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Early in June, there were two significant milestones passed by the programme on development of a family of Ilkut MC-21 advanced short/medium-haul passenger aircraft designed to seat 150–210 passengers. Both pertained to the powerplant of the future airliner.
On 5 June 2012, the Irkut corporation, prime contractor for the MC-21 programme, and Pratt & Whitney announced the closure of an agreement on the PW1400G engine for the MC-21 aircraft family. Under the contract, the engine will be the only foreign-made powerplant to fit the MC-21. At the same time, Irkut and Pratt & Whitney selected Short Borthers, a subsidiary of Bombardier Aerospace of Canada, as the sole supplier of engine nacelles for the PW1400G engine family.
Irkut reported that the PW1400G-powered MC-21's maiden flight was slated for 2015 and its service entry for 2017.
An engine variant is designed for each of the MC-21 versions under development, e.g. the baseline MC-21-300 is to be fitted with PW1431G geared turbofans with a thrust of about 14,000 kgf, the shrunk MC-21-200 will be equipped with 12,700-kgf PW1428G engines while the MC-21-400 stretch is to be powered by PW1433G turbofans with a takeoff power of about 15,000 kgf. The latter is the most powerful variant in the PW1000G family today along with the PW1133G designed for use on the Airbus A321neo.
"We are glad to confirm our readiness to provide the PurePower engine for the MC-21, thus ensuring the economic and environment friendliness advantages offered by the aircraft", said Todd Kallman, president of Pratt & Whitney's commercial aircraft engine division. "This revolutionary engine family is totally compliant with the technical performance and programme schedule targets. We are proud of being able to offer Irkut the product allowing maximising the reduction in fuel consumption, noise level, emissions and operating costs".
"Pratt & Whitney PurePower engines boost the competitiveness of the MC-21 through the real efficiency increase that customers dream of", said Irkut President Alexei Fyodorov. "Just as important is the fact that the advanced engine features improved environment friendliness".
Meanwhile, significant events have taken place in the city of Perm, where work is in progress on a domestic engine to power the MC-21. Aviadvigatel JSC completed the assembly of and handed the first fifth-generation PD-14 (No. 100-1) engine demonstrator for trials on 30 May 2012. The first start-up of the PD-14 demonstrator on a stand of Aviadvigatel JSC took place on 9 June. Aviadvigatel General Designer Alexander Inozemtsev said: "Four years have passed since the launch of the Engines to power MC-21 aircraft programme. Development of fifth-generation engines on the basis of a commonised core engine is under the 2002–2015 Russian Commercial Aircraft Development federal programme. The key target of the programme is to gain at least a 10% slice of the market of aircraft engines in the 9–18-tonne thrust class. The PD-14 is the baseline model of the new family".
According to Alexander Inozemtsev, the flight tests of a PD-14 prototype on the Il-76 flying testbed are scheduled for 2014.
The availability of two competing powerplants intended for the MC-21 family will allow technical risk reduction and an increase in the number of potential customers for the new airliner family.
At the same time, RusAF is intent on ordering an upgrade of the in-service Il-76MD freighters and Il-78M tankers. According to Lt.-Gen. Kachalkin, the transport aviation command is to take delivery of about 40 re-engined Il-76MDMs (an upgraded version of the earlier Il-76MD, which is powered by PS-90A-76 engines and equipped with a more advanced avionics suite). The Il-78M tanker plane's version upgraded in the same manner may be designated as Il-78M2. |
