IL-114-300: looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel?
On March 31, 2024, perhaps an epoch-making event occurred: the second experimental aircraft Il-114-300, the so-called OP-2, serial number 01-10, registration number 54115, made its first flight.
What's the highlight? This is the first new-built aircraft of this type.
Here we need to again history. Il-114 (simple, without additional numbers) and the Il-114-100 that followed it were produced in Tashkent, where Russian specialists built a factory (TAPO named after Chkalov) with a production capacity of up to 100 aircraft per year. Today the plant produces cauldrons for pilaf and other, more popular products for Uzbekistan; you will have to forget about planes from Tashkent.
The Il-114-300 will be assembled by a relatively small plant in Lukhovitsy (LAZ named after P. A. Voronin), they promise up to 20 aircraft per year. God willing, as they say.
Why does the first plane that flew in 202o “not count”? It was assembled from an old stock. In general, many components for the Il-114-100 are stuck at TAPOiCh in Tashkent. They say that from what was lying there, it was possible to assemble at least a dozen aircraft. The Ministry of Industry and Trade negotiated with the Uzbek side, but they ended in nothing. The former did not want to help in the revival of the aircraft of this brand, which is why there was such a delay.
But the main thing here is that we basically managed it ourselves. The delay is completely justified, and this plane, which took off in March, is a 100% new plane, albeit not of the newest design.
How bad is it to start producing the revived Il-114?
But I’ll say this: there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, because this plane was designed by the great (I won’t fight this word at all) student of the great Sergei Ilyushin, Genrikh Vasilyevich Novozhilov.
Maybe this man didn’t know how to do something in life, but the planes that Novozhilov built, and which went into production, are still flying. All. And that says a lot.
What is IL-114? Yes, in general, the same working horse as its predecessors: Il-18, Il-62, Il-86. Without any special frills, but with a triple margin of safety. A regional passenger airliner is, in fact, what is sorely lacking today. An-24, Yak-40, Yak-42 - this is already history, SAABs are finishing off on domestic routes, and in some regions it reaches the point of delirium: it is easier to fly to the cities of your region through Moscow.
A friend of mine encountered this phenomenon when he had to fly from Perm to Nizhny Novgorod. Direct flights - twice a week, on Monday and Friday. The rest is with a transfer in Moscow. But every day. But for others it’s absolutely money. If a direct flight costs 4 rubles, then with a transfer it costs from 853 to 6,8 thousand.
The fact that Russia simply needs a new inexpensive regional aircraft, like air, is clear and understandable. This should be a liner designed for 60-100 passengers and capable of serving routes with a range of 500 to 1500 km. Well, with the possibility of using not the best runways.
The IL-114-300, which is capable of operating autonomously from relatively small airfields that do not even have concrete runways, is a lifeline. Ilyushin believes that the aircraft will operate normally in the Far North, where sometimes all problems can be solved only by air service.
In general, there can be no second opinion here: the IL-114 is very necessary. The UAC seems to understand and are working in this direction. At least the IL-114-300 test program continues.
The first flight was standard: 40 minutes at an altitude of up to 900 meters and at a speed of no more than 230 km/h. That is, we took off, tested the rudders and ailerons, looked around - and down.
What can you do in a 40 minute flight? And it depends on who will fly. The Il-144-300 was piloted by LAZ's "bisons", a test team similar to the one that lifted the damned Il-112V off the ground in Voronezh:
- Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Sergei Sukhar;
- Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Igor Zinov;
- onboard test engineer 1st class Oleg Gryazev.
These are people who know how to teach airplanes to fly. I really hope that luck will be on their side and all flights will end with landings as usual. Not like what happened with the Il-112V in Kubinka. PJSC Ilyushin will never be able to compensate for the loss incurred on that ill-fated day. I really hope that everything will end well.
Following the first flight, crew commander Sergei Sukhar reported that the flight went smoothly, the systems and equipment worked properly, and the flight program was completed in full. Before the start of flights, the aircraft underwent a cycle of ground tests: workshop and airfield tests were carried out. Taxiing and high-speed runs were also performed as part of the flight test program.
The flight sheet for the first flight of the Il-114-300 was signed on the hood of the black Volga by the managing director of PJSC Il, Daniil Brenerman, and the head of the flight test center of PJSC Il, Konstantin Letov.
The tradition was introduced more than 50 years ago by Genrikh Novozhilov himself, at that time the general designer of the Ilyushin Design Bureau, by putting his signature on the flight sheet of the Il-76 transport aircraft on the hood of his official car. That takeoff was successful, and such signings became a tradition at the Ilyushin Design Bureau.
Everything seems to be fine. The IL-114-300 consists entirely of Russian components, which is logical for an aircraft created in Soviet times. Of course, this is not a “scoop”. Composite materials are used in the design wherever possible, which entails a significant lightweighting of the structure. The flight control and navigation system is digital (God forbid, they rip off the one on the Su-34); in general, a huge amount of work has been done to improve all the main systems of the aircraft.
The only place that causes not only concern, but complete uncertainty of success is the engine. Yes, yes, the same TV7-117ST-01 that killed the crew of the Il-112V and seems to have undergone a series of modifications after that. There is no specific information, but perhaps the employees of Klimov’s company were able to perform a miracle and bring this creation, unsuccessful from all sides, to fruition.
This was worth doing if only so that the death of the best VASO test crew would not be in vain. I will once again ask you to pay at least a mental tribute to the people who did not spare their lives so that the Russian Aerospace Forces would finally have a new transport aircraft.
