Moscow, July 6 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Engines for Russia’s new Superjet-100 airliner have failed to receive certification as they have several significant flaws, a business daily said Tuesday.
The Superjet-100 project is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi aircraft maker in cooperation with the US and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
Russian deputy industry and trade minister Denis Manturov, who heads the commission to monitor Superjet’s production, prepared a report unveiling the current problems and obstacles in the way of certification, the paper said.
Certification had not yet been granted as the aircraft successfully completed only 25 percent of the flight tests on electronics and 60 percent of safety tests, the paper quoted the report as saying.
The document also said Superjet’s SaM146 engines, designed by PowerJet, a joint venture by France’s Snecma and Russia’s NPO Saturn, had several significant drawbacks. Among them was an increased weight and excessive fuel consumption.
Sukhoi started the engine certification programme in February 2009 and plans to run certification tests in line with European, the US and Russian standards, which would allow the plane to operate without restrictions anywhere in the world.
The aircraft maker plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet-100s, and intends to sell 35 percent of them to North America, 25 percent to Europe, 10 percent to Latin America, and seven percent to Russia and China.
Currently, Sukhoi has at least 122 firm orders for Superjet-100 airliners. The first aircraft are expected to be delivered to Armenia’s national airline Armavia and Russia’s flagship air carrier Aeroflot at the end of the year.
