IL-96-400 - the last breath of the Russian aircraft industry

Victoria Pavlova

The long-haul Il-96-400 was supposed to replace the outdated Il-96-300, which made its first flight in 1988, and has been serially produced since 1993 (Aeroflot refused from operation back in 2014). Actually, it was not supposed to be a completely new development, but the modernization of the Il-96-300 with an elongated fuselage, new navigation equipment and other modifications. The fate of the ball is not easy. The start of work in 2016 was lobbied by Dmitry Rogozin, who was then Deputy Prime Minister. But already in 2019, a shadow of doubt appeared about the success of the project: the plane being developed by the United Aircraft Corporation has risen in price by about 20% (the final price reached almost 8.5 billion rubles).

Previously, the plane was estimated at 7 billion, which corresponded to the allocation of the State Transport Leasing Company (GTLK) 14 billion for the purchase of the first two aircraft. The budgetary financing of STLC was supposed to provide preferential lease rates that would compensate for the low fuel efficiency of the aircraft. It was known at the design stage that the Il-96-400 would lag behind competitors produced by Boeing and Airbus. And the price of 131 million dollars (8.5 billion rubles at the rate of 2019) made the plane completely uncompetitive. And 330-200 then cost 120 million dollars, Airbus 330-800 neo at 130 million dollars, Airbus 330-300 - 132 million dollars.

Now, Yuri Borisov acknowledged the fact that there was no demand with such conditions - no orders from the airlines were received. Only 2 aircraft will be built for the Rossiya special flight detachment, which also serves the president and is now the only operator of the Il-96-300. This is where the development of long-haul aviation stops.

But there is also the medium-haul MS-21, which is just about a little longer and should go into production. It was supposed to be an aircraft that is practically independent of imports. After we had to change the manufacturer of composite wings to a domestic one, it seemed that there were no problems left. However, the other day, Yuri Borisov said that serial production is again postponed for a year - until 2022. Because of the sanctions. And it has yet to be replaced with domestic counterparts about 40% of imported on-board equipment. Whether it will be possible to do this in a year is unknown. But in any case, the MS-21 will face a shortage of demand in the same way. Novye Izvestia wrote about this in a study of the prospects for domestic aviation. Even the started production can be limited to a small batch, which will not bring the project to payback.

With regional transportation, everything is not easy either. The existing SSJ-100 has about 70% of the components imported. And in modern conditions it has no prospects. And they have been talking about modernization and import substitution since 2017. But only in the fall of last year, the UAC, under the leadership of Anatoly Serdyukov, announced the order of the amount that would be required to transfer the aircraft to domestic equipment - 120-130 billion rubles. And a significant part of this money should be provided by the state. The timing of the release of the new version is not named. In the meantime, airlines will receive previously built aircraft that have accumulated unclaimed from the manufacturer - the Irkut company.

In the field of regional transportation, the IL-114 is to appear soon. Perhaps this turboprop aircraft has the most transparent future. STLC already has a plan for the delivery of Il-114 to the Far Eastern airline Aurora, over which Aeroflot and Rostec argued last year - no one wants such a burden. In addition, the military is interested in this aircraft - it can stay in the air for up to 8 hours and is suitable for reconnaissance purposes. But again, this is not a new development. The plane made its first flight back in 1990. Of course, recently it underwent a major modernization with the replacement of engines, propellers and other things. But it cannot be called new.

As conceived by the creators, it was supposed to replace the An-24. But in practice this is not possible. The Il-114 is simply not suited for operation on unpaved runways. And at the Siberian airfields there are still about 100 of them. And instead of the decommissioned An-24s, we have to buy Czech L-410s, which are not capable of covering 800-1000 km routes without an intermediate landing.

The promising Il-112 transport aircraft, which made its second flight at the end of March, should be able to take off from unpaved strips. When the concept of the aircraft was developed in the middle of the 2000s, a passenger version for 44 people was also envisaged. But in the end, the development is carried out exclusively on the cargo version, the main customer of which will be the Ministry of Defense.

So it turns out that the whole mountain of domestic civil aviation gave birth to a mouse - Il-114. This state of affairs was continued in the reorganization of the United Aircraft Corporation, which is part of Rostec. Sergey Chemezov, who holds a leading position in both the UAC and Rostec, approved the liquidation of independent aircraft manufacturing companies. Sukhoi and MiG will become part of the UAC aircraft building center, while Tupolev, Ilyushin and Irkut will run this center as a management company. The merger of Sukhoi and MiG alone should save 130 billion rubles. It seems that a course has been officially taken to squeeze the domestic aviation industry.