soyuz1917New life breathed into the An-140 program with various power ministries close to sealing deals for between 70 and 120 of the type. And they are working on a version of the plane with a rear ramp!
soyuz1917Was this actually a weapons bay demonstrator? I thought it was settled that this was actually a giant rec pod?
soyuz1917No, the Kuz definitely got a lighter color this summer. He looks like that in every recent picture.
soyuz1917Nah, by NATO standards the Su-24’s still in service aren’t even that old. They are just flying them a lot more and I’d bet the ground crews are overstressed and not used to this much work so you get accidents.
soyuz1917Nothing so grandiose as all that. The furniture salesman was tired of the job and has wanted out for some time anyway. He offered to resign a year ago and Putin refused to accept his resignation. Gerasimov was Makarov’s #2 and while there was some friction between the two Makarov would have had him removed if it was anything serious which means reforms will probably continue for the most part only with a slight change in flavor. Its too late to really roll them back anyway, and Putin was their biggest backer.
The furniture salesman’s mistress is going to spend some time in the gulag and he is damaged goods because of her, and any leader would have to remove him unless he wants to be tainted too. Putin had no choice. And it didn’t help that the furniture salesman’s wife is related to the CEO of Gazprom and is entirely responsible for the furniture salesman’s rise, and his cheating on her so openly was pretty much the worst thing he could do –worse than stealing $100 million — as she could always destroy him with pretty much a twist of her wrist and it looks like that’s precisely what happened. Sex scandals were not tolerated in Soviet politics. People were kicked out of the party for merely divorcing a spouse. Vlad’s Soviet upbringing wont let him stomach a sex scandal especially one involving $100 million in graft on top of the mistress.
Some of the Franco and Germanophile tendencies in the MoD do need to be reversed. Nonsense decisions like not putting the BMD-4M into production will hopefully be reversed, and awarding Rheinmetall that training base contract will hopefully be looked into more closely — Russia has one of the largest sim building industries in the world and needs German input here like a hernia. That contract smelled bad from the get go.
soyuz1917” it is too expensive for what it offers due to structural/avionics changes as well as relocation of the production line and it is sapping far more worthy projects of scarce money.”
This is where you are wrong. The plane is a solid 50-75% cheaper fly away than any of its competitors. There is NOTHING else in the same payload class being offered in the $117 million range. It is near $90 million cheaper than the C-17 meaning the C-17 is not its competition at all. Couple the low fly away price with the fact that they will be offering leases on the type — something you CAN NOT GET if you want to order a Western military transport and you have a very attractive offering. Certainly every current Il-76 operator will be looking at the type. The cash strapped CIS operators need leases. They can not afford outright purchases and this means the Il-476 will be their only choice. CIS and Russian orders will be enough to make the program a success — certainly no less so than the similarly regionally focused KC-390.
I might add that the absence of attractive leasing options is what has sapped both the An-148 and the SSJ programs of orders. They only got the SSJ leasing situation finally sorted last week with Vneshkombank putting $2.5 billion on the table! Antonov’s leasing structure for the An-148 is just monstrously bad. There are many Ukrainian operators who would buy the type if a normal leasing program existed. They had a big meeting about this last week in Kiev. The importance of lease financing in aviation can not be understated.
soyuz1917Why exactly did the Il-96-400T never catch on? They had rather sizable orders from Volga-Dnepr, and Atlant-Soyuz (before Atlant-Soyuz folded) for the type. I do believe they had commitmenta for like 20 of the type which by Russian standards is certainly a lot and with no Ukrainian involvement there was certainly no political argument for driving the project into the dirt. Were there any serious deficiencies found in Il-96-400T delivered to Atlant or something?
As far as Antonov goes the company today is basically more airline than design house. 40% of their revenues this quarter came from cargo operations! Their stake in Volga-Dnepr and its Boeing operating subsidiaries are all that’s keeping Antonov humming….
soyuz1917“So there you have it, this decade Il-476 will be the RuAFs primary new air transport.”
When was this ever in doubt exactly? But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Series deliveries of the Il-476 are not going to commence tomorrow. The first series built Il-476 wont reach the VVS until late in 2014 and maybe not until 2015 with the way these things are always delayed. The An-70 program looks to be only 4 years behind the Il-476 program — not 10.
soyuz1917Government orders for specialized aircraft alone will keep the line humming probably right past the start of MS-21 production.
