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 4 October 2011 saw a new Beriev Be-200ChS amphibian named Pyotr Streletsky (registered as RF-31121, c/n 301) take off from the Taganrog-Yuzhny airfield for its maiden flight. The aircraft is built for the Russian Emergencies Ministry. The crew of Beriev test pilots Yevgeny Yurasov (commander) and Nikolai Kuleshov (co-pilot) flew the amphibian. According to the pilot, all systems operated normally on a three-hour flight, with the crew pronouncing the stability and controllability of the version higher than those of the earlier ones were.
Due to the shifting of Be-200 amphibian production from the Irkutsk Aircraft Plant (an affiliate of the Irkut corporation) to Taganrog, the Irkutsk-built Be-200ChS (c/n 301) was handed over to the Beriev company in mid-2010 for finalising the production cycle at Beriev’s manufacturing facilities. The new-series amphibian embodies the solutions prompted by the critique stemming from the opeval by the Russian Emergencies Ministry and the validation process as part of the EU certification.
The new Be-200ChS performed successful takeoffs, splashdowns and water scoops out in the Azov and Black seas on 7 and 9 October. In all, six sorties were flown between 4 and 9 October 2011, and a total of 20 h 12 min. were logged, including over 20 water scoops and drops. The handover ceremony to Russian Emergencies Ministry took place on 21 October, with the aircraft departing to its new station, the Emergencies Ministry Siberian Regional Centre in Krasnoyarsk. |
