This gives ground for some clever hands working on some governmental aid programs. They try to place the An-148 well below the place it actually deserves in the system distributing governmental aid to aircraft developers and manufacturers. These clever hands have been sighted working on the draft Federal Purpose Program for Development of Civil Aviation 2020. A new edition of this program needs to be worked out and activated by the end of this year or early in 2011. This Purpose Program allocates state funds for development of promising aircraft types, a standard Russian practice of rendering governmental aid to local manufacturers. 

But as we leant recently, the draft Program does not allocate any financial support for the An-148 program. The very fact of the best Russo-Ukrainian being ignored in the draft Program forced GTK Rossiya, the launch customer for the type and so-far the only Russian operator of it, to apply directly to the Russian government. GTK Rossiya stands for “State Transport Company Russia”. The airline, operating out of St.Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, is one of the top five Russian scheduled passenger carriers. The airline has six An-148-100Bs in the fleet.  

GTK Rossiya chose to endeavor the role of the An-148 first Russian operator in a hope that its effort would help the ailing Russian aviation industry overcome current difficulties and regain its former strength and glory. But it seems certain clever hand people close to decision makers in the Russian government want to lay all the burdens of curing inevitable teething problems with a new aircraft type onto shoulders of airline customers. 

Unhappy with such an attitude, GTK Rossiya has decided to apply directly to the decision makers, and express dissatisfaction on this matter. The airline’s general director Sergei Belov wrote a letter to the Russian government which contains a plea for additional measures of state support, such as a 50% reduction in charges for services rendered in airports to the An-148 aircraft operated by the airline. Besides, Sergei Belov would like to see the An-148 included in the new edition of the Federal Purpose Program for Development of Civil Aviation. According to our insider information, Belov’s plea has received a positive response from Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, who chairs the Board of Directors at United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). The original of Belov’s letter now carries Ivanov’s resolution “Let’s make it”. 

While foreign-made jetliners now dominate Russian skies, the local aircraft makers continue suffering from bureaucratic blocks. As it became known recently, the new date for establishing RUJVA was postponed again, now for the first quarter of 2011. The joint venture is to be established by turning the already existing “Control Company UAC – Civil Airplanes” company into “UAC – Antonov”. The renaming can happen only after the Russian government’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (Russian acronym FAS) approves of respective application from the intended partners on the future joint venture. We were told that by the head of UAC press service Konstantin Lantratov. Apart from the name change, FAS should also approve of the changes in the company’s list of owners. 

In late October we reported about the letter of intent signed by UAC and Antonov calling for establishing joint venture on the base of “UAC – Civil Airplanes”. UAC and Antonov are each meant to hold 50% in it. There are hopes that foundation of RUJVA would help leading aeronautical companies of the two nations materialize their mutual desire of a closer industrial cooperation. Will these hopes come true? 

The battle for funding on An-148 development and rectification has sparked up in a wake of the preparation work on the above mentioned Federal Purpose Program for Development of Civil Aviation and UAC’s new strategy. These documents must correlate between themselves and the Russian government policy in aviation. 

It seems than major groupings within UAC are in agreement on two major projects they will pursue at all costs, the Sukhoi Superjet (SSJ) and its further development SSJ New Generation, and the Irkut MS-21 next-generation narrow body. The SSJ NG is a bit larger the baseline model and can seat up to 130 passengers. The MS-21 is one step further up the ladder of capacity. What the UAC groupings have not yet decided is whether to fund other airliner programs, such as the Tupolev Tu-204SM (now at the edge of closing down due to shortage of funds) and the An-148. 

Touching on the place of the An-148 is being placed in the Federal Purpose Program for Development of Civil Aviation, a high-ranking manager in the Russian aviation industry said: “The project is being ignored now, when the airplane badly needs additional investment for improvement and rectification of its systems and components basing on initial results of the operational trials. Had sufficient governmental money been available, it would have helped turning the airplane into a better product and could have also been used as an effective tool in the hands of the Russian government to control Russian and Ukrainian manufacturers”. 

