Irkut MC-21 looking for customers in Dubai

Irkut Corporation has had meetings with four airlines about the MC-21 at this week’s Dubai Airshow, trying to convince them that Russia’s newest airliner is a good plane for them to have. Dubai is the first big airshow where the Irkut has gone to since the MC-21 made its first flight in 2017. Irkut MC-21 looking for customers in Dubai. Director Sales and Marketing, Kirill Budaev, said Dubai Airshow has been productive so far. He briefed the media on the progress of the program and showed AirInsight around test aircraft 005, which is the prototype with Russian AviaDvigatel PD-14 engines. Irkut used the flight from Moscow Zhukovsky to Dubai to check the aircraft. “It has shown very good performance on the way here. Fuel consumption of the PD-14s has been similar to the Pratt & Whitney GTF”, said Budaev. Certification of the GTF-powered MC-21-300 is on track. Budaev didn’t share any details on the number of flight hours the program has done so far, except for saying that “it is very close on flight hours to the number required by the Russian regulatory agency.” If this means the certification program is 80 or 90 percent complete, he didn’t say, but Irkut expects certification this year or early 2022 at the latest. The cockpit of the Irkut MC-21 currently relies on Western technology, but Russian systems will be introduced. (Richard Schuurman) The first production aircraft are in advanced stages on the assembly line in Irkutsk. Aeroflot subsidiary Rossiya will be the first operator. At MAKS2021 in July, Irkut and Rossiya announced they were preparing for the entry into service coming spring, but Budaey said that preparations will likely start in January and will take some eight to nine months. This would mean the MC-21-300 enters service a few months later. United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), the parent of Irkut, has been working with the European regulatory agency EASA on getting European certification since the start of the program. Budaev said ‘we will see’ when EASA is ready to certify the MC-21-300, although the company stated earlier that it hoped this would happen a year after Russian certification. It has no intention to apply for FAA certification soon: “The EASA certification helps us to get certification elsewhere soon.” The cabin of test aircraft 005 seen from the back. The yellow rigs are for metal plates to be used as weight ballast. (Richard Schuurman) The -310 with PD-14 is still in an earlier stage of the flight program but should be certified next year. “The engine has got Russian certification”, said Budaev. Aeroflot has 35 PD-14 powered Irkuts on order besides the GTF-version while Red Wings will take six. More will likely be placed with Russian lessors, which occupy almost the entire order book of 175 firm orders and “several hundreds of MoU’s.” While it has been quiet around where these lessors have placed the MC-21, Budaey said that Ilyushin Finance has already placed thirty with airlines out of the fifty it has on order. Price will be a decisive factor to gain customers Irkut is projecting a market of 17.000-18.000 aircraft in the single-aisle segment of the MC-21. Initially, the biggest market will be Russia and former CIS states. Budaev is positive that the type will sell elsewhere around the world, but he confirms that Irkut needs to get a solid support infrastructure on which customers can rely. He added that UAC has made significant progress on this since the troubles that hit the Sukhoi SuperJet, which led to unsatisfied airliners like Interjet and Brussels Airlines. The decisive factor when selling the MC-21 will be aircraft price. That's why the Irkut MC-21 is looking for customers in Dubai. Production in Irkutsk will eventually be prepared for a rate of 72 aircraft per year, or six per month. UAC has its supply chain confirmed and is now relying fully on Russian suppliers for composite structures like the wings. The company had to source composites locally after US sanctions prevented the original US supplier from doing business with Irkut. As AirInsight wrote earlier, the sanctions have actually been a kind of blessing for Irkut, as they helped the Russian industry to develop their own technology quicker. Budaev agreed to this point of view: “It was indeed a blessing.” Later on, the MC-21 will also get Russian-made avionics and other systems, some of the already under development with supplier Kret. The cabin of the Irkut is remarkably wide and so are the seats. The test aircraft has only a few onboard. (Richard Schuurman) After the -300/-310, Irkut will almost certainly do a shorter -200 that has been on the plan from day 1. It will perfectly complement the longer version and offer airlines an opportunity to right-size their fleet, although Budaev said that the -200 is important as it will be a very suitable platform for a business jet version of the MC-21. Irkut had some documentation available on that version in Dubai. At the 2017 event, UAC’s parent company Rostec announced that it was discussing the development of a stretched -400 version with the industry in the United Arab Emirates. While nothing has been heard on that since then, Budaev confirmed that “the -400 is still on the table.” Strikingly wide cabin We toured the MC-21-310 on static display, although the aircraft also participated every day in the flight demonstration program. The cabin of the aircraft was partly occupied with testing equipment and engineer stations. Just over the wings, there were two rows of Business Class seats followed by three with Economy seats. With a 4.06 diameter, the MC-21 has a strikingly wide cabin for a single-aisle aircraft. “You feel like you are in a small widebody, but it is actually a narrowbody”, Budaev said. The aisle is so wide that you can easily pass a flight attendant who is serving drinks to passengers. The windows are also bigger than that of the competitors, the Boeing MAX and Airbus A321neo. The secret emergency exit that goes through the cargo door. (Richard Schuurman) Part of the test equipment is the yellow-colored rigs to put on metal plates of 15 kilograms each. Irkut is using this system instead of water tanks to balance the aircraft to prevent water from causing any damage to the aircraft’s systems and structure. The most surprising feature of the test aircraft was hidden underneath a metal door: the escape slide in case of an emergency. When the test crew needs the evacuate, the cabin pressure is reduced using six ‘chimneys’ on the sidewalls at the back of the aircraft. The crew can then escape the aircraft (with parachutes) through a hatch that actually uses the forward cargo door on the right. “It’s not meant to be on the passenger aircraft”, Kyrill Budaev pointed out. https://youtu.be/myEoh_HqJdg

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