32 | Flight International | 18-31 August 2015 flightglobal.com
RUSSIA
SPECIAL REPORT
❯❯ “We have good experience with the tor-
sion box we designed for that aircraft, so we
have found an ability to increase a bit the as-
pect ratio,” Dolotovsky says. “So we expect to
increase the lift-to-drag ratio level several per-
cent in comparison with the current aircraft.”
If the wing can be made more efficient, the
stretched Superjet will improve on an already
impressive lift-to-drag ratio of 16.5. Due to
Reynolds number effects, large aircraft, such
SUKHOI CIVIL Aircraft’s (SCAC)
Superjet programme seemed on the
brink of financial calamity entering
2015.
A slow-starting production system
had already produced a series of
annual losses and an overall debt of
about $2.5 billion. On top of that, the
plummeting value of the Russian
rouble only served to increase the
cost of the Superjet 100’s imported
aircraft systems.
By late January, the Fitch Ratings
agency had lowered Sukhoi Civil
Aircraft’s debt to the top tier of its
non-investment grades, but warned
that even a “perceived waning” of
support from the Russian govern-
ment for the Superjet programme
could sink its rating even lower.
It soon became clear that the
Superjet’s supporters had little to
fear. The 86-seat regional jet re-
mains critical to the Russian avia-
tion industry’s hopes of regaining its
Soviet-era foothold in the global
market for commercial aircraft. By
late March, Russian president
Vladimir Putin had committed to
inject Rb100 billion (about $2 bil-
lion) into SCAC, relieving the UnitedAircraft (UAC) subsidiary of a crip-
pling debt load at a critical moment.
The $2 billion investment “gives
us confidence in the future of the
programme and gives us additional
leverage in financing and developing
the programme further”, UAC chief
executive Yuri Slyusar told Flight
International in a recent interview.
“First of all, of course, the invest-
ment will be channelled to ease the
existing credit burden, which is neg-
atively affecting the manufacturing
cost,” he adds. “Some part will be
devoted to potential investment in
technical areas.”
Fifteen years after Russian design
bureau Sukhoi launched develop-
ment of the small narrowbody, the
Superjet is still balanced precari-
ously between programme failure
and success story in a perennially
unpredictable market segment.LAGGING BEHIND
Flightglobal’s Ascend Fleets data-
base lists 66 aircraft delivered four
years after entry into service, with
firm orders for 115 aircraft remain-
ing in the backlog, plus options to
purchase another 15 and signedletters of intent to buy a further 77.
By comparison, Embraer
launched development of the E-Jet
family only a year before Sukhoi
started on the Superjet but has pro-
duced four variants and delivered
more than 1,110 aircraft.That disparity in sales comes in
spite of several advanced technolo-
gies embedded in the Superjet de-
sign. In a different era of industrial
and political co-operation, Boeing
consulted with Sukhoi on the design
of the Superjet. Alenia Aermacchi,
meanwhile, contributed its own cer-
tification expertise and relation-
ships with the European Aviation
Safety Agency and the US Federal
Aviation Administration, and took a
majority stake in the SuperJet
International joint venture tasked
with marketing the aircraft outside
of the Russian and Asian markets.
The Superjet emerged from that
collaboration with a host of Western
technologies, including a fly-by-wire
flight control system designed by
Liebherr, Thales-made integrated
avionics and a high-pressure-ratio
engine core provided by Snecma.
From a marketing standpoint,
what the Superjet still lacks is a
family of larger and smaller aircraft.
Embraer offers four versions of the
current E-Jet and Bombardier has
three options between 70 and 100
seats. SCAC still offers only one
option with 86 seats in a standard,
two-class configuration.Now that the Russian govern-
ment has eased SCAC’s debt bur-
den, revisiting proposals to expand
the Superjet product portfolio are
high on the agenda.SLOW ADAPTATION
“We are currently thinking in two
major directions of this family devel-
opment,” Slyusar says. “First is
shrinking or extending passenger
capacity from 75 to 130. The sec-
ond major direction is technical im-
provement in numerous ways.
Basically, we had to have some time
after the basic model entered the
market to evaluate what is most
needed, and then to slowly adapt
this basic model to improve it.”
The market for the Superjet is notSALES STEPHEN TRIMBLE MOSCOW
JURY STILL OUT ON SUPERJET 100 PROGRAMMEas a widebody, can achieve higher lift-to-drag
ratios. Among its narrowbody siblings, how-
ever, Sukhoi believes it can achieve a stand-
ard in lift-to-drag ratio with the stretched Su-
perjet approaching 18.
“We will see. But we have the preliminary
result in the high-speed wind tunnel at [the
Central aerohydrodynamic research institute –
TsAGI], and it’s promising,” Dolotovski says.
The aerodynamic improvement is expect-ed to deliver other benefits. A stretched
model is expected to be heavier than the
roughly 50t maximum take-off weight
(MTOW) of the original product. In this case,
Sukhoi is hoping to contain the MTOW of
the stretched model to under 55t; or less than
10% more.
The standard formula for calculating the
distance an aircraft can fly – popularly known
as the Breguet range equation – establishes“We are currently
thinking in two major
directions of this
family development”
YURI SLYUSAR
Chief executive, United AircraftThe SSJ100’s order backlog
includes 115 firm commitments
Sukhoi