There are several versions of UAC new strategy now under consideration. These were prepared by certain groupings within UAC. None of those have passed dedicated UAC committee yet. All versions were considered, but came under critics and sent back to their authors for rectification. One of these versions sees a role for the An-148, but only for the next three years, and then its production must discontinue. This did not satisfy UAC decision makers and they sent the text for rectification. 

The October LOI on RUJVC was signed by top-ranked leaders on both sides. Many good words were said then, but little has been done after that. The An-148 is indeed the most recent and promising joint product of the two nations. Nonetheless, it has been treated by Russian decision makers as some sort of a foreign object. It seems strange given the role the Russian industry plays in the respective project. 

At the beginning of the project Ukraine and Russia agreed that they will be producing An-148s on equal terms, 50% work share each. One assembly site was set up in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, the other in Voronezh, Russia. As per vendor items, about 19% of them were given to Russian companies for manufacture. However, with every new An-148 built, the Russian share has been rising. After the first Russian-made aircraft, the RA-61701, was flown, Ukraine acknowledged shortages of manufacturing capacities to keep pace with Russia. 

We spoke to Vitaly Zubarev, general director at VASO, the production plant in Voronezh, and he told us the following. “Taking account of the difficulties the Ukrainian partners were feeling in early 2009, we made decision to expand our An-148 work share by mastering middle section of the fuselage and the center part of the wing. Previously these parts were Ukraine’s responsibility. What we have now is that we use wingboxes made in Kiev, which accounts for 23% of the airframe’s man-hours, while all other airframe parts we make ourselves”. 

Antonov and VASO signed license agreement under which the Ukrainian developer delegated some of its rights to the Russianpartner. Although most of the developer’s rights remain with the OEM, this agreement allows VASO introduce changes in the Antonov-supplied documentation so as it better meet specific requirements of the prominent Russian customers, such as the Presidential Administration, Defense Ministry, Ministry for Emergencies etc.  

Practical interaction between Antonov and VASO on rectification of the An-148 teething problems went on well. Working together with other Russian and Ukrainian enterprises, they introduced about 60 improvements and modifications into the original design. These improvements were implemented on the RA-61701, the first An-148 assembled by VASO a year ago. It commenced revenue operations with GTK Rossiya on 24 December 2009. This airplane has recently undergone maintenance and repair at VASO. Second VASO-built airplane, RA-61702, will soon be back at the factory to undergo similar work. 

Every new An-148 coming out of VASO assembly shop is more mature than the previous one, says Zubarev. This fact is confirmed by GTK Rossiya: the airline makes positive remarks about responsiveness of Antonov and VASO to complaints on defects and malfunctions freshly experienced on the An-148s. 

The An-148 is a promising design worth further improvement. The higher the production rate, the better newly assembled airframes will be, VASO says. But without governmental aid it is going to be difficult for the manufacturer to perfect the airplane. Meantime, initial revenue operations reveal some design and manufacturing issues with VASO-made An-148s. Speaking about those at Aviasvit airshow in October this year, Sergei Belov said none of these was incurable. “GTK Rossiya is making every effort to resolve them together with the manufacturer” , he added. 

Ilyushin Finance Company (IFC), the lessor which placed VASO-made An-148s with GTK Rossiya, is also concerned about technical problems discovered during initial revenue operations. “We never hide anything. The An-148 is a very open project. In fact, it is the most widely discussed civil aeronautical project of all ever attempted by the local manufacturers. If you try to obtain real figures on other airplanes in the marketplace, you will never get more detailed and trustworthy information than that available on the An-148. That’s because we and our partners are confident in the success of this program success. We feel good when sharing data on An-148 operations with the community”. 

The battle for governmental aid to the Russian aeronautical programs continues. Various groupings in the industry try to get a larger pie. When asked to comment on the current situation, one of our industry insiders said: “Those who sponsor aeronautical projects tend to give money to those aircraft that have not flown yet, or have not been delivered to airline customers. Don’t ask me why, the answer is well known”.