Aircraft construction is one of the most knowledge-intensive branches of modern industry. In Russia, a lot of attention is traditionally riveted on it not only by specialists, but also by ordinary citizens. Continuing to fly on the aircraft of the Boeing and Airbus companies, the Russians hope someday to switch to domestic aircraft again. At the same time, the situation with the civil aircraft industry in the country is still extremely difficult, although a faint glimpse of light can be seen on the horizon in the face of the MC-21 medium-range narrow-body aircraft. The situation with military aviation is much better, but it is precisely the reduction in purchases of military aircraft and helicopters that is the main reason for the decline in the production of aviation equipment.
Rosstat spoke about the decline in aircraft manufacturing
At the end of March 2019, Rosstat published data that indicate a drop in the production of various aircraft in the country, and spacecraft are being turned on. According to the main statistical office of the country, production fell immediately by 13.5 percent after a noticeable increase that was observed in the Russian Federation over the past four years. According to statistics, the production of aviation and space technology in 2014-2017 grew by 9-20 percent per year. The largest growth was recorded in 2015, when production increased by 19.8 percent in relation to the previous year.
As noted in RBC, a sharp decline in the output of final products began in July 2018 and continues to this day, according to Rosstat, the trend continued in the first months of 2019. Only in January-February of this year, the production of aircraft in Russia decreased by 48 percent at once in relation to the same period in 2018. According to the All-Russian Classifier of Economic Activities (OKVED), we are talking about a decrease in production under the code “Production of aircraft, including spacecraft, and related equipment”. According to this OKVED code, pass: aircraft and helicopters for civil and military purposes; drones; ICBM; components for aviation equipment; space shuttles, orbital stations and artificial satellites; launch complexes for space and rocket technology.
The drop in the production of aviation and space technology pulled along with it all Russian production in high-tech manufacturing industries; in 2018, a decline was recorded after a two-year growth. The index of high-tech industries calculated by Rosstat specialists in 2018 decreased by 4.9 percent, while in 2017 its growth was recorded at the level of 5 percent, and in 2016 - an increase at the level of 10.1 percent.
Representatives of the Russian authorities say that the main reason for the incident is the decrease in purchases of aviation equipment within the framework of the state defense order. On Tuesday, April 16, speaking at the collegium of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, who oversees the military-industrial complex in the Russian government, spoke about this. At the same time, he announced the following figures: in 2018, the production of aviation equipment in Russia amounted to 87, 7 percent of the indicators of 2017, and the output of products by the rocket and space industry - 95, 9 percent of the indicators of 2017. According to Yuri Borisov, the main reason for the decline is a decrease in purchases within the framework of the state defense order.
Reasons for the drop in production
It was clear in advance that such a failure in production would inevitably occur. The army rearmament program adopted in the Russian Federation set a very specific goal - to bring the share of modern military equipment and weapons in the troops to 70 percent by 2020. This task has already been practically completed. At the same time, the priority in rearmament was given, first of all, to equipping the Military Space Forces with new aviation technology. After reaching the target of the program, purchases of various weapons will only decline, which is already happening with combat aircraft and helicopters.
At the present time, the saturation of parts of the Aerospace Forces and army aviation with new military equipment is already observed. At the peak of the implementation of the adopted program of state defense orders in Russia, more than 100 combat aircraft were handed over to the military every year, but already now the volume of supplies to the troops has seriously decreased - to 50-60 vehicles per year. The same applies to modern helicopter technology. According to Yuri Borisov, earlier the army annually received from the industry 80-90 new helicopters, and now the volume of deliveries has decreased to 30-40 units. There is simply no longer a need for the previous volumes of supplies; in recent years, the Russian armed forces have seriously renewed their fleet of aircraft. In the future, Russian defense industry enterprises will work only to maintain the life cycle of products supplied to the troops, as well as to maintain and repair them, but we can no longer talk about mass purchases of aircraft.
Against this background, there are some alarming news. So, on April 4, the Russian agency Interfax reported that the Russian Defense Ministry was ready to abandon the bulk purchases of a new Il-112V light military transport aircraft (developed for over 20 years). The car first took to the skies on March 30, 2019. The Russian military is already dissatisfied with the performance characteristics of the new items, which do not correspond to the issued technical specifications. For example, it was reported that the military was unhappy with the carrying capacity of the new light transport. The chief designer of PJSC "Il" Nikolay Talikov himself admitted in an interview to Russian publications that the first Il-112V aircraft turned out to be overweight by 2.5 tons, but by May of this year it is planned to reduce its weight by about two tons. It should be noted that the news of the Interfax agency was accompanied by a resounding resignation, on the same day - April 4, 2019 - it became known that the vice-president of the UAC and concurrently general director of Ilyushin Alexei Rogozin (the son of Dmitry Rogozin, which has been heading Roscosmos since May 2018).
