Is there a future for the aircraft industry of Ukraine?

The author would like this article to raise a discussion among professionals in Ukrainian society about the real state and future of the remains of this unique high-tech industry, which is still in Ukraine.
The aircraft manufacturing industry of Ukraine developed to the 2005 year, while in the position of general designer of the ASTC. OK. Antonov was Balabuev P.V. Up to this point, the new An-38, An-70, An-140, An-148 aircraft were developed, digital technologies and composite materials, and much more, were implemented.
Through the efforts of the general designer and his team of "specialists" and sycophants, and then the president of the state enterprise Antonov, Kiva DS the industry was turned into a workshop for the manufacture of a single aircraft for public relations and maintaining the "bread office". Many markets were lost, and the development of "new" aircraft was timed to change of government. For 10 years, only one An-148 modification of the An-158 aircraft that was actually introduced into production was created, which did not become successful, since did not engage in its promotion to the markets. With 2010, the An-148 aircraft is created on the basis of the An-178 aircraft, which, to put it mildly, has vague prospects due to the incompetence of its creators. At the same time, all the scarce budget resources were dragged over to Antonov, as was the lion’s share of repairing old aircraft, as a result of which the Kharkov aircraft factory teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, and after the modernization of the An-410 aircraft of the Air Force completed India, virtually no work. (See "Ups and downs. On the 32 anniversary of the creation of OKB OK Antonov").
In May-September 2014, the Government Yatsenyuk A.P. attempted to change the leadership of the state enterprise "Antonov" - instead of Kiva DS Merenkov S.V. was appointed. This, as it turned out, was the last chance that Antonov could be headed by a real professional. But Kivoy D.S. all possible funds were mobilized, the necessary monetary resources were “pulled up” and… the attempts of the Government were drowned in the courts and their own Ministry of Justice.
The fooled labor collective did not rejoice for long that they saved their leader, and at the same time themselves, because in June 2015 a new leading team of "temporary workers" came to Antonov DP, and even the "former" ones remained in their places, they immediately but moved away from all finances. First a new acting was appointed. President Gvozdev M.A., who has neither higher education, nor any relation to aviationwho told me the whole year that they would build up to 24 aircraft a year, that there were orders for 100 aircraft for 4 billion An-178 and others. But, probably, he had run out of fantasy, what else could be invented, and therefore he was replaced by A. Kotsyubu. This one took it right off the bat and didn’t get out of the TV, telling how they would complete the construction of the 2nd An-225 plane with the Chinese and build it in series in China, and how this unknown Hong Kong company would finance the construction An-178 and others.
After some time, when there will simply be nothing to lie, and the bubble with An-225 will burst, they will appoint a new leader, conventionally Molotkov, and he will forget the last nail in the coffin of the Ukrainian aviation industry.
Since it is impossible to reach the President of Ukraine (all letters and materials that the author sent to him are fooled by the Presidential Administration on instances), and all those responsible for the aviation industry (RNBO, Ukroboronprom, the Antonov State Enterprise Manual) lie to him and provide false information, It may be possible with the help of the media, the public or some not indifferent people in power to convey to the President what is really awaiting this industry in the near future.
But first I’ll go back a little.

An-70 aircraft. In the USSR, and then finally in Ukraine, together with Russia, this outstanding short-take-off and landing aircraft was created. Since it was created under the military doctrine of the USSR, in particular, for the conflict with NATO, after the collapse of which no one needed it. When at the beginning of 2000-years I talked about this plane with the chief engineer of the BTA RF, he said, "If there was money, we would buy 20 pieces for special operations, and the IL-76 plane solves all the problems." Nevertheless, the officials of Russia and Ukraine went to visit each other, organized banquets and signed papers on this plane, but in reality the plane was created by Balabuev, PV, mainly at his own expense. 5 aircraft ordered the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and began to build them somewhere in the year 2003. It is worth noting that no one else in the world has built such a small number of aircraft. After the "Orange Revolution", when Balabuev left, and to the position of Acting General Designer appointed Kivu DS, I wrote a memo addressed to the President of Ukraine Yushchenko. They talked about the poor management of serial aircraft factories, that it is necessary to stop spending budget funds on the An-70 aircraft and freeze this project, and send the funds to the An-140 and An-148 series production. In addition, there were proposals on the organization of the Aviation Concern. When a memorandum with the resolution of the President came to the ASTC. Antonova, Kiva gathered a meeting of all the leaders and they tried to smudge me on the wall. But since I was sure that I was right, then apart from some attacks in my direction about “non-patriotism” and the type of “how could you” nothing happened. The most important thing that the director of the serial factory and the officials told me was: “Anatoly Grigorievich, what are you doing - this is“ living ”money!”. And, indeed, the money was "alive", several hundred million hryvnia flew in an unknown direction. In 2012, Kiva DS together with his patron Azarov N.Ya. solemnly rolled out naked fuselage!
The current "temporary worker" decided - not to disappear as good. Now they think what the completion of the second aircraft for the “museum of idiots” will result in.
In 2006, a strategic decision was made in Russia to launch the IL-76 aircraft in Ulyanovsk at the Aviastar plant (there was an order from China for 38 aircraft and it was necessary to update the BTA fleet, and Tashkent refused to share and transfer the TAPOiCH to UAC). Therefore, Russia was not going to build the An-70 plane, but only to imitate cooperation, signed papers with the Ukrainian leadership. However, intellectual rights were nevertheless divided between Ukraine and Russia as 50: 50, which now stops at the root all dreams of continuing with An-70 as a purely Ukrainian project.

