The RATA Aviation Training Center was established on July 23, 2020 as an affiliate of PJSC Yakovlev for the purpose of training aviation personnel and maintenance of Russian civil aircraft. In line with UAC's strategy, the training center already provides, and will continue to provide, aviation personnel training opportunities for SSJ-100, SJ-100, MC-21, IL-114-300 aircraft. As of today, the RATA certificate includes more than 70 training programs for aviation personnel, and 15 more will become available in the near future. Pilots, flight attendants, engineering and technical staff, ground personnel are trained here. Over the three years of its existence, RATA has trained more than 200 pilots and almost 1000 engineering and ground personnel. And more than 4000 pilots have used the services of the training center. At the moment, the training center is based on three sites where theoretical and practical training takes place, and two SSJ-100 full-pilot simulators, one procedural and one for rescue training are located.

In 2023, PJSC Yakovlev developed a development strategy, which includes a section dedicated to after-sales service of new domestic aircraft as a large block. This strategy will become part of the overall strategy of UAC. And a significant block of this development program is devoted to the direction of aircraft personnel training, because without trained specialists it is impossible to start operating or continue operating aircraft. At the same time, this area is very capital-intensive, because in addition to conducting a large number of research works, providing each type of aircraft with a package of initial data for the development of simulators and preparation of training programs, it will be necessary to develop and build a large number of various simulators, select or erect buildings for them and equip them with appropriate communications, which are subject to special requirements.

Oleg Evgenyevich Bocharov, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation: "It is time to overcome modesty in aircraft construction and show that we have something to be proud of".

RATA was created to realize this task.  As already mentioned, RATA operates two SSJ-100 full-flight simulators, one of which has now been moved from Zhukovsky to a new site in Skolkovo, and the second simulator is located in Sheremetyevo. This number of simulators is the starting number. In the future, given the plans to grow the domestic fleet of Russian airlines, the simulator fleet will need to be increased at a very high rate. At the moment, three SSJ-100 simulators, two of them at RATA and one at the Ulyanovsk Higher Aviation School, support the operation of 157 aircraft of this type.

However, by 2030, the total fleet of Russian airplanes may exceed 700 units. RATA specialists believe that at least 18 full-flight simulators will be required to support the operation of such a fleet. PJSC "Yakovlev" came to the conclusion that at this stage the capabilities of independent training centers to invest huge resources in the development of simulators, their ordering and organization of the training process are not enough to implement this program in such a short time. For this reason, it was decided to take this function over. Nevertheless, according to Yakovlev's forecasts, starting from 2029 the volume of the aircraft fleet will be sufficient for third-party training centers to join this process. According to the presentation, by 2031 at least 4 simulators will be operated by industry partners.

UAC CEO Yuri Borisovich Slyusar: "Earlier Boeing simulators were located here, and now there will be simulators of Russian airplanes. We will have to replace the entire foreign fleet. This is a big, ambitious and extremely difficult task".

At this stage of strategy implementation, the Russian designer and manufacturer of civil aircraft is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the sanctions pressure from foreign countries. It is no secret that simulators have been built so far mainly by large foreign companies. Now these manufacturers do not exist. Yes, there are domestic developers and manufacturers of simulators in the country, but there is a question of foreign components they used. Now PJSC "Yakovlev" and RATA are an important link in the development of domestic simulator building, acting as the main customer and financing the development of simulators. In the near future, three new simulators will be installed in the Skolkovo Training Center.

However, in order to be able to operate 18 simulators, they need to be located somewhere. In this regard, RATA plans to actively expand its production facilities. First of all, it will be another site on the territory of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI). Already next year will begin to equip two buildings of the Institute for use as a training and educational center, which should be put into operation in 2025. The MAI site is supposed to accommodate 5 simulators. But even this will not be enough. That is why Skolkovo is planning to build the second stage of the simulator complex, which should be put into operation in 2027. It will be able to accommodate 4 more simulators. Thus, the total capacity of the simulator park (including 2 in Sheremetyevo and 1 in Ulyanovsk) will provide operation of 16 simulators. The fate of placing two more simulators has not been decided yet. Probably, it will be handled by those third-party independent training centers.

Andrey Boginsky, General Director of PJSC "Yakovlev": "We, together with partners and contractors, carried out a unique operation to move the simulator from Zhukovsky to Skolkovo with dismantling, installation, even had to completely dismantle the wall of one of the rooms".

The project of the new simulator center in Skolkovo was implemented in a very short time. The SSJ-100 simulator was disassembled in Zhukovsky, delivered to the new site in Skolkovo, assembled, connected to communications and put into operation in just two months. And this is despite the fact that the foreign manufacturer of the simulator did not take any part in this operation. Everything was done by our domestic specialists. In order to remove large elements of the structure, in Zhukovsky even had to dismantle the wall of the building. Moreover, the disassembly of the simulator's moving platform revealed deficiencies that foreign specialists admitted either during the initial assembly or occurred during the operation of the simulator and were not eliminated by them. In the new simulator, which was reassembled by Russian specialists, the moving part began to work much better.

In conclusion, a few words about the structure of the simulator fleet by aircraft type. In addition to the three SSJ100 simulators available in the country (2 in RATA), 12 more simulators will be installed in RATA by 2030: 3 SJ-100 simulators, 7 MC-21 simulators, one each of Tu-214 and Il-114-300. It should be recalled here that in the UAC this year, in fact, the creation of the UAC division - Civil Aviation under the management of PJSC Yakovlev was completed. Now all civil programs of the corporation will be managed by this division, from design and production, to operation support and personnel training.