The Ministry of Industry and Trade told how much civil supersonic aircraft with up to 50 seats can cost and what the potential demand is for them. Taking into account the existing scientific and technical groundwork, Russia, according to the ministry, will need only eight years to create such a liner. Is it really?
“At the enterprises of the UAC there is a scientific and technical groundwork for supersonic administrative aircraft,” the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said. According to preliminary estimates, the design and creation of the first demonstration flight model with a capacity of up to 50 industrial seats may take about 7-8 years if there is a reserve for the power plant.
They estimated the demand within Russia for such a supersonic aircraft at the level of at least 20-30 aircraft at a price of $ 100-120 million, RIA Novosti reported. The aircraft's export potential can also be significant, the ministry added.
The topic of creating a civilian version of a supersonic aircraft based on the Tu-160 literally last week was raised by President Putin after watching the flight of the new Russian-made supersonic strategic missile carrier Tu-160 Pyotr Deinekin. “We need to make a civilian version,” the head of state said. “Why Tu-144 went out of production - the ticket had to correspond to some average earnings in the country. But now the situation is different. Now large companies have appeared that could use this plane,”Putin said.
The head of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Yuri Slyusar, immediately told the president that the corporation already had a project for such a supersonic civilian liner. And before that, in January it became known that the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after V. I. Zhukovsky. In November 2017, the Tupolev company announced the possibility of creating a supersonic business jet that could carry 20-25 passengers in a couple of hours over several thousand kilometers. They argued that there are opportunities for this, only a customer is needed.
In the arsenal of "Tupolev" there really is a civilian supersonic Tu-144, which was created back in the 70s. This liner became the first supersonic aircraft in the world to be used for commercial passenger transportation. Almost simultaneously with it, the British-French supersonic aircraft "Concorde" appeared. The Russian Tu-144 made its maiden flight two months earlier than the Concorde.
In fact, when the Tu-144 and Concorde appeared, they immediately started talking about the end of the era of subsonic civil aircraft. However, the market has made its own adjustments. In total, the Tu-144 made 55 flights and transported 2 thousand people, having worked for less than a year, after which its operation was stopped. The project was recognized as an economic failure (in fact, like the "Concorde"), and it was officially closed for security reasons. And since then, civil aviation has not developed in this direction.
Experts were skeptical about the revival of the idea of creating civilian supersonic aircraft. “This is an adventurous idea. Such an aircraft is not needed: there is no demand, and this is a very expensive project. It is expensive to operate, and it is expensive to fly on such planes,”says Roman Gusarov, editor of the industry portal Avia.ru.
The tickets for the Tu-144 and Concorde were indeed very high, and there were not many people willing to overpay for flight speed three to four times. It is known that a ticket for a flight on the Concorde from London to New York cost 20 thousand dollars.
“The improvisation of the president was followed by the promotion of this topic. But instead of giving the government and the president clear information about the real state of affairs - demand, creation opportunities and price - dusty projects began to appear. Now "Tupolev" pulls out an old project, which appeared in the late 80s, then the JSCB "Sukhoi", now the Ministry of Industry and Trade, - says the interlocutor.
As the financing of the SSJ project comes to an end, they begin to come up with new projects, how to get several billion dollars for years ahead for their development."
According to Gusarov, when there is such a spread in the estimate of demand for 20-30 aircraft, it means that the numbers are taken from the ceiling and no market research has been carried out. It is not clear what type of aircraft with up to 50 seats is meant - a business jet or a passenger airliner.
“If we are talking about a business jet, then we do not have such a great demand for such expensive aircraft. $ 120 million is the price of a Boeing 737, plus $ 20-30 million will be required for a business-class cabin,”says Gusarov.
If we are talking about a passenger airliner, then no airline wants to have such a high-cost aircraft, and the price of a ticket will scare off a mass passenger.
“What are they counting on? The fact that state corporations - Rosneft, the Ministry of Emergencies and others - will buy such aircraft to transport officials? Will we create an airplane again for state money and will we buy it for state money?”, The expert categorically said.
He is confident that no such aircraft will be built in eight years. “Suffice it to say that there is no suitable engine in the country, and it will not be there in eight years. The Tu-160 engine is designed for a large aircraft, not for a 50-seat one,”Roman Gusarov argues. He recalls that the Tu-144 project was canceled, among other things, because they could not create an engine that could pull the plane at supersonic speed for several hours - the engine simply collapsed. They were voracious, non-economic engines with a small resource. The Tu-144 was supposed to fly long distances, but in the end it flew only to Tashkent, which is not very far.
"Combat vehicles do not fly constantly at supersonic speed, but go to supersonic speed only for the duration of a combat collision, after which the pilot must slow down, otherwise the engine will overheat," the source explains.
According to Gusarov, if there were demand and economic feasibility, Boeing and Airbus would have created such an aircraft long ago. However, Boeing ditched such an idea after conducting a study, and Airbus is working on such a project by 2050 at the earliest.
Another important issue that is not easy to solve is the noise level. When flying at supersonic speed, shock waves are formed, which exert pressure on the aerodynamic characteristics of the liner. Supersonic creates serious discomfort for passengers and even for people on the ground when the plane flies over populated areas. Therefore, flights of civil aircraft over land at supersonic speed are prohibited by international ICAO rules. It will either be necessary to achieve a significant reduction in the noise level, or it will be possible to switch to supersonic only when flying over seas and oceans, where there are no restrictions.
So far, work is underway in this direction. For example, Lockheed Martin was about to join forces with the national space agency NASA to create a low-noise supersonic aircraft that may one day carry passengers. NASA is known to be working on an experimental supersonic engine that is capable of producing lower sound levels and preventing sound waves from affecting aircraft. The first tests are scheduled for 2020.
Also, the American airline Spike Aerospace has been working for several years to create a supersonic jet business jet capable of carrying up to 22 passengers (at a speed of 1900 km / h). And literally in the fall, the company announced that it would soon conduct flight tests of such an S-512 Quiet Supersonic Jet. However, this is still just a test prototype drone.
A second, larger test prototype will fly in mid-2018, while the S-512 itself is scheduled to be tested only in 2021. Most importantly, Spike Aerospace assures that the S-512 engine will generate only 75 dB of ground noise. However, so far there are more rumors around this project than real successes.
