Russia is to restructure its aeroengine manufacturing industry in a bid to support a dramatic increase in civil and military aircraft production in the period to 2025.
The plan is to merge engine makers into four groups - based in Moscow, St Petersburg, Samara and Perm - to increase output and correct what president Vladimir Putin called a "deplorable" quality standard.
Spelling out his "gas turbine strategy for 2015-25", Putin told Russian government officials that annual sales by a fragmented industry of 40 major companies including seven OEMs were 15 times below General Electric's, with slumping profitability. He added: "The most deplorable situation is with civilian engines, whose production versions are behind the world's best in every major parameter, such as service life, fuel consumption, noise and other ecology."
During the same period, United Aircraft (OAK), the recently formed and state-dominated grouping of airframers based around Sukhoi, Tupolev and Ilyushin, plans to boost annual output from a very low base today to around 300 airliners, 100 freighters or transports and 100 combat aircraft.
According to Russian deputy chairman Sergei Ivanov, the four engine groupings should be formed by the end of this year. The Moscow group - to be called Scientific Industrial Centre for Gas Turbines (SALUT) - will include Omsk-based Baranov. The St Petersburg group will be built around Klimov and include the Chernyshev and Krasny Oktyabr (Red October) factories. The Samara group includes Kuznetsov and Metallist-Samara and a few plants in Kazan.
The Perm merger will be more difficult to achieve owing to extensive private holdings. It is to include Perm Motor Complex, NPO Saturn and UMPO.
Meanwhile, OAK president Aleksei Fiodorov, speaking on the eve of the Moscow MAKS air show, says key projects would include the four-engined Il-476 (to replace the Il-76), Il-214/MTA twinjet, Il-112 turboprop. In the longer term, he says, OAK's top priority is the MS-21 narrowbody twinjet, which is being developed with Airbus support and using Superjet technology, to replace the Tupolev Tu-154.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
