slated to orbit two
remote-sensing spacecraft and six oil-andgas infrastructure monitoring satellites in
the near future in support of the Kazakh
government financing the programme.
take-off may 2006
47
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Page 48
airshows | in brief
Katsuhico Tokunaga
The interagency government working
group is preparing project documents to
carry out large scale reconstruction of
the MAKS Moscow Aerospace Show
site at the Gromov Flight Research
Institute (LII) airfield in Zhukovsky, near
Moscow. The work was initiated in 2005
by a report of Sergey Chemezov,
Director General of Rosoboronexport
State Corporation, to the Russian
President Vladimir Putin. By the order of
the Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov a
working group was established of representatives of all involved government
ministries and agencies as well as LII
and Aviasalon JSC. The group is chaired
by Deputy Director of Federal Service
for Military Technical Cooperation
Vladimir Paleshchuk.
During the recent Engines 2006 exhibition held in Moscow in April the
Aviasalon JSC staff told journalists
48
take-off may 2006
about the ambitious plans for MAKS
reconstruction (see photo above showing Aviasalon JSC new staff at Engines
2006 news conference, from left to
right: Chief Advisor to Avisalon JSC
Director General Yury Nagaev, first
Deputy Director General Vassily
Akhrameyev, Financial Director Anton
Zdunkevich, Deputy Director General
Nikolay Zanegin).
According to Yury Nagaev, Chief
Advisor to Avisalon JSC Director
General, the first phase of reconstruction will include building of a new pavilion of 6,000 sq.m, and this will have
been completed in time for the next edition of the show in 2007. The first phase
will be financed by Aviasalon, the MAKS
executive organising company, and the
investment is estimated at 80–100 million roubles ($2.9–3.6 million). Further
and much more ambitious phases intro-
Andrey Fomin
Ambitious reconstruction plans for MAKS venue
ducing profound developments in the
venue infrastructure are intended to be
financed through invited investors and
government support.
Nagaev says that after MAKS-2007
half of the existing metal arch-type shelter pavilions will be knocked down,
clearing the way for the second phase of
reconstruction programme. This will
concentrate on building a new 30,000
sq.m exhibition hall and new entrance to
the show site on the south-east edge of
the airfield. This new building will have
all the facilities needed for a modern
international exhibition venue, including
press conference rooms, a new press
centre etc. The new hall will have been
completed in time for MAKS-2009, after
which the third phase of reconstruction
is planned to begin with knocking down
the remaining arch-type metal shelter
pavilions. Nagaev says that when these
were built in 1992, nobody could imagine that they would last that long.
In the third phase yet another hall of
20,000 sq.m is to built, and that one will
be suitable for all-year-round exhibition
activities. It will be surrounded by warm
chalets also usable in winter, unlike the
ones existing now. The new hall is
intended to house a permanent exhibition of weapons systems offered to foreign customers by Rosoboronexport.
The Russian arms sales corporation is
keen to have a demonstration site for
visiting high-ranking foreign delegations, and considers Zhukovsky a
preferable location for this purpose. The
new hall will have capacity for demonstrating indoor exhibits up to 12 m high,
that means large radars and missile systems.
The mobility demonstration range for
wheeled and track vehicles will be built
during the third phase comparable to
that existing in Abu Dhabi, but larger.
That would include a water basin of
0.75 hectare (1.85 acres) area with
depth up to 5 m for demonstration of
floating vehicles and fording qualities. A
firing range for firearms up to high caliber machine guns will be built at the airfield, and a berth for river vessels will be
arranged on the Moskva river flowing
right along the southern border of the
airfield. The third phase is to be completed by 2011.
Traffic jams, much complained about
and considered to be one of the worst
problems of MAKS, will have to be
resolved by a new road leading to the
south-east edge of the airfield where the
new main entrance to the site is
planned. There are two variants of the
new road under consideration, one
along the existing road to Ramenskoye,
but bypassing the city of Zhukovsky,
and another being a more radical one
that would connect Novo-Ryazanskoye
highway with the show site via a new
bridge across the Moskva river. Nagaev
says that the road construction plan is
included in the overall development programme of both the Moscow region and
the City of Zhukovsky administrations.
Naturally, new parking sites will be
arranged near the new entrance to the
site sufficient for the number of vehicles
flooding Zhukovsky during the public
days of the MAKS show.
The reconstruction programme is
planned to be endorsed by a presidential
decree which must be ready for approval
by the end of 2006. The subsequent
order of the Russian government would
provide government financial support
for the plan. Nagaev says that in any
case Rosoboronexport state corporation
intends to invest in the reconstruction
project simply because it was initiated by
that arms sales agency, and so far both
Rosoboronexport and the Federal
Service for Military Technical CoOperation show strong commitment.
www.take-off.ru

00_COVER VZLET 16_engl - Take

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