An-124 aircraft. At the beginning of 2004, a letter from the management of Volga-Dnepr a / k was sent to the name of general designer Balabuev: “What are you outstanding, etc. and only under your leadership can the serial production of the modernized An-124 aircraft be revived. ” In short, we all agreed together to make a business plan for the restoration of serial production at Aviastar in cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. It turned out a weighty volume, where in addition to any husks (such as there are orders for 80 aircraft) there were real numbers. The price of the aircraft was about $ 130 million, the plant could only produce 2 aircraft per year, about $ 500 million needed to prepare and restore production, and the first aircraft will be built in 3 of the year based on the remaining airframe. But the most important figure was the following - the cost of the flight hour on these new aircraft was 1.7 times higher than on the An-124-100 aircraft, which are operated by airlines! In short, they thought it was tears. But after Kiva DS became the general designer. this “revival” was raised to the level of the Governments of 2 countries and promoted and signed papers on MAKS and what was lacking. And there was not the most important thing - solid orders! There were only letters from a / k "Volga-Dnepr", "Flight" and ASTC them. Antonov. I don’t remember, it seems in 2010, when Sergey Ivanov was the Deputy Prime Minister in Russia, the cost of the modernized aircraft named An-124-111, in case of resumption of its production, has increased to 300 million dollars. And now count: in the indicated airlines, the planes bought for $ 0-7 million are mainly used, and here you have to buy an aircraft for $ 300 million, which will not pay off in a century. So this epic “Revival of“ Ruslan ”ended!
And further! When already in Ulyanovsk an Aviastar IL-476 aircraft was launched into a series and the Tu-204 aircraft was being built simultaneously, very high-ranking officials of the Governments of Russia and Ukraine signed “papers” about production at the same plant of An-124 and An- 70. This level of stupidity was demonstrated on both sides by those who prepared these materials and those who signed them.
Actually, for what I gave these examples with An-70 and An-124. Instead of solving the real tasks of the industry in mass mass production, sales, modernization and organization of service maintenance of the An-140, An-74, An-148 and An-158 aircraft, the management of the Antonov state enterprise and the concern headed by Kiva D. WITH. 10 years was engaged, quite simply, complete garbage! Now the same is done by the new leadership of the SE Antonov and the industry!
And now let's stop at the others. news Ukrainian aircraft industry.
The state concern Ukroboronprom is ready to produce the Gorlitsa unmanned aerial system AN-BK-1 for the Armed Forces of Ukraine starting next year.

It can be seen with the naked eye that this is a model made of foam, wood, pipes, Chinese wheels from a hardware store. Maybe only the engine and propeller are real. Yes, the masters at the Antonov DP have not yet been transferred! But they don’t even understand what the glider is for drone - it's just like a body into a person, and most importantly, electronic and software stuffing in it, i.e. "brain"! They think that it's a blunder and they did it in one year. In Israel, the USA, Russia and others, for years and decades, special firms and institutes have been working on the “brains” for drones! Neither the customer (the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine) nor the developer (DP Antonov) has much experience, and even no idea how the “brains” of combat drones are created. At best, they will make a large free-flying aircraft model and pass it off as a combat drone. After all, it is impossible to check what they are doing, since both "saw" money from one "trough" - the budget of the Moscow Region.
Here is another example! A small privately owned Ukrainian company Softex Aero (Brovary, Kyiv region) 14 September 2016 announced the launch of the first flight of the light two-seat “high-speed” helicopter VV-2 developed and built by it.

So compare the "achievement" of the state giant GP "Antonov" and the achievement of a small private company!
In connection with the complete cessation of cooperation in the field of aircraft construction with Russia, the main market, as well as the supplier of materials and equipment, has been lost. Since A. Kotsyuba stated that by the middle of 2017, all the issues of replacing Russian materials and components will be resolved, I have questions on the following aircraft.

Aircraft An-148 and An-158. The real order is only from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on the 3 of the An-148 and 3 aircraft for Iraq (unlikely). At Antonov there are 2 An-148 and 3 An-158 almost ready-made gliders and they can be completed and filled with Western equipment, although this is expensive and very problematic. There are still 3 planes without a wing and it is very difficult to complete them without the participation of Russia. After this it is necessary to conduct serious flight tests. How to operate these 3 aircraft in MO? So what is next? In the wing, pressed panels are used which are made only in Russia (Verkhnyaya Salda). To switch to the new construction of rolled plates and molded profiles, you need to redesign the wing box. You can, of course, use thick (60 mm) rolled plates, but their strength and resource characteristics are worse than in pressed panels, which means that the structure must be strengthened. This will significantly increase the cost and complexity of manufacturing parts. For the manufacture of power frames, lowlands and brackets in Russia made stamps. If materials change, and abroad they differ from Russian ones, it means that it is necessary to carry out at least limited tests for strength and service life. In short, there are no orders, but for a series of several planes it is worth a lot of money to do such work. True, nobody considers budget money in the Ministry of Defense.

