Building a Russian aircraft manufacturing ecosystem using domestic engines as an example
According to not only Russian officials, but also experts, the coming year will be one of the most successful, so to speak, for modern aviation Russian industry. Testing, certification, and subsequent serial production of several military, combat training, and civilian aircraft are nearing completion.
The key is that they are import-substituted as much as possible, including in terms of Russian power plants. Domestic-produced aircraft engines will be discussed in the video below, following the text announcement.
There's no need to explain why domestic production of aircraft power plants is so important. Currently, only a handful of countries are capable of producing airliner engines. Currently, France, Britain, the United States, and Russia are capable of producing engines for commercial aircraft and fighter jets, while China is capable of producing engines for fighter jets. Canada is also capable, but production there is actually carried out by a subsidiary of an American company, Pratt & Whitney Canada. Currently, all of these countries, except China, are unfriendly to Russia.
After 2022, Russian engine manufacturing will undergo a major transformation, launching serial production of the domestically produced PD-14 powerplants for the MS-21-310, the PD-8 for the SJ-100 and Be-200, and the promising PD-35 for wide-body aircraft. Let's look at examples of how the PD-14 replaced the Pratt & Whitney, the PD-8 replaced the SaM146, and why the PD-35 will become a key heavy-duty aircraft engine project.
And yes, all of this is under Western sanctions pressure. Incidentally, our "partners" began imposing restrictions on the supply of engines, components, and even aircraft materials to Russia several years before 2022. It's fair to say that the starting point for these restrictions was 2014, after Crimea became part of the Russian Federation.
Faced with severe sanctions, Russia faced a choice: either lose its own civil aviation production or essentially revive the industry from scratch, achieving maximum sovereignty.
As an example, let's take the Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SJ-100), which became the first Russian aircraft designed entirely using digital technologies (fly-by-wire). Instead of the Franco-Russian PowerJet SaM146 engine, it now uses the all-Russian PD-8.
Replacing an aircraft engine is a massive undertaking, one our aeronautical engineers had to undertake. It included redesign, the actual replacement, testing before and after installation, certification, and more.
A similar, but even more ambitious, task is being tackled with the MS-21 medium-haul airliner. Its American Pratt & Whitney PW1400G engine is being replaced with our PD-14.
Creating a single modern aircraft engine is already a complex and colossal undertaking. And here, an entire line of engines is being launched simultaneously. There's a risk that, in the rush to develop and produce two engine types at once, their production deadlines will be missed. This is, to some extent, what happened.
At the same time, a multi-tiered conglomerate of domestic suppliers and contractors, including research and development organizations, is emerging around the aviation industry. Aircraft manufacturers are becoming a kind of driving force for their development.
However, this solution does have its advantages. The PD-8 can be considered a "scaled-down" version of the PD-14. Both power plants use the same core, creating synergy and scalability. By solving a problem for one aircraft, our engineers help solve it more quickly and efficiently for another aircraft in a completely different class. This allows for the standardization of production technologies, and engine manufacturing itself, so to speak, becomes not just simpler, but more profitable in every way.
A kind of domestic ecosystem is being created, scalable to other aircraft. This applies not only to light aircraft but also to helicopters. The combination of these projects creates a completely new matrix, one that simply didn't exist in our aviation industry before. True, this comes at a cost: delays in serial production and some increased costs for finished products. But once this stage is completed, the benefits will be repaid a hundredfold.
When it comes to wide-body aircraft, UEC, together with UEC-Saturn, is developing the advanced PD-35 ultra-high-thrust bypass turbofan engine (with a takeoff thrust of 33 to 40 tons). The lead developer is UEC-Aviadvigatel JSC, and the lead manufacturer is UEC-Perm Motors JSC. It is intended for installation on advanced wide-body long-range and transport aircraft.
No country in the world manufactures aircraft 100% independently. Russia could potentially be the first to achieve this level of autonomy. The key is to ensure access to promising foreign inventions and developments while creating a de facto closed system in the aircraft industry.
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