A light rain is drizzling behind the windows, the airliner taxies onto the runway illuminated by the lights and prepares to make a swift takeoff. The engines began to sing with a hissing hum in takeoff mode, the plane quickly picks up speed. Windshield brushes thrash furiously, brushing off raindrops that merge into thin streams. The speed limit for the termination of takeoff has been passed, and the Boeing, to the applause of the crowd, takes off from the concrete, greedily gaining the first meters of altitude …
So on December 15, 2009 at Payne Field (Washington state), the Boeing-787 Dreamliner made its first test flight - the world's only wide-body airliner, the fuselage of which is made of composite materials. The first novelty of the American civil aviation industry over the past 15 years has become an outstanding achievement of Russian engineering. That applause at Payne Field was intended for our compatriots, because the Dream Liner is in many ways a Russian project, largely designed in Russia, tested in Russia and made from Russian-made parts!
Boeing Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of aviation, space and military equipment. The range of products is very wide: from civil aircraft to cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and modules of the International Space Station. Boeing's most famous projects include the B-29 Superfortress bomber, the B-52 Cold War symbol, the Apache helicopter, the Apollo spacecraft, the Harpoon, Tomahawk and Hellfire cruise missiles, the famous line airliners of the 700 series. The number of employees of the company is 158 thousand people.
Moscow design center
Boeing began transferring design work to Russia in the first half of the 1990s. In 1998, the Moscow Design Center (MKTs) was opened, in which only 12 engineers from the design bureau im. S. V. Ilyushin. Ten years later, the small branch turned into the largest engineering center outside the United States - today the Boeing MCC employs 150 full-time employees, and over 1000 employees of Russian design bureaus are involved in the design work on the Boeing Civil Aviation theme. It looks like this: formally, Russian engineers work in Russian design bureaus, but the results of their activities, by agreement with the management of Russian companies, are transferred to the Boeing MCC. Since 1998, Russian specialists have taken part in 250 projects of the American company, including such large-scale projects as the 747 Boeing Converted Freighter, Boeing 737-900ER, Boeing 777F, Boeing 767-200SF / 300BCF, the new 747 Boeing 747-8 aircraft and even the flagship model - Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
In 2004, Boeing and the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation signed a Memorandum on the participation of Russian industry in the creation of the Dreamliner aircraft. According to Boeing Russia Incorporated President Sergei Kravchenko, the Dreamliner's nose section was completely designed in Moscow, drawings of most of the fuselage parts were also made by Russian engineers at the MCC: wing mechanization elements, engine pylons, engine nacelles. According to Boeing's estimates, more than one third of the engineering calculations for the latest Dreamliner model have been performed by MCC specialists, and the level of participation of Russian specialists in the development of other types of aircraft remains approximately the same proportion. In 2006, the Boeing MCC received the AS / 9100 certificate confirming compliance with the highest standards for aerospace enterprises.
Boeing MCC is proud that its engineering projects in the early 2000s allowed thousands of highly qualified Russian specialists who left the aviation industry and went into business in the "dashing 90s" to return to the aircraft industry.
On June 9, 2008, Boeing and the Russian Aircraft Corporation signed an agreement to expand cooperation, which added the implementation of training programs for employees of domestic enterprises in the aerospace industry. Boeing plants in the United States regularly organize internships for Russian specialists. This allows domestic engineers to get to know and study in detail modern computer-aided design systems, gain experience in project management and quality control. But is everything really so beautiful?
Scientific and technical center
MCC is just an external attribute, Boeing has penetrated much deeper. Since 1993, in the town of Zhukovsky, near Moscow, right within the walls of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), the Boeing Scientific and Technical Center has settled, at which services the entire infrastructure, laboratories and stands of the Russian scientific center - the cradle of Russian aviation - have been settled. And this is a lot - the institute has at its disposal more than 60 wind tunnels and test benches for studying the strength, acoustics and aerodynamics of aircraft. At present, Boeing certainly has access to any information from the archives of the once specially protected institute; American specialists have thoroughly studied all the former projects of Soviet scientists. Apparently, some of the "morally obsolete" developments of the Soviet era are still of considerable interest - Boeing is ready to pay millions to ensure the smooth operation of its Scientific and Technical Center.
The Americans have long considered TsAGI as their property and are doing business inside the institute - they mount the equipment they need and set up stands for testing Boeing aircraft parts. 500 Russian specialists are involved in the work of the center: engineers and technicians, scientists, programmers - employees of TsAGI - Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after prof. N. Ye. Zhukovsky”, CIAM - Federal State Unitary Enterprise“Central Institute of Aviation Motors. P. I. Baranov”, Institute of Applied Mathematics named after Keldysh and other institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Boeing saves a lot on design development - the Americans got all the necessary scientific and testing facilities practically for free, and Russian specialists need to pay much less than their overseas counterparts.
Made in Russia
Boeing needs titanium. Lots of titanium. On July 7, 2009, the Ural Boeing Manufacturing joint venture was opened on the basis of the industrial capacities of the Russian corporation VSMPO-AVISMA, Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region.
The Russian corporation VSMPO-AVISMA is the world's largest producer of titanium products with a vertically integrated technological process. Sponge titanium is used as the main component in the smelting of high quality titanium alloys. The new plant, equipped with the latest technology, is engaged in the machining of titanium stampings for Russian and American aircraft. Estimated production capacity - 74 tons of titanium products per month. Finishing of the parts takes place at the Boeing plant in Portland (USA).
Over the next 30 years, Boeing's business development plan in Russia envisages investments of $ 27 billion, of which about $ 18 billion will be spent on purchasing titanium products, $ 5 billion on purchasing design services, and $ 4 billion is planned to be spent on purchase of other types of goods and services produced by the aerospace industry in Russia.
Tops and roots
Boeing is a serious company with a solid history and vast practical experience in creating outstanding projects. The financial potential of the industrial giant is practically inexhaustible - Boeing is able to take on any project in the aerospace industry. This is a truly high level, Russian science is worthy of equal cooperation with such a partner! But can we really call our relationship a partnership?
Thanks to the intervention of "overseas friends", hundreds of our engineers, the flower of Russian science, were spared in the 90s from traveling with wide checkered bags to China, continuing to do their favorite thing - Aviation. But to claim that this is a great merit of Boeing is at least not fair. Boeing only competently took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union and acted in purely their own interests. Over the 19 years of Boeing's presence in Russia, Russian specialists have become familiar with the best American technologies. Billions of investments in Russian industry, charity programs in Russia and the CIS. The World of Art Foundation, the Center for Rehabilitation of Children with Oncological Diseases, adoption programs for orphans (the Kidsave International program is a constant object of criticism), the Diagnostic Center at the Children's City Hospital in Verkhnyaya Salda.
And everything seems to be not bad. But it does not leave the feeling that behind the rubbery smiles of the Americans there is a wolfish grin. I am proud of the Russian scientists who create the world's most advanced civilian airliners. Aircraft with composite fuselage - powerful, safe and economical? Very good. But why is it Boeing and not Tupolev? Russian science reaffirmed its prestige … but all the profits went overseas. No, I am not against cooperation with foreign partners and exchange of experience in the framework of international research programs. But American specialists have been working at TsAGI for a long time, and why, for example, the Sukhoi Design Bureau does not have its own scientific and technical branch somewhere in the Waterton Canyon Research Center, owned by the Lockheed Martin corporation ?!
We are ready to cooperate with honest partners. But this, excuse me, is a one-sided game.
