NOTICIAS DE LA INDUSTRIA

Russia is considering ramping up two of its Soviet-era aircraft programs, the Ilyushin Il-96 and the Tupolev Tu-214.

According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov, the reserve capabilities of the production may be activated.

“Together with our colleagues from the transport bloc we are finishing the analysis of the needs and the priority measures. Based on the picture we get, we may activate the reserve of additional production of these aircraft,” Borisov is quoted as saying by Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

Production of the two aircraft has been on the back burner for the last decade, with just several aircraft produced every year.

The Ilyushin Il-96 is a four-engine wide-body aircraft developed in the 1980s based on the Il-86. Approximately 30 Il-96s have been produced since 1988, most of which have been used by Russian military and the country’s governmental fleet.

In 2015, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) announced the development of the Il-96-400M, a vastly upgraded variant intended as a stop-gap measure before the Chinese-Russian CRAIC CR292 becomes available, and also as a possible competitor to Western long-range airliners such as the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A350.

However, in mid-2021, UAC cancelled the Il-96-400M, announcing that no commercial orders were received, and the two prototypes are to be turned into airborne command posts (‘doomsday planes’) by the Russian aerospace forces.

The Tupolev Tu-214 is a variant of the Tu-204 narrow-body airliner from the late 1980s. Roughly comparable to the Boeing 757, the Tu-204 was expected to become the Soviet Union’s primary mid-range airliner. However, only 98 aircraft were produced.

The Tu-214 was developed in the mid-1990s and features an increased maximum take-off weight (MTOW) and fuel capacity in comparison with a regular Tu-204. While several older Tu-204s remain in use with Russian, North Korean and Cuban airlines, only the Russian military and the governmental fleet uses Tu-214s.

AeroComposit, a subsidiary of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), has commenced work on the airframe for the CR929, the Chinese-Russian airliner. Reportedly, the company has just begun producing the wing for the wide-body jet.

The news was revealed on November 19, 2021, at Composites without borders, an online forum for Russian composite materials manufacturers, Media73.ru reports.

In a post on the forum, deputy general director of Irkut, Anatoly Gaydansky, wrote: “The production lines of the AeroComposit factory in Ulyanovsk are busy almost to 100%. The factory is working on two main projects. One of them is manufacturing the wings and the central box of the MC-21. […] The second one – manufacturing wings for the Russian-Chinese CR929.”

He continued: “We are working on the prototypes [of the CR929] and developing the manufacturing processes.”

In September 2021, production of the prototype officially began at COMAC’s factory in Linang, although it was not announced what part of the airliner would be manufactured at the site.

The CR929 was conceived as a Chinese-Russian co-production from the onset. Russia’s biggest contribution will be composite parts that make up most of the airframe, including the wings and the fuselage.

AeroComposit owns the main composite material production facilities in Russia. The company manufactures composite wings of the MC-21 airliner, as well as some parts for the SSJ New, an updated version of the SSJ100 regional jet.

The CR929 will be a long-range wide-body airliner designed to compete with Boeing and Airbus wide-body jets, primarily the787 Dreamliner and the A330neo.

The aircraft will be produced by CRAIC, a joint venture of China’s COMAC and Russia’s UAC.

The project was launched in 2014, but was slowed down by numerous difficulties. For most of 2020, COMAC and UAC were locked in a bitter confrontation over the sales rights of the aircraft, which caused delays and pushed back the jet’s first delivery dates to 2028-2029.

Ukraine is set to establish a new national airline called Ukrainian National Airlines (UNA), the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky announced during the Big Construction: Aviation and Tourism forum on November 25, 2021.

«In addition to the promises, we are moving to practical implementation — this is our national air carrier, its creation will be officially launched today. We are ready to invest in the air fleet, involve world leaders in joint projects,” Zelensky said.

During the forum, Airbus and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The new document defines the algorithm for further cooperation of the parties in the framework of creating Ukraine’s new national airline, including the purchase of 22 aircraft.

