Andrew Doyle/MOSCOW
Boeing has signed a contract with the Ilyushin design bureau to bring up to 35 Russian engineers into the design team working on a passenger-to-freighter conversion for the Boeing 767.
The Ilyushin employees will work on the project at the Boeing Design Centre (BDC) in Moscow, linked electronically to the CATIA design software being used by the US company's engineers in Seattle and Wichita in the USA.
"Our Russian colleagues have profound experience in the re-design of the Ilyushin Il-96M passenger aircraft into the Il-96T cargo version," says Boeing director of international co-operation programmes - engineering, Sergey Kravchenko. "This experience will help modify the 767 into a cargo aircraft," he adds.
Boeing already manufactures new-build cargo versions of the 757 and 767, but plans to launch passenger-to-freight conversions for in-service aircraft.
The Russian engineering team at BDC already designs tooling and ground support equipment for Boeing airliners and has worked on a redesign of parts of the 777 interior. A total of 60 Russian engineers will be working at BDC by the end of this year.
Source: Flight International
