"Superjet" is slowly closing: why Russia has forgotten how to build aircraft

11
Bad news for domestic civil aircraft industry. According to S7 Group, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft put an end to the creation of a shortened version of the Superjet, designed for 75 seats. The airline itself, the second largest in Russia, previously ordered 75 aircraft of this class. Soon, the Ministry of Industry and Trade denied this statement, but made it so awkwardly that serious doubts arose in the bright future of Superjet.





The Ministry assured that there will still be a short-haul liner with 75 seats, but a number of conditions must be met for this. A new Russian PD-8 aircraft engine and 34 types of domestic components for the aircraft should appear. A post-sales service network should also be created, private investments and an anchor order for a shortened Superjet to appear. The conditions of what is called a wagon and a small trolley.

The statement of the manufacturer itself did not add optimism. The company "Sukhoi Civil Aircraft" reported the following:

The subject of the shortened version of the updated Superjet remains in the field of work under the program as a whole, but not in the first place.


But why is the question of the appearance of the Superjet-75 so important? First you need to separate the flies from cutlets.

Does Russia need its own short-haul airliner? Yes I need it.

Is Superjet the best airplane for our realities? No, it's not.

Does this mean that the project must be "slaughtered", despite the billions of budget funds invested in it? No, if work is done on the bugs.

The main complaints against the liner are well known:
At first, an extremely high percentage of foreign components, which is dangerous in the context of Western sanctions.

Secondly, low engine resource SAM 146, "carefully" designed by the French specifically for the "Superjet", because of which it basically stands idle on the ground. American and European airliners of a similar class fly on average 10-11 hours a day, Russian - 4-4,5 hours.

Thirdly, air carriers are forced to keep the purchased Superjets fun and engage in cannibalism due to the banal inability of the manufacturer to ensure timely delivery of spare parts for repairs. As a result, all foreign companies have already abandoned the operation of the liner.

Work on the bugs seems to have begun. The government has allocated an impressive amount to create a revolving warehouse of spare parts, necessary for the after-sales service of Superjet. The development of the younger brother PD-14, the engine PD-8. This is welcome. However, according to the statements of the S7 Group, the authorities ignore the last, but no less critical problem of the Superjet.

It is about the market segment where it was initially shoved. The fact is that the modification for 100 seats, the only one for the liner in which billions of budget funds have been invested, is not very popular. Demand for them is objectively small. Foreign competitors produce either aircraft for 60-80 passengers, or in terms of capacity already at the border with their medium-range counterparts. “GSS” made a bet on the version with 100 seats:

It was necessary to enter the market with a niche product - to where competition was not so intense.


A well-known expert in the field of aviation, Ruslan Gusarov, comments on this:

If there were at least two modifications, I am not saying three, then the market would begin to “swallow” these aircraft more actively.


So the liner turned out to be very “niche”. The miscalculation was strategic. The question arises, then why is the process of creating a version with 75 passenger seats so cloudy instead of the only "niche"? It is noteworthy that the "Superjet" was originally designed so that it can not be easily shortened. It is necessary to seriously redesign it, which does not cause optimism among the GSS.

Involuntarily, one wonders how much incompetence is in this project, and how much is what was formerly called "wrecking."
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11 comments
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  1. zenion
    zenion
    0
    4 September 2019 16: 01
    The worst part about this is that the more planes you have, the more you need cab drivers who know where to fly them. Where to get them?
  2. Panting
    Panting
    +2
    4 September 2019 21: 08
    And no one thought of measuring the distance from the runway to the lower edge of the turbine (about 400mm). These engines, like vacuum cleaners, suck in - they suck in everything from the concrete of the runway, which is why they are so often under repair. Initially a design and economic sabotage. How much money and resources have been thrown in, and the output is not even "zero", but a value with a "minus" sign.
  3. 123
    123
    +3
    5 September 2019 00: 59
    I’m not going to justify anyone, all the more so - with pre-sale service - it's true. It is not clear which aircraft with a capacity of 75 people are meant? Found such information:

    ... similar in passenger capacity to aircraft models (CRJ900 - 88 seats, CRJ1000 - 100 seats, CS100 - 110 seats, E190 - 98 seats, E195 - 108 seats, Lineage 1000E - VIP version E190, ARJ - 105 passengers).

    https://aviation21.ru/ssj100-i-ego-konkurenty/

    or here:

    http://superjet.wikidot.com/compare

    Only An-148 - for 75 people. As of 2018, 32 aircraft are in operation.

    https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BD-148

    And it is unlikely that there will be more.
    Airbus Information:

    https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus

    (the plane did not find 75 seats). I did not find it in Boeing either:

    https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing

    Who is in the subject, please explain why Sukhoi was supposed to produce aircraft for 75 seats and who are these terrible competitors that they are squeezing out this niche?
    Otherwise, the edges of the article do not converge with the article, and it looks like a custom-made black PR.
  4. Pishenkov
    Pishenkov
    +2
    5 September 2019 10: 03
    In principle, an interesting and adequate look at all of our current civil aviation and not only industry in general. But if you look from the other side, you still need to develop it, at least on the basis of this:

    The main complaints against the liner are well known:
    Firstly, an extremely high percentage of foreign components, which is dangerous in the context of Western sanctions.