An-178 aircraft. When creating this aircraft, the most elementary requirements for the creation of aircraft were ignored (see. Aviation industry of Ukraine - imitation continues ”and“ Features of the national aviation industry of Ukraine ”). The reason for this is the personnel policy at the Antonov state enterprise. When a manager chooses his deputies not on a professional basis, but on the principle of “what if you wish.” In addition, he himself had not previously engaged in the creation of aircraft, as they say, from the centerline. As a result, we have the result there. They made a plane to replace the An-12, then they invented something else, and now they say that they created a plane to replace the European C-160 aircraft. True, Europeans do not know about it. In addition, in Europe, our own line of transport aircraft is commercially produced - C-295, C-212, M-28, СN-235, C-295, C-27J and A400М. Now the Europeans are looking at the newly created Brazilian military transport aircraft KS-390, which is significantly superior to the An-178. Although the aircraft was created from 2010 of the year, there was not a single order for it until the year of 2015. Only after the author wrote about this, they began frantically to look for them (see the above articles).
Bottom line: we have a problem plane and no orders. There is absolutely no confidence in the stories of the leaders of the state enterprise Antonov about the orders for Azerbaijan, since all that they say on 90% is not true. This can only be believed if the Azerbaijani side somehow officially confirms this. If we consider that it is necessary to change the suppliers of equipment and materials (pressed panels for the wing are made only in Russia), then these are very serious changes to the aircraft. I don’t know whether the producers of materials and equipment in the West will agree to develop something for an aircraft that does not have firm orders? I don’t want, as they say, to nakakat, but this plane is awaiting the fate of the second prototype An-70 - the prototype will carry Antonov’s leaders and their retinue to foreign exhibitions.
An-225 aircraft. In detail why the 2 aircraft will never be completed, I answered questions from the Vzglyad newspaper, and therefore I will not repeat. I wrote a letter to one deputy very close to the President, in which he told what was going on in the aircraft industry and asked him to show the letter to the President, and he sent it to Ukroboronprom. In this letter and the materials attached to it, the author, in particular, on the fingers told why building the 2 th plane An-225 and the 2 th plane An-70 is unrealistic and unnecessary. Here is an excerpt from the answer with the signature in. And.o. Director General A. Cherubimova: “... Relevance and relevance,“ get 2-x litax An-225 and An-70 ”, as you know, you know, you know, you know, because of your resources, and those who have grown, you and your family are idle and idle, i'm like you, i'm like you, you’ll be For the President of Ukraine and for the sake of this, it was given to the adjunct to the various organizations, just to the competence and to the relevant information, to the Vikonati of the necessary rokrahunki. The remaining solution is one hundred percent dots_lnost_ virobnitstva znachsennikh l_tak_v vsevidi bude priymatisya with powerful core organs of power on the podstavі dostovіrnoi Іnformatsіі ... ". Where a professional takes only a few minutes to determine the unreality of these projects, the so-called. "Specialists" so-called. “Interim organizations” will spend tens of millions of hryvnias in order to drive around half the world in search of the necessary equipment and determine its value. Apparently for the sake of it all was started!
What remains in the bottom line:
-Create an unnecessary "combat" aircraft and complete the construction of X-NUMX-x An-3 aircraft with Western equipment in order to "bury and cut" the MO's;
-Creation and production of a very necessary combat drone (will it be possible and when combat is a very big question);
-Create an AN-132. (In the design of the caisson of the central part of the wing, extruded panels from Russia are used. The same problem as the An-148, An-158 and An-178 aircraft. It can be solved - only by designing a new center section).
There is no serial production of aircraft in Ukraine.
PS I, of course, can be wrong, although I have a lot of experience in creating, testing and operating various An-brand aircraft. Therefore, I ask professionals and experts (not only single-cell propagandists from the Antonov State Enterprise) to join this discussion in order to determine what Ukraine’s aviation industry expects and develop its proposals for presentation (I don’t know how) to the President of Ukraine on its preservation.
1976-1982 - Head of the division for the creation of new alloys and semi-finished products for the An-124;
1982-1985 - Leading designer in the service of the aircraft An-70;
1985-1989 - Leading designer on the aircraft An-225 "Mriya", head of service of leading designers;
1989-2006 - deputy Chief Designer for An-218, An-124, An-124-100, An-225, An-325 and their modifications, as well as aerospace systems.
- Anatoly Vovnyanko
- http://hvylya.net/analytics/economics/est-li-budushhee-u-aviastroitelnoy-otrasli-ukrainyi.html
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