The IL-112V project is being closed - long live the IL-212

The prospects for the Il-112V are as vague as ever
Engine first
Good news first of all. On October 12, the promising PD-8 aircraft engine was launched in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Not on a stand or even under the wing of the Il-76LL flying laboratory, but on an SJ-100 aircraft. The engine was installed on an import-substituted domestic airliner, in which the most critical component was the power plant. The Franco-Russian SaM146 had an imported gas generator. And quite problematic. The sanctions have virtually paralyzed the production of Russian aircraft - spare parts for the aircraft engine are very difficult to buy even through third parties.
On August 29, as the official version stated, the imported SJ-100 took off into the air. Only it was not possible to replace the notorious SaM146 in the engine nacelles at the end of the summer - the car took off with foreign engines from old stocks. Now they have launched Russian PD-8s under the wing of the SJ-100 on the ground. This is very good news, it remains to be confirmed by the first flight. Then it will be possible to put the regional airliner on a par with its older brother MS-21. Next year, the United Engine Company should deliver at least forty “combat-ready” PD-8s intended for the SJ-100.

Perm PD-8 is being prepared for a new military transport aircraft
History above looks like a spoonful of honey in a barrel of tar. The situation in the civil aircraft industry is far from prosperous. The appearance of two vehicles at once - Il-114-100 and L-410 - is highly questionable. Production of the L-410 has generally been shifted to 2027, and hopes for a full-fledged series are minimal here. The remaining aircraft are gradually being phased out due to a shortage of spare parts. At the beginning of the year, all L-410s of the Komiaviatrans companies from the Komi Republic and Aurora in Kamchatka stopped flying. The problem with the Il-114-100 was the TV7-117ST-01 engine, which was never brought to fruition. At the same time, the product received a type certificate from the Federal Air Transport Agency back in January 2023. As a result, the appearance of the first aircraft was delayed until 2025. Managers explain the situation by the need to refine the engine after the Il-112V disaster. Everyone remembers the tragedy of August 17, 2021, when the plane crashed due to surge in the right engine and subsequent fire. All three crew members were killed. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the history of the Il-112V and Il-114-100 comprehensively - one engine slows down the development of two aircraft platforms at once. There is nothing surprising. It is around the aircraft engine, as the most complex structural element, that the entire aircraft is built. Unfortunately, there have always been problems with this in Russia.
But a non-trivial solution was found, after which it is possible to close the TV7-117ST-01 turboprop project. We are talking about the remotorization of the future military transport Il-112V with the latest gas turbine PD-8. The plane will be built from what is at hand.
Turbines and propellers
The situation with the remotorization of the Il-112V is not as good as it might seem at first glance. Engineers will have to significantly modernize the finished aircraft in order to install not just a new aircraft engine, but an engine of a different design. It’s not so easy for the future novelty of the domestic air fleet called Il-212. It is enough to compare the characteristics of the previous engine with the PD-8 to understand the scale of the event. Several parameters: the PD-8 has a thrust of 7,5 tons, the TV7-117S has 3,1 tons, the dry weight of the gas turbine engine is 2,3 tons, the turboprop engine is 510 kg. Even far from aviation a person will understand that they are trying to install a completely unsuitable unit for a light military transport aircraft. Theoretically, one PD-8 will more than cover the thrust of two TV-7-117S, but in world practice there are no single-engine cargo aircraft yet.

Turboprop TV7-117S
What will the aircraft manufacturers end up with? The result will be an enlarged version of the famous “Cheburashka” An-72 with characteristic engines installed above the wing. If the developers place the PD-8 under the wing of the future Il-212, then it will be ordered to work on unpaved airfields. There is no need to talk about any military specifics. Engines mounted on the wing will significantly complicate maintenance, but there will be a bonus in the form of increased lift. We are talking about the Coanda effect, that is, increasing the efficiency of the wing due to the jet stream blowing onto the upper plane. Only for this purpose the aircraft engine should be moved forward relative to the leading edge of the wing. Of course, this will require a radical restructuring of the design and several years of testing. Large-scale work cannot be avoided (although it will be less expensive) if engineers decide to simply hang aircraft engines under the wing. In the style of SJ-100. But, we repeat, this will significantly reduce the aircraft’s capabilities on unpaved and snow-covered airfields - the diameter of the aircraft engine is almost 1,3 meters.
Heavy and powerful PD-8s consume more fuel. Approximately three times relative to the TV7-117S turboprop. This means that we need to take more kerosene on board, reserve space for it and again radically interfere with the layout. It is completely unclear how the fuselage will be preserved “in general”, as some sources say.

Il-212 should be similar to the An-72 enlarged in all respects
Of course, leaving the original carrying capacity of 5 tons with all this would be a crime. The car will turn into a carrier of kerosene and a pair of heavy engines. Therefore, a remotorized aircraft will inevitably enter a new class. Presumably, the Il-212 will be capable of lifting at least 12 tons into the sky. The benchmark is the An-72 with a payload of 10 tons, but its engines produced 6,5 tons of thrust versus 7,5 tons of the PD-8. Before asking questions, let us clarify that it is impossible to restore production of the An-72 precisely because of the D-36 aircraft engines, which they have forgotten how to build even in their homeland. And the homeland of the products is in Zaporozhye.
As a result, the IL-212 will stand one or two steps higher than its ideological predecessor with the IL-112V index. There is only one caveat. The fact is that UEC can come up with its own modification of the aircraft engine for the aircraft. For example, PD-6 or PD-4. Theoretically, there is nothing complicated about this. PD-8, recall, was built by scaling the older PD-14. Why not do something similar for the IL-112V? Moreover, such a gas turbine engine can also be used by the civilian Il-114-100. All that remains is to find a couple of years of emergency work to certify the new engine according to all the rules.
The question of the possibilities of production workers remains open. How much will it be possible to increase the production of the PD-8 (or its versions) if the civilian fleet requires 40-60 aircraft engines annually? Will you have to choose between the military Il-212 and the “peaceful” SJ-100? If a passenger aircraft is in demand abroad, then the prospects for engine manufacturers are generally gloomy.
The story of the remotorization of the military transport Il-112V and its transformation into an aircraft of a different class allows us to hope for the continuation of work on the long-suffering TV7-117S engine. Albeit with a long delay, but it must be brought up to standard. The class of light transport vehicles, designed for 5-6 tons of load, will not evaporate anywhere - the vehicles are needed by both military and civilian users. The IL-112V project can be further developed without any rush and with comprehensive testing. The above-mentioned IL-7-117, as well as the light Ladoga, which is replacing the An-114, cannot do without the TV100-2S.
The measures taken by the state are largely unprecedented. But there is no other way - the An-26 fleet is rapidly aging, and the vehicles are gradually being taken out of service. The needs of the special operation expectedly accelerated this process. Therefore, of two evils - waiting for the TV7-117S to be finalized for several more years or urgently redesigning the aircraft for the sake of the finished PD-8 - we chose the second. After all, it is much easier to build a new aircraft around a working engine than vice versa. Only it will be a completely different car.
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