Revitalization of local air lines is an extremely important task for the country. The question is open.
There are more than 28 thousand settlements in Russia, which can be reached mainly by air. In the USSR, these addresses were successfully served by small aircraft. But it so happened that the aviation of local airlines (MVL) suffered the most. And the consequences of the crisis nineties are still affecting its recovery. Although it is the MVL aviation that should solve the problem of transport communication between remote settlements and the mainland. It means - to be effective and, most importantly, to be popular, that is, affordable. The rise and development of many regions of the country depends on this.
Aged "kids"
It is necessary to revive - at least on the same scale - the MVL fleet. By the beginning of the 90s, small aircraft operated about a million flights a year. More than 500 passenger An-2, about 450 L-410 and An-28 carried almost 10 million passengers. Today the passenger traffic has decreased several times. And if the retired L-410s are replenished with new machines of the same type, then only a few dozen of the An-2 remained in flight operation, the production of its turboprop modification An-3T at the Omsk "Polet" was stopped. Only a few units remained in the An-28, and its successor, the An-38, did not go into production. At the same time, there is clearly a tendency to replenish the fleet with foreign aircraft. There is only one way to prevent this - to saturate the MVL with its own vessels.
If we omit the financial component, which is, of course, very important, then in order to successfully solve this problem, it is necessary to have projects and technologies existing for their implementation, production capacities, engineering and technical and working potential.
Regarding the first position, it should be noted that development from scratch will require significantly more time and money in comparison with the modernization of already created machines. And over time, we have a hard time, since the solution to this problem should not be found tomorrow, but at the latest today.
The evolutionary path, despite all the difficulties, went to SibNIA im. S. A. Chaplygin. Taking the An-2 and Yak-40 as a basis, the Novosibirsk people are methodically advancing in their modernization and are ready to go far in this direction. They aim to make An-2 and Yak-40 from composite materials. This, in particular, was suggested in the article "The offspring of the corn plant". Earlier, the management of the institute announced that it would seek remotorization and replacement of the onboard equipment of the surviving and airworthy Yak-40 fleet (about 100 units) and within two years to modernize up to 150-200 An-2. The implementation of these plans, according to SibNIA, will completely close the issue of transportation on local airlines and remove the acuteness of the problem for the next five to seven years, allowing for this time to create new machines.
"Father" shots
The second and third positions remain open, the last is the key one. It is worth turning to the dramatic fate of the Saratov Aviation Plant, which, among other things, was engaged in the production of the Yak-40 and has ceased to exist today.
If the Soviet approach "cadres decides everything" is unacceptable for someone, you can recall the words of Henry Ford: "You can take my factories, burn my buildings, but leave my people to me and they will restore everything."
The key link in our situation is and will be the retained qualified personnel. It makes sense to pay attention to aircraft repair plants (ARP) of the Russian Federation and Belarus. It is worth remembering the initiative of Alexander Lukashenko, officially put forward by him on April 2, 2014. Then, when visiting the 558th ARZ in Baranovichi, the task was set to master the production of aircraft in addition to its repair, as well as expand the range of units and equipment for aircraft produced in the republic. Lukashenko emphasized that Belarusian products should be focused primarily on the needs of Russia.
Our proposals can form the basis of the "People's Aviation" alliance program, the goal of which should be the revival of the MVL fleet. It is necessary, relying primarily on the work of SibNIA to modernize the An-2 and Yak-40, to enter into close cooperation with Belarus, whose ARP, together with similar Russian enterprises, would become the main production sites of this program.
Corn heart
However, one more very important question remains open: what engines will be installed on these aircraft? SibNIA projects initially envisioned Honeywell (USA) engines for both An-2 and Yak-40. And this raises strong doubts about obtaining positive results in the future, since the political component has not been removed from the agenda. Even with the complete lifting of Western sanctions, a serious problem may arise from the other side. The future would-be president of the United States is determined to have a massive industrial revival in his country. For the successful implementation of this project, among other things, it is necessary that energy resources are as cheap as possible. It is for this reason that Trump said in a recent video message: "I will lift job-killing restrictions on America's energy production, including offshore energy and coal." The result of such actions may be a significant decrease in the price of oil, that is, a decrease in foreign exchange inflows that is sensitive for us. This will limit the possibilities for the purchase of American engines and for leasing.
Apparently, in this regard, the Novosibirsk people switched to the domestic version of the Yak-40 remotorization with AI-222-25 engines (moreover, a purely Russian production, without cooperation with Ukraine). Note that in the late 90s, the OKB im. A. S. Yakovleva has already considered the possibility of replacing three Ukrainian engines with two American ones.
However, there are unresolved issues regarding Russian remotorization projects today. Therefore, it is proposed to consider a possible Ukrainian version of industrial cooperation.
