THE HEAD OF THE CIS aero-engine manufacturers' association (ASSAD) has hit out at Western and Russian firms which, he claims, are plotting against the Aviadvigatel/Perm Motors PS-90A turbofan.
Victor Chuiko, president of ASSAD, failed to show up at the conference for unspecified reasons, but his presentation was included in the proceedings.
"The clamour about the reliability and life of the PS-90A is a political campaign aimed at discrediting and ruining the Russian aviation-engine industry and clearing the way to implant foreign engines, and consequently, foreign aircraft on Russia's internal air routes," he says.
Unnamed Russian officials were accused of not doing anything to prevent the crisis at Perm, where only two PS-90As were produced in 1994.
Separately, Perm claims that lack of funding is jeopardising major improvements in the lack-lustre performance of its PS-90A.
Perm and design bureau Aviadvigatel are struggling to improve the performance of the engine, in the face of what they see as mounting criticism and a critical lack of state funding.
A three-year programme has been established under the auspices of the Russian Transport Ministry to rectify the performance of the engine. "We have to double the certificated service life and increase the mean time between failure [MTBF] by a factor of three," says Aviadvigatel.
Engine reliability should be improved by the end of this year says Alexander Inozentsev, deputy general designer at Aviadvigatel.
The design bureau says that the level of funding received since 1992 has been only one-third of that required to carry out the engine improvements. Inozentsev warns the Russian Government that, unless funding levels are raised, "the problems will not be resolved".
Perm and Aviadvigatel staunchly defend the performance of the PS-90A, rejecting criticism of its initial in-service record. They claim that the fuel consumption is in fact only 3.5% higher than that of the PW-2000, produced by their prospective partner Pratt & Whitney, as against the 8% figure previously released by the US engine manufacturer.
The Russian companies claim that much of the data on the PS-90A is misleading, because early-production engines have been fitted to aircraft after being in storage for up to three years. Perm produced 45 of the engines in 1992, but that dwindled to 20 in 1993 and collapsed to two, last year.
Perm says that earlier-model engines failed to include many of the design improvements of the current engine.
Despite certification of the PS-90A at only 2,500h MTBF, technical director Ivan Bashkatov says that, over the last 15 months, the engine has been performing in service with Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines without failures, although some sources suggest that dismantling have continued to take place.
Bashkatov claims that the Russian certification procedures mean that life-cycle times are only established on the basis of in-service performance. This can take up to six years to establish, adds Aviadvigatel.
Bitterness of the fate of the CIS aerospace industry, is also expressed by Antonov general designer Piotr Balabuyev, who says, that cooperation with the West, is "ruining our industry". State interests are "instantly being overwhelmed by the interests of foreign companies", he says.
Source: Flight International
