At least, this is what the United Aircraft Corporation is counting on.
Russia was ready to endlessly buy new civilian airliners manufactured by Boeing and Airbus, but the collective West, with its barrage of illegal restrictions (“sanctions”), decided otherwise, and now the Russian Federation has only one way out: to revive its own civilian aircraft industry at a rapid pace, since quite recently (in historical perspective, of course) approximately every second aircraft on Earth was Soviet/Russian.
The main hopes of Russian civil aviation are placed on the medium-range airliner MS-21, which is supposed to replace such popular aircraft as the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, so it is quite natural that the lion’s share of attention from journalists and the general public is often focused on the MS-21. The United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) understands this, so it periodically shares news regarding the development of this project.
According to the head of UAC, Yuri Slyusar, the previously outlined plan for conducting the first test flight of the fully import-substituted (with Russian advanced PD-14 engines) MS-21 aircraft remains in force – the flight should take place this year.
Let us recall that the deadlines for the introduction of the MS-21 into service are regularly shifted to the right: according to the plan, airlines will receive their first orders for these aircraft only by the end of 2025. So far, this only concerns Aeroflot.