Of course, relations with Kiev are very far from friendly, but you need to think about the future and leave the doors open for this. Vladimir Putin confirmed his readiness for a constructive dialogue on September 17 at a political summit in Bishkek. The main thing is to make an imperious decision to start moving in this direction, and our leadership has already announced this.
If we take the An-2 and Yak-40 projects as a basis, then these can be MS-500V-S and AI-222-25, respectively. The first engine was developed by the Cossacks, the second was created with their active participation. Regarding the MS-500V-S, it should also be said that such a replacement will become possible provided that Motor Sich brings the engine up to the declared 950-1100 horsepower in take-off mode. It should be noted here that the version with MS-500V-S, apparently, will be preferable in comparison with the previously announced MS-14 for the remotorization of the Antonov aircraft, since the original version of the MS-500V (helicopter) will be in great demand in the near future for rotary-wing aircraft with a takeoff weight of 3, 5-6 tons and MS-500V-S can be built into a well-established large-scale production, and this will reduce the cost.
Where to get horsepower
The situation with civil engine building makes us look for additional options. With regard to MVL aviation, it is worth considering the wider use of aircraft piston engines with the possible connection of the potential of the auto industry and, probably, the ship industry.
Since development very often occurs in a spiral, the industry workers need to pay attention again to internal combustion engines (ICEs), the advanced developments obtained so far on them, or, more strictly speaking, combined power plants.
Piston engines in general have an advantage over aviation gas turbine engines in terms of fuel consumption, but lose in specific weights.
To get some idea of the cost of this rotation, one should give an example of the Robinson helicopter, which has gained popularity in Russia. As a result of replacing a piston engine (on the R44 model) with a turboshaft (R66), its price in the United States increased at that time by 2, 3 times - from 348 thousand dollars to 798 thousand.
But first you need to decide on the fuel. The fact is that now the issue of supplying Russian gasoline is acute for small aircraft. Domestic producers, and here, first of all, the Omsk Refinery should be noted, are just starting to spin the stopped flywheel of this production. Therefore, aircraft operators are forced to focus primarily on imports, and in the future, apparently, on aviation kerosene. At the same time, the latter can be used in internal combustion engines with compression ignition (diesel engines) and in internal combustion engines with spark ignition, as was the case in the first half of the 20th century, but from which they moved away, although the Voronezh OKBM is also working on such an option on its new "stars" series DV.
Diesels are structurally more complicated than ICEs with spark ignition and surpass them in weight, but they are more economical. In our time, we are witnessing the second evolutionary stage of their development. The first stage was completed in the 1920s and 1940s, when the American Packard, Yumo diesel engines of the PDP scheme of the German company Junkers, and the Soviet ACh-30 were introduced into flight practice. It should be said that in Germany diesel engines were entrenched in seaplane aviation, where they were installed on the Dornier and Blom and Foss flying boats, since they required a long range. At present, modern models of such engines have appeared in the West - German, Austrian, French. In Russia, relatively active work is also underway: "Agat-D" with a capacity of up to 300 horsepower, RED A05 V6 and RED A03 V12 with 350 and 500 horsepower, respectively, were created jointly with German partners - the RED company, headed by a Russian-born Vladimir Raikhlin. In addition, the management of UZGA, which is part of the Oboronprom corporation, previously considered the option of licensed production of AE300. Moreover, it was supposed to create, together with the Austrian side, more powerful modifications.
If we talk about MVL aviation, then the problem of its motorization can also be solved with the help of piston engines running on both kerosene and gasoline. At the same time, in our opinion, one should not be limited to 500 horsepower. MVL demanded aircraft designed for the carriage of 10–12, as on the An-2, and 20 passengers, as on the L-410. To do this, it is necessary to create an engine with a capacity of about a thousand horsepower for the updated An-2, and for a 20-seat aircraft, two installations of this power will be needed.
Advanced developments and technologies are required, which are available and, most importantly, have been mastered on an industrial scale in the West. And we must try to get them, but for this we must first of all show political will by lending a helping hand to Volkswagen, which is actively being drowned for cooperation with Russia. We need to create the production of aircraft piston engines on a high-tech basis - to launch, in cooperation with this German company, an engine building plant, the bulk of the project financing for which would be taken over by the Russian side, primarily in the person of oil and gas producers. The appeal to them is due to the fact that if in practical terms of the implementation of this project it will be about the creation of an aircraft diesel engine, then in the future it can be a gas engine as well.
We are convinced that the majority of Russian top managers are not just statesmen, but there are also those who are not indifferent to the fate of Russian aviation.
Since a barrier in the form of anti-Russian sanctions may arise on the way to the practical implementation of this proposal, it is proposed to create and launch the main production at the Minsk Motor Plant, carrying out a roundabout political maneuver and, along the way, contributing to the further strengthening of the foundations of our Union State.