«We see that in Ukraine, a country that has extremely great potential for tourism, business and any new opportunities, there is great potential for creating a new carrier,” Airbus Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Kimon Sotiropoulos commented in a statement.

Sotiropoulos remarked that Ukraine’s new flag-carrier will be established from scratch, which makes it possible to “immediately invest in new technologies, in a better fleet that will leave less carbon footprint, consume less fuel and therefore would be more environmentally friendly”.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, the Minister of Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure, added: «This is the first step when we can start cooperating as two equal partners.”

La vacuna rusa Sputnik V continúa expandiéndose con éxito. El Fondo Ruso de Inversión Directa (RDIF) informa diariamente sobre nuevos países que han permitido el uso del Sputnik V para la vacunación contra el COVID-19. A fecha de hoy, más de 30 países han aprobado el uso de la vacuna rusa Sputnik V, incluida la mayoría de los países latinoamericanos, muchos de los cuales todavía no han recibido la vacuna a través de la plataforma COVAX, diseñada para asegurar el acceso de los países en desarrollo a las vacunas contra el COVID-19.

Al enfrentarse a una situación similar, a principios de 2021 la República Srpska acordó con Rusia el suministro de 2 millones de dosis de Sputnik V y ya recibió varios lotes de la vacuna.

La compañía rusa independiente Noord Connect que opera en el mercado internacional de servicios de logística y transporte durante más de 10 años, participó directamente en la entrega de la vacuna Sputnik V a la República Srpska. La compañía ha implementado con éxito una cadena de suministro única con control de temperatura integral y continuo que es una condición sine qua non para el transporte de la vacuna Sputnik V.

De acuerdo con los requisitos del fabricante, el manejo, transporte y almacenamiento de la forma líquida congelada de la vacuna vectorizada Sputnik V deben realizarse de acuerdo con el principio de “cadena de frío” con uso de equipos especializados que aseguren las condiciones de temperatura adecuadas (18°C bajo cero). Con este fin Noord Connect firmó un contrato con Biocard, uno de los mejores desarrolladores y fabricantes de envases térmicos del mundo. El lote de la vacuna rusa Sputnik V fue empaquetado cuidadosamente con uso de contenedores térmicos pasivos SafePack con paquetes de hielo capaces de mantener las condiciones de temperatura requeridas durante más de 10 días, y se entregó al consumidor final en la República Srpska.

Como es sabido, en los próximos años la industria de logística y transporte tendrá que garantizar la entrega de unos 10 mil millones de dosis de vacunas a nivel mundial (según el pronóstico de la sede de la empresa alemana Deutsche Post DHL en Bonn, líder de la industria). La Asociación Internacional de Transporte Aéreo (IATA) ya ha calificado la próxima distribución de vacunas en todo el mundo como “la operación logística más grande y compleja de la historia”. Y el mayor problema no consiste en el volumen sino, como se menciona anteriormente, en las condiciones especiales de almacenamiento y transporte, a baja y ultra baja temperatura. Así, en caso de Sputnik V se trata de 18°С bajo cero. Otras vacunas requieren temperaturas mucho más bajas: de 70°С a 80°С bajo cero.

Por lo tanto, en condiciones severas de pandemia tienen un valor especial los éxitos de empresas de logística pequeñas que está constante desarrollo, tales como Noord Connect, que aspira a desarrollar una cooperación fructífera y duradera con consumidores extranjeros de la vacuna. Una amplia red de agentes de la empresa le permite transportar la vacuna a los lugares más remotos e inaccesibles del mundo.

El proyecto LACRUS, por su parte, es el socio principal de Noord Connect en América Latina y está listo para ofrecer los servicios de consultoría en una amplia gama de temas en el ámbito comercial, técnico y pericial, incluido el apoyo en las negociaciones con el Fondo Ruso de Inversión Directa (RDIF) sobre la compra a pequeña y media escala de la vacuna Sputnik V.