    - That's right, but in foreign products the percentage of these components is even higher (all 100%), which makes their purchase and operation in a tougher sanctions regime, thus, even more dangerous.
    I completely agree with the author that it is necessary to move away from imported parts (and thereby reduce the cost) and develop the service. Soviet aircraft, yes, they were, but they were far from being as ideal and competitive as many describe it today. But production was supported by domestic purchases, and abroad they won at the expense of price, durability and cheaper and more affordable service. Our aviation engineers all over the world then worked. It was due to this that they occupied their "niche", and + of course, the influence in the world of the USSR itself played an important role in the marketing of our products. That is, again, well, nowhere and then you can't get away from politics. request
  5. Termit1309
    Termit1309
    0
    5 September 2019 13: 08
    "Superjet" is slowly closing ...

    Do not wait. Only in your wet dreams.
  6. philippino lippi
    philippino lippi
    -2
    5 September 2019 17: 18
    Forbid the production of these WONDERFUL aircraft! This is a SHAME OF RUSSIA! PLANT constructors in "Sharashki", let them work in prisons, FREE OF CHARGE, for a piece of bread! This is clear sabotage! First, start the series BIPLANS to replace the "CORNER"!
  7. EnGenius
    EnGenius
    +3
    5 September 2019 23: 49
    The "simple" myth is mostly a feature of the market. It is simply impossible to compare the regionals from the European and Russian markets - there really can be made five flights a day, but in Russia there is no such workload, and where there is, there are more distances, and planes are usually used in a higher class. With engines, everyone has jambs - without jambs it was necessary to take used imported ones - minus the Perm plant from the cooperation.

    Nonsense about 80 seats - now the most popular line of the same Embraer E-Jet is from 90 to 120 seats. Actually, the differences between them are minimal, as well as in price. As a rule, versions with a lower capacity are least demanded - and there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. Whoever needs it, they will buy a one-seater and will not deliver a couple of rows of seats - you will get seventy-five seats with good distances between the rows, but in reality no one will do that. Writers again write about the superjet. Yes, S7 wanted to breed niches, but an order for 70 aircraft is a complete bullshit to spend billions on development on this. They will buy a local car and will not get out. Most likely, they wanted a version with an increased flight range in order to compete more successfully in Siberia.

    PD-8 is already being developed for the future, since the Super-Challenges will be used for another ten years, and being able to transfer them to the fleet of domestic engines is a reasonable reality. Only PD-8 will be sawed for another five years with certification.

    Now most of the planes in the world are made in cooperation. Even Boeing and Airbus are far from producing all the equipment and systems themselves - in fact, they are assembling from purchased components from around the world. This is a global practice. We have a howl - not domestic, ah-ah-ah. Are you ready to give money for the development of domestic?

    And they continue to pour water about the Superjet under the brain of poorly thinking ...
  8. Citizen Mѣshkov
    Citizen Mѣshkov
    -1
    6 September 2019 03: 49
    Why, why? Because Serdyuk was appointed the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
  9. DimerVladimer
    DimerVladimer
    +2
    6 September 2019 10: 25
    Operation put everything in place.
    If the pilots said before the serial production that the aircraft is heavy, the engine is weak, then operation also revealed economic problems: lack of spare parts, low resource. Yes, and the cabin is uncomfortable - flew.
    The state intervened in a process in which officials did not understand anything; they chose a manufacturer incompetent in civil aviation, which resulted in a financial fiasco. Huge money spent, the result is mixed.
  10. yuri nazarenko
    yuri nazarenko
    +2
    6 September 2019 15: 55
    The so-called "market niche" in the range of 60-80 seats was formed because in an aircraft with a circular cross-section of the fuselage, designed for the installation of 4 economy-class seats, the height of the underground under the cabin is insufficient for the equipment in the trunk, and it has to be equipped on the same level with the passenger compartment, taking up space where several rows of seats could be placed, and in aircraft with 5 seats in a row, the trunk is already placed under the floor. And since the ratio of the length of the fuselage to its diameter should not be too large (the level of weight perfection decreases), nor too small (aerodynamics deteriorates unacceptably), it turns out that an aircraft with 4 seats in a row is economically unprofitable to make an aircraft longer than 60 seats ( with a seat pitch of 0,81 m), and an aircraft with a fuselage for 5 seats in a row is shorter than 100 seats. In terms of weight perfection, the 76-seat Tu-134 (4 seats in a row with a pitch of 0,75 m) was hopelessly losing to the BAK1-11, Douglas 9 and Fokker F-28 created at the same time or a little later, with fuselages designed for installation seats five in a row. As a result, despite the use of more economical engines, the fuel consumption per passenger-kilometer at Tushka was higher than that of the foreign competitors listed above. However, the suboptimally small length of the fuselage made itself felt, and in pursuit of the "shorty" their elongated modifications were created, which drove the "shorty" from the market. Which circumstance, I think, should be taken into account by those who advocate the creation of a shortened version of the Superjet.
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  13. Pooh
    Pooh
    +1
    8 September 2019 11: 17
    Everywhere devastation, the depopulation of competent engineers, scientists and the next bossy show-offs for cutting dough. Putin's system-70% steal from the remaining create a show. The state has a request for window dressing, there is no request for competent work in a technical sense. A classic example. Another example of a small trolley - not one declared Putin's wunderval (Pakfa, Armata, Sarmatian, petrel, Poseidon, super-guard, Eastern Cosmodrome, hangar) has not passed the state test procedure and is not produced in large quantities. Because such is the unspoken system, 60-70% drank off, remaining at the window dressing for laundering the sawn off. Obviously, we are not talking about doing normal things in a normal way. Everywhere a solid laundry. All that Russia could be has been completely stolen by the current ruling class. Effective managers turned out to be effective thieves.