Not only are they not abandoning the Tu-204SM but Tsaigi is working on continued wing improvements — a hybrid metalic-composite wing for yet another potential variant.
soyuz1917🙁
You are all talking past each other for no good reason.
1. Manufacturing in Russia is no longer cheaper than manufacturing in the EU. There is no comparative advantage enjoyed by Russian aerospace owed to any economies of scale and Russian labor is no longer cheap. The An-70 is almost certainly going to run no cheaper than an A400M — twice as much money as an Il-476.
2. We know the operating costs of the Il-476 — about 10% lower than those of the Il-76 because its that much more fuel efficient, but otherwise operating costs should be pretty much identical.
3. There is NO CHEAPER MEDIUM SIZED TRANSPORT ANYWHERE. There is nothing in the 117 million price range that’s cheaper to operate than an Il-76. NOTHING.
The Russians fully understand the handicaps of the design which is why the Il-476 fleet will be augmented with some An-70’s, but nothing gives you more bank for your buck.
The An-70 will NEVER export as well as the Il-476 because it will cost roughly 2x as much and its marginally more impressive performance and ability to carry larger cargo doesnt matter in Africa and SE Asia where Il-76 operators arent transporting tanks, and never will be or if they do they will be transporting T-55’s and similar obsolete junk which fits just fine in an Il-76.
Leasing matters. Nobody is offering leases on C-17’s the way the Russians are offering leases on Il-76’s. In the third world that ability to get financing will guarantee them sales, and will ensure the A400M doesnt sell.
Its as simple as that.
As far as the An-124 goes the principle operator is Volga-Dnepr. They alone guarantee whether resumed production will be commercially viable. The Russian MoD is almost an afterthought.
All told the Russkies will build and will operate more transports over the next 15 years than the whole of the EU. They know what they are doing.
soyuz1917UK order — almost guaranteed to see additional cuts. Thank you austerity. They already cut from 25 to 22 and pushed their acceptance date to 2015. No one really believes that’s the end of the cuts or that the acceptance dates wont be further pushed back.
German order — they already said they will look to sell 13 of their 53 abroad — that’s a 20+% cut in orders effectively.
S.Africa — cancelled their order outright and judging from the all the hand shaking Rosobosoronexport has been doing in SA lately they are looking like the next Russian break-throw client.
Spain — the nation is 100% broke and has 30% unemployment. Their 27 odd A400M order isnt worth the paper its printed on.
Luxembourg and Belgium will carry the project!
The Russian for their part did only sign for 39 but they are expected to buy 100+ of the the things. There is no unspoken demand in the EU for 60 more A400’s somewhere.
Every state in the CIS will be looking to replace their Il-76’s soon. The Russians are the only ones offering leases in that part of the world for military transports. The CIS market alone will guarantee hundreds more built.
soyuz1917And yet this half assed project will guarantee the A400m never sells abroad. 😎
At 117 million a bird this thing is so dirt cheap they have guaranteed no Chinese or European export breakthrough for the next generation. The An-70 may be a better design but in series config its probably going to run in excess of 200 million an airframe — not competitive in Africa or SE Asia. No one really believes the An-70 will be cheaper than the Il-476 do they?
soyuz1917And again stages like Briz-M are new post-Soviet designs incorporating Angara technologies. Quality control is definitely the biggest issue. They are building components for these relatively new designs using Soviet era machine tools in many cases. They need more accurate machining on lines that are certified etc…. But none of this would be an issue if the Proton of today was the same Proton that was flying in the 90’s. Its not.
soyuz1917India was told there was a 10 year waiting list on the S-400 and that none would be exported until the Russian MoD got its quota met. The simple fact is the system is not for export today and wont be for quite a number of years. Since the Indians were looking for PRIMARILY a naval SAM in any case the current iteration of the S-400 wouldn’t do anyway. They were looking for commonality between naval and ground based platforms and that doesnt exist in Russian systems today. The Rif-M system is dated, obsolete and obviously not in the running with Barak-8 and the story with Redut is much the same as with the S-400 — none for export until the Russian MoD gets its fill and to top it off there is questionable commonality with existing S-400 systems.
soyuz1917http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3mLvgvZpjk&feature=plcp
Here you go. Skip to 2 minutes for the talk about Proton. 70 “new technologies” from the Angara made it onto the Proton. New Protons are 50% composite — less metal than the old models. New accumulators, more thrust in engines, etc….
When you change this many components you’re bound to run into teething problems. Its practically a different rocket.
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