Dear reader,

On the eve of the 52nd Paris Air Show, just three weeks before its opening, a historical event took place in the Russian city of Irkutsk. Here, at the airfield of Irkutsk Aviation Plant (a subsidiary of Irkut Corp. being a part of the United Aircraft Corporation) the newest Russian short/medium-haul airliner MC-21-300 being considered a worthy competitor to Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737MAX and COMAC C919, flew for the very first time.

Irkut MC-21 featuring a huge number of prospective design solutions including 'black' wing made of polymer composites  under unique non-autoclave technology, modern avionics and airborne systems,  is a bright example of mutually beneficial cooperation between Russian companies and their Western partners from Europe and the US. MC-21 now has 175 firm orders with it's certification and first deliveries to take place in 2019.

MC-21 is the second Russian modern commercial airliner developed in the recent years in cooperation with the leading Western system suppliers. The first one is the Sukhoi SuperJet 100 advanced regional jet now being in service not only in Russia, but also in Latin America and Western Europe. Superjet's regular services in European skies, on the routes of Irish airline CityJet, began a year ago, in June 2016. Since this spring CityJet's SSJ100s also fly on the network of Brussels Airlines (a part of Lufthansa Group) fulfilling more than a dozen daily flights connecting cities in Belgium, France, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Denmark, etc.

SSJ100 became a product of cooperation between Russian, Italian, French and some other Western aerospace companies. The 52nd Paris Air Show where one of the Superjets already customised for its delivery will be shown is supposed to be a good place to increase new Russian regional jet's order book.

One more significant event in Russian aerospace industry has occurred just before Le Bourget airshow. The newest Kamov Ka-62 multirole medium helicopter developed in cooperation with Safran Helicopter Engines (former Turbomeca) from France and some other European companies made its first circuit flight in late May 2017. Safran Helicopter Engines already cooperate with Russian Helicopters providing its engines for Kamov Ka-226T recently put into series production. Russian rotorcraft developers have some more new and upgraded models with Mil M-38 and Mi-171A2 among them to hit the market in the nearest future.

I hope this Paris Air Show will become a good place for new meetings of Russian aircraft makers with their foreign partners and potential customers while this issue of Take-off could be some kind of a handbook of the latest Russian aerospace achievements for them. I wish all the participants and visitors of this air show useful contacts and lucrative contracts and, of course, the pleasure of watching the unforgettable demonstration flights of aircraft from all over the world.

Sincerely,

Andrey Fomin,
Editor-in-chief,
Take-Off magazinef