Aircraft commander: Honored Test Pilot of Russia, Hero of Russia Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuimov.
Co-pilot: test pilot 1st class Dmitry Aleksandrovich Komarov.
Flight engineer: 1st class test flight engineer Nikolai Evgenievich Khludeev.
It’s not in vain that I remember these people. The Il-112V was equipped with exactly the same engines as the Il-114. Unification... But we will talk about the IL-112V and its continuation literally the other day, but now all that remains is to hope that JSC "ODK-Klimov" has done everything that is necessary and even more so that the engine will finally became real.
In general, the TV7-117 has a very bad reputation for being an engine that has not been brought up to standard. The first model, TV7-117S, with a power of 2 hp, was frankly uncompetitive in comparison with imported engines in terms of service life, which caused the replacement of the TV500-7S (resource about 117 hours) with the Il-1000, produced at TAPOiCh, with American Pratt & Whitney 114H engines with a service life six times longer. And almost all the planes assembled in Tashkent flew on American engines.
The next modification, TV7-117SM, was more powerful (2 hp), had a new digital automatic control and monitoring system, seemed to be more maintainable and reliable, but there was simply nowhere to install it.
TV7-117ST-01 became another modernization. The power was increased at takeoff mode to 3000 hp. s., in increased emergency mode up to 3600 hp. With. It was assumed that the Il-112V, Il-114-300 and TVRS-44 Ladoga would fly on this engine.
The IL-112V was still flying away, but the turn did not reach Ladoga, the IL-114-300 flew away. Let's look for the continuation.
General Director of UEC, member of the Bureau of the Central Council of SoyuzMash Russia LLC, Vadim Badekha, assures that a lot of work was done on the TV7-117ST-01 and the engine deservedly received a type certificate in December 2022.
The engine received a new auxiliary power unit TA 14-114, which should provide greater autonomy of the aircraft during maintenance and preparation for flight at poorly equipped airfields, especially in the North. In addition, a new AB-112-114 propeller has been added to the engine, a very promising development that allows more power to be extracted from the engine.
It would be very good if all the forecasts and promises came true
In general, work on converting the Il-114 to the Il-114-300 has been going on for 10 years. The period is actually quite long, and during this time a decent amount of work should have been done. However, behind the scenes of this performance, not everything is as simple as we would like. There are many questions, from engines to a change in production site, because for the first time it was announced that the Il-144 will be assembled at the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod in 2018. But then for some reason everything was transferred to LAZ in Lukhovitsy, near Moscow. The choice is strange, because Ila was produced at LAZ, yes, but the plant’s capabilities are much inferior to Sokol. And the promised 18 aircraft per year are unlikely, 10-12 and nothing more.
And it’s not entirely clear when they will go into mass production. In 2018, the year 2020 was named, when the first aircraft from the batch of 2017 aircraft contracted back in 50 for GTLK, the State Transport Leasing Company, were to be delivered. The aircraft was to be certified in 2023; serial production was postponed to 2025.
In general, everything is as usual in our country - first, promises are made to the accompaniment of bravura marches, which no one really intends to fulfill, then they begin to scramble in search of solutions. As a result, we have the transformation of the IL-114-300 project into the usual long-term construction. 2025 instead of the promised 2018 is quite enough to think so.
In general, the prospect is very vague, especially considering that the TV7-117ST-01 is still struggling with its problems inherent in the design initially.
Meanwhile, time is running out.
A regional airliner of this class is very necessary. Especially something as simple as the IL-14, capable of landing anywhere, refueling from a barrel, and so on. In general, it is not a Sukhoi Superjet, which requires conditions.
The IL-114-300 must carry up to 68 passengers and 1500 kg of payload with a maximum fuel supply, on which the aircraft must fly up to 5 km with a cruising speed of 600 km/h at an altitude of up to 500 m.
Nothing supernatural. There is no need for super maneuverability or stealth; on the contrary, the most ordinary economy class airliner. What the problem is is very difficult to say. A fifth-generation fighter is just stealth and super-maneuverable, but we can do it, but a passenger airliner for medium and short distances, with absolutely no frills, just doesn’t work out. Everything is somehow very slow.
It is clear that in 2021 all work was stopped due to the accident of the Il-112V with the same TV7-117ST engines, but it seems that the engines have been sorted out. We need to move on, but the center section for the second/first copy of the OP-2 began to be built in Voronezh at VASO back in 2018, and in 2019 it was already delivered to the customer. The OP-2 prototype was rolled out to LAZ in May 2023, but underwent ground tests for more than 10 months.
Okay, we tried it. But here’s another question: why arrange such a leapfrog with the transportation of parts?
Voronezh. VASO will produce the airframe (wing, tail unit with mechanization, engine nacelles), in total almost half of the airframe.
Nizhny Novgorod. Sokol will produce the fuselage, hydraulics and electrics, about 40% of all aircraft components.
Saint Petersburg. Klimov will supply the engines.
What prevents you from assembling the entire aircraft at the site of production of the majority of components, for example, at Sokol, and not dragging the same fuselage several hundred kilometers to Lukhovitsy? A very strange choice.
It’s clear that the openly dying MiG (“LAZ” and “Sokol” belong to JSC RSK MiG) needs to somehow survive, and in Lukhovitsy there are still specialists in “Ilam”, but this approach is still will still affect the final cost of the aircraft.
And then someone will definitely say that “ours are more expensive, let’s buy Boeings through the Indians.”
I really hope that sooner or later all the problems will be overcome, and we will actually have a Russian aircraft on domestic routes.
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