Sukhoi Superjet 100 can hardly be called a breakthrough in the domestic civil aircraft industry; the aircraft did not gain popularity in the international market either. Today, when negative news regarding the Superjet appears in the press almost every day, it is worth remembering another domestic short-haul passenger aircraft, the Tu-334. The liner model, developed back in the 1990s, was supposed to replace the numerous passenger aircraft - Yak-42, Tu-134 and Tu-154B, but for a number of reasons it was never put into mass production.
Tu-334 at the MAKS-2007 air show
Tu-334 first flew 20 years ago, it happened on February 8, 1999. However, fate was not favorable to this aircraft, only two flight copies and several more gliders were produced for static and life tests. Although from time to time various news appears in the media regarding the resuscitation of the Tu-334 project, there are no real programs that would allow fine-tuning, serial production and purchase of aircraft. And the more time passes, the less likely it is that such programs will still appear.
Superjet competitor
The design of the Tu-334 began in the late 1980s, but for obvious reasons it was seriously delayed. Initially, the aircraft was designed as a replacement for the Tu-134. The active phase of work fell on the 1990s, when the economic situation in the country left much to be desired. On the other hand, over the years, the potential market for the model also increased, which was supposed to replace the vast fleet of Yak-42D, Tu-134 and Tu-154B aircraft, which were widely used for passenger transportation within Russia. Attempts were also made to cooperate with European aircraft manufacturers, but they ended in nothing. Ultimately, the new passenger liner made its first flight only in 1999.
In 2003, a sample of a serial passenger aircraft was presented, which received the designation Tu-334-100, at the end of the same year the aircraft was certified. Tests carried out in 2005 confirmed that the new Russian short-haul liner could be used practically all over the world without any restrictions. On April 15, 2005, a decree of the government of the Russian Federation was signed, which concerned the start of serial production of the Tu-334 passenger aircraft in Kazan on the basis of the Gorbunov Kazan Aviation Plant, but this decree was never implemented. The new passenger aircraft did not go into serial production. As it was later noted in the report of the Accounts Chamber, the developers of the Federal Target Program "Development of Civil Aviation Equipment in Russia for 2002-2010" recognized the Tupolev aircraft as competitive with respect to another domestic project, Sukhoi Superjet 100, which was ultimately given the green light.
Today, because of this decision, they still continue to break spears, especially with reliance on afterthought. It is all the more surprising that back in the early 1990s, domestic aircraft designers have come to what they have seriously thought about and are struggling over nowadays. Tu-334 was almost entirely Russian design with minimal involvement of foreign components, with the exception of Ukrainian engines. The aircraft could be produced in Russia and from Russian components and assemblies. It is this circumstance that allows today to fuel the hope of those who believe that the plane may still be in demand by the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergency Situations or government agencies.
An important feature of the Tu-334 and one of its chips, aimed at reducing the cost of the entire program for the development and production of serial aircraft, was the high level of unification of the aircraft with the serial medium-range narrow-body Tu-204 airliner. According to various estimates, the level of unification of the two aircraft reached 60 percent, while the Tu-204 and its modernization Tu-214, although literally piece by piece, are still assembled in Kazan for various customers, while the Tu-334 is not.
Externally, the new machine was a low-wing aircraft with a swept wing and a T-shaped tail unit. It was planned to install a pair of D-436T1 bypass turbojet engines on the aircraft, specially designed for this aircraft at the Progress Zaporozhye Machine-Building Design Bureau. The engines were located in the rear of the aircraft. The fuselage of the Tu-334 retained the same cross-section as the medium-haul Tu-204, but differed in its reduced length.
The cockpit on the Tu-334
The Tu-334-100, certified in 2005, was supposed to carry 102 passengers over a distance of up to 3150 km. In the layout of the cabin with the business class, the passenger capacity of the liner was reduced to 92 people. Since the aircraft actually received the fuselage from the Tu-204, the layout of the seats with three seats in a row on each side (3-3) was retained. The cruising flight speed was 820 km / h. At the same time, the widespread use of components and assemblies of the Tu-204 had its drawbacks, the plane was overweight by 4 tons, later on the overweight of 3-4 tons was indicated by European companies, with which it was planned to establish cooperation on the Tu-334 project. Perhaps the elimination of these problems, as well as the chronic lack of funding, affected the delay in work on the aircraft in the 1990s.
Why Tu-334 has practically no chance
Despite the fact that the Tu-334 is a much more domestic aircraft than the same Sukhoi Superjet 100, the share of foreign components in which reaches 80 percent, he has practically no chances of a successful career. Unfortunately, the plane, which was not bad for its time, is corny outdated. Pilots and leaders of the domestic aviation industry are talking about this. Back in 2013, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Honored Test Pilot, Hero of Russia and at that time Director General of the Gromov Flight Research Institute Pavel Vlasov said that the time of the Tu-334 had passed. According to the honored pilot, the Tu-334 airliner was once tested at the Flight Research Institute, showing itself from its best side. At the same time, this short-haul aircraft objectively belongs to the bygone Soviet era in aircraft construction. If it could have been put into mass production in the 1990s, the plane might have been able to occupy its niche in the fleet of Russian airlines, but today its time is gone.
Then Pavel Nikolayevich listed the main problematic points of the Tu-334. For example, all modern civilian passenger aircraft have a crew of two, while on the Tu-334 there are three of them: two pilots and a flight engineer (the project of the Tu-334SM aircraft assumed the modernization of avionics, the reduction of the crew to two people and the use of new engines, but for what the stage was this project is unknown). In addition, Pavel Vlasov noted that in the modern world, the design and production of airliners is carried out on the basis of digital technologies, while the documentation for the Tu-334 was made on drawings. “Most likely, it was possible to convert all the drawings into“digital”, install more advanced avionics on the aircraft, re-equip production, find new engines and even exclude a flight engineer from the crew, but all this would require financial costs that would be comparable to the development of a new aircraft , - said Pavel Vlasov.
Sukhoi Superjet 100
Another big problem, which became a problem only in 2014, is that the Tu-334 was developed for the D-436T1 engines developed by the Progress ZMKB named after Ivchenko (Zaporozhye). It was planned to produce turbojet engines specially designed for installation on the Tu-334 short-haul aircraft at the Ukrainian enterprise Motor Sich. In modern realities, it has become impossible to use these engines. Theoretically, Tu-334 could be equipped with engines comparable in thrust from the "Superjet" - French SaM-146. But, firstly, this would require a significant modification of the entire tail section of the liner, as well as the control system, which seems costly and impractical. Secondly, the SaM-146 engine is not only not a domestic development, but also not the most successful one. Sukhoi Superjet 100 has a lot of problems with engines, in particular, airlines talk about very low flying time before overhaul.
Answering a question from RIA Novosti journalists about the fate of the Tu-334, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov noted that the Tu-334 had no start in life. According to the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the indicated project of the passenger aircraft was a dead end in comparison with the program for creating the "Superjet". “To put it as briefly as possible, we would not have received any competencies and international cooperation, which today limits us in certain issues, but for other factors and reasons,” the high-ranking official stressed. Denis Manturov noted that in today's realities we are not able to deliver a Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger aircraft to those countries to which Tu-334 could be sent without problems, but at the same time we would not have received the developments that we have today there is.
According to Manturov, the main value of the Superjet lies in the accumulated human potential, as well as the formed capital of technological and design solutions that allow us today to confidently move to the next stage - the MC-21 medium-range narrow-body aircraft and the wide-body aircraft project jointly with China.
