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Recently in Irkut Category

ms21 irkut.jpg
Pratt & Whitney today announced -- sort of -- a new delay for the Irkut MS-21 narrowbody programme.

Irkut has always said first flight of the 150-210-seat MS-21 would occur sometime in 2014. The timeframe was updated four months ago to "late-2014", as my colleague Ghim-Lay Yeo quoted Irkut president Alexey Federov at the Singapore air show.

P&W is the engine supplier for the MS-21. Irkut selected the PW1400G geared turbofan to power the MS-21 in April 2010.  Today, Irkut and P&W finalized the agreement to offer the PW1400G, seemingly just a formality.

P&W's press release today announcing the agreement could have easily been over-looked, except for this sentence buried in the second paragraph: " ... first flight of the PurePower PW1400G engined aircraft [is] planned for 2015 and entry into service in 2017".

We asked P&W about the 2015 timing for first flight. After checking with its internal programme office, P&W confirmed the new date is accurate. First flight is not scheduled until 2015 because first engine to test is not scheduled until 2014, P&W adds.

So now we know. MS-21 customers -- all seven of you with 206 combined orders-- please take note: First flight is now sometime in 2015, says P&W.

Today's Movie Monday is in honour of a trip to Moscow your blogger will not be making next week.

As of two weeks ago, the trip was all set up: my seat on British Airways, my room in the Aerostar Hotel, my interviews with the heads of Irkut and MiG, even my personal visit to the Monino air museum (thanks anyway, Grigory!).

Then, Jon Ostrower got a new job at the Wall Street Journal.

So much for my long-awaited, one-week tour of the Russian aerospace industry! My colleague Craig Hoyle courageously accepted that assisgnment on short notice. Meanwhile, this blogger prepared to take on the role of replacing the founder and formerly sole contributor of FlightBlogger. Luckily, I will have some help. John Croft, Flightglobal's Americas Editor, will be taking over coverage of Boeing twin-aisles. I will focus on the commercial single-aisles produced in the US, Canada and Brazil. We'll both be posting updates here, along with our European and Asian colleagues as events warrant.

We understand we inherit not just an aerospace blog, but a true labour of love by a now-former colleague whom we greatly respect.It's our goal to honour Jon's work here by preserving and continuing that legacy.

Even if it means cancelling our trip to Moscow. 



Just to close the loop on the not so subtle intersection of Russian aircraft and politics, Aeroflot announced today it intended to begin taking deliveries of the 150-seat Irkut MS-21 starting in 2016, which appears to make the carrier the launch customer for the type.
In a letter to Putin, chief executive Valery Savelyev specifies the airline's acquisition plans up to 2020. Aeroflot says it aims to acquire 40 Sukhoi Superjet 100s, 11 Antonov An-148s and 25 An-140s before 2016. The aircraft will be used to modernise the fleets of Aeroflot and six associate carriers, of which it is taking over management control.

In addition, Savelyev says Aeroflot is prepared to take up to 50 MS-21s between 2016 and 2020. This all-new airliner is designed to be a viable Russian alternative to the existing single-aisles from Airbus and Boeing in the 130- to 190-seat category, and is due to enter service in around five years.
While I don't speak a word of Russian, Irkut's MC-21 highly-stylized marketing video provides an interesting look at the plans for the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G-powered aircraft with its three-variant family. The initial 150-seat MS-21-200 will seat 150, the -300 with capacity for 180 passengers, and the -400 with seating up to 210. The 300 appears to be a simple stretch of the fuselage, while the -400 will incorporate a further fuselage stretch and an expanded wing span, leading and trailing edge.
Mary Kirby posted a series of photos this morning of the inside of Irkut's MS-21 mock up from Farnborough. I did a double take when I saw the flight deck mock up, which at first glance appears to be a hybrid of Boeing and Airbus flight decks. The influence appears to be heavily weighted toward the 787, with its five primary display layout, vertical FMC keypad, and an overhead panel structure which is virtually the same shape. To a lesser exent this aircraft, however, features Airbys attributes, such as a sidestick and the same engine start switches as the A320. Perhaps imitation is the finest form of flattery?

ms-21 9 small.JPGPhoto Credit Will Horton
In the same week as controversy stirred over President Nicolas Sarkozy purchasing an A330 for his presidential transport, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided a different path to cultivate his nation's goal of re-growing its domestic commercial aircraft production.

Civil aircraft manufacturing and national economic interests have a great historical tendency to intersect in ways that vary in their subtlety. That being said, I'll let you be the judge on which end of the subtlety spectrum this falls:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian flagship airline Aeroflot expects to acquire 22 Boeing Dreamliners and 22 Airbus A350s by 2016 as it expands its fleet, CEO Vitaly Savelyev told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"We expect to receive 22 Dreamliners, that is the Boeing-787s, by 2016, and we also expect 22 aircraft of the Airbus-350 model, which is currently being developed, to enter into service," Savelyev said according to RIA news agency.

However, Putin urged the executive to purchase more locally-made planes.

"We are already purchasing them," Savelyev said in a portion of the interview broadcast on Russia-24 television.

"Not enough," the prime minister replied.
A Bloomberg Businessweek article on the same topic expanded on Putin's comments:
"I want to understand how much domestic technology Aeroflot will buy," Putin said in a meeting with Chief Executive Officer Vitaly Savelyev today. "You want to dominate the domestic market, but you don't want to buy Russian technology. That won't do."
Let's see how far the 162-passenger, Pratt & Whitney PW1000G-powered Irkut MS-21 is from finding its domestic launch customer. A meeting like this has but one outcome: 
Savelyev said he would report back to Putin with a revised plan.

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