The situation with the decline in the production of space technology, in addition to the state defense order, may also be associated with the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia. First of all, bans on the purchase of electronic devices and a variety of dual-use components are painful for the industry. These restrictions required the Russian industry to search for an adequate replacement for the components that had become inaccessible, primarily by replacing them with domestic components or products purchased from the countries of Southeast Asia. All this became the reason for the postponement of the implementation of projects, caused delays and a certain decline in production, in some cases it is simply impossible to find a direct replacement. Separately, we can highlight the fact that the two previous years in Russia was almost completely frozen production and launches of the Proton rocket, the main reason - the problem with the engines. Earlier, representatives of Roscosmos have already said that the production of the Proton launch vehicle will be completed in late 2020 or early 2021. The statistical data could also be affected by the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome, where work on the construction of the first stage of the facility was completed, but the contractor for the construction of the second stage has not yet been determined.
All this is complemented by news, which is unpleasant for the Russian space industry. So the United States expects to completely abandon the acquisition of domestic rocket engines RD-180 by 2022, the corresponding statement was made just at the beginning of April this year. John Raymond, who is the commander of the US Space Forces, reported this to the American congressmen. Earlier in the press, information has already appeared that the Americans are planning to replace the Russian RD-180 engines with oxygen-methane engines of their own production. Soon, the Americans are planning to abandon the services of the Russian manned spacecraft Soyuz, which are used today to deliver American astronauts aboard the ISS.
Superjet problems and the hope of the Russian aircraft industry
The problems of the civil aircraft industry in Russia can also be noted separately. Currently, up to 90 percent of the entire fleet of civil aircraft in our country are foreign aircraft. For example, the entire fleet of the low-cost airline Pobeda (a subsidiary of Aeroflot) consists of American Boeing-737-800 airliners. At the same time, the company is not eager to buy promising MC-21s, referring to the fact that it is profitable for a low-cost airline to keep an air fleet consisting of aircraft of the same type. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is the only truly mass-produced Russian aircraft currently owned by domestic airlines.
Best of all, this plane is now characterized by a comparison with a suitcase without a handle, it seems that it's hard to carry and it's a pity to throw it. Already now it can be stated that the aircraft has lost the fight for the European market and is not particularly in demand in the world either. And Iran, which shows a substantive interest in the car, is forced to wait until the localization of this aircraft is brought to at least 50-60 percent in Russia. In the meantime, the United States simply blocked the delivery of Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft to Tehran, since the share of American parts in it exceeds 10 percent. In Europe, the only operator of the aircraft was the Irish company CityJet, which transferred the aircraft on wet lease to the Belgian airline. In February 2019, it became known that CityJet was abandoning aircraft of this type, they did not impress the Belgians either, and in early April 2019 it became known that the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft company refused to supply 15 SSJ 100 aircraft to Slovenia.
The main problems of the Superjet revolve around difficulties with after-sales service - the shortage and high cost of spare parts, as well as long delivery times, which is why airlines often resort to cannibalization of aircraft, simply by removing parts from donor cars. As noted by experts, this machine is significantly inferior to competitors in the face of Boeing and Airbus in such an important component as the average flight time per day. According to the Federal Air Transport Agency, in 2017 SSJ 100 aircraft operated by Aeroflot had an average daily flight time of 3.5 hours, while Aeroflot's Airbus and Boeing were in the air for 9-10 hours daily.
The main hopes of the Russian civil aircraft industry are pinned on the narrow-body medium-range passenger aircraft MS-21, which first took to the skies on May 28, 2017. The new airliner was initially targeted at the world's most demanded aircraft segment; about 70 percent of all aircraft in the world and in Russia are narrow-body passenger airliners. Currently, there are already a number of firm orders for the delivery of 175 new Russian aircraft. The main operator of the new aircraft will be Russian airlines belonging to the Aeroflot group, but there is a steady interest in the MC-21 abroad as well.
But here, too, there are difficulties, the release of the aircraft has already been postponed several times. Currently, the start of serial production has been postponed to the end of 2020 - the beginning of 2021. An audit conducted by the Accounts Chamber in 2018 showed that the insufficiently well-developed concept of the MS-21, together with Western sanctions, led to a significant increase in the cost of the aircraft program. By 2017, the cost of its development increased by 2, 3 times from 125 billion rubles announced in 2007 to 284 billion rubles. The increase in the cost of the program was also influenced by inflation and the rise in the cost of foreign currencies. At the same time, the Accounts Chamber believes that the cost may grow even more, which will negatively affect the economic efficiency of the project.
But the real step that postponed the launch of mass production of the MC-21 aircraft for at least another year was the American sanctions. In January 2019, the United States achieved the cancellation of the supply of the necessary composite materials for the production of a composite "black wing" - the main feature and know-how of the Russian narrow-body aircraft. This is the case when it is simply impossible to replace such a wing with metal, since then the whole essence of the project and its competitive advantages are lost. But here Russia managed to hedge itself by providing itself with a kind of "safety cushion". With the support of the state, the Rosatom group of companies has begun the process of mastering the production of the entire chain of raw materials necessary for the MC-21 aircraft, which is required for aviation composites. Russian-made materials have already passed the initial diagnostics process. The representative of the aviation corporation "Irkut" noted that they are comparable with foreign counterparts. According to him, full-size elements of the future aircraft have already been produced from Russian composite materials, including some of the largest and most difficult-to-manufacture parts: the upper panel of the wing box and the center section panel.
