The last stage of the state program does not promise a clear sky
It's time to restore the aviation industry! The Soviet fleet of aircraft leaves the regular routes, and the Russian one is just getting on the wing. Tupolev, Ilyushin, Yakovlev, Antonov planes still fly, but in recent years they have increasingly lost the Russian sky to Boeing, Airbus, canadian Bombardier, Franco-Italian APR, Brazilian Embraer. Everyone understands that the dominance of foreigners must come to an end.
It's not just a dream. In December 2020, it began to take on real features: a medium-haul narrow-body passenger jet MS-21 with Russian PD–14 engines and a regional turboprop Il-114-300 took to the sky. The first is intended to replace the Tu-154 family of aircraft on medium-length airlines, the second-the An-24 family - on local lines.
Airfields
But planes are not all aviation, it is pointless to start building them without solving the entire complex of economic and social problems. At the turn of two centuries, we stopped mass production of passenger aircraft, which almost led to the loss of aviation potential.
By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were 1,150 civilian airfields with various types of coverage on the territory of the country. And in total-more than 4,000 civilian, military and dual-use.
By the end of the 20th century, there were 245 active military airfields and about the same number of civilian ones. In the first decade, there are less than 70 active military personnel left. Their sequestration was going to continue. In 2010, the military Department proposed the creation of eight joint air bases and two naval air bases, for which only 27 main military airfields should be left. These measures were intended to reduce the cost of maintaining aviation units. Fortunately, the complete destruction of the airfield network was stopped.
The situation in the civilian sector was no better. In the Russian Federation, which stretches from West to East for almost 10 thousand km and from North to South for more than 4 thousand km, as of September 15, 2020, there were 241 airfields. And there are only about a hundred certified airports in the country. It turns out on average one certified airport per 171 thousand square kilometers. for comparison: in small Austria there are 15 airports, and we have 0.5. How does this affect our daily lives? Very simple. When buying tickets for connecting flights, we do not understand why it is necessary to fly from Moscow to Tambov via St. Petersburg, and from Penza to Sochi-via Moscow. And the explanation is one: this is how the modern airfield network of Russia is arranged.
Passengers
An airline only benefits when its aircraft is in the air. On earth, it's nothing but a loss. The same is true of the flight when the aircraft is not fully loaded. It is not profitable for anyone to carry empty seats without passengers.
In the Soviet Union in 1991, a record was set: Aeroflot transported more than 140 million passengers in a year, of which 88.2 million were in the RSFSR (without the Union republics). In 1999, only 21.4 million people used air transport in Russia. The improvement of the socio-economic situation also affected passenger air transportation, the volume of which began to grow. For example, in the first ten months of 2019, more than 110 million passengers were transported by civil aviation aircraft. Of course, this does not compare with 800 million in the United States, but there is a growing trend. Compared to the Soviet period, the structure of passenger traffic has changed. If earlier 90% of passengers were on domestic flights and 10% – on foreign ones, now this figure is fifty-fifty.
At the end of 2001, the government adopted the Federal target program "Development of civil aviation equipment in Russia for 2002-2010 and for the period up to 2015" with the amount of funding of 421 billion rubles, of which 284 billion-from the Federal budget. Its goal was ambitious and completely detached from reality: on the basis of the civil sector of the aviation industry to create no less than a new world center of aircraft construction and to win by 2015 at least 5% of the world market of sales of civil aviation equipment. The government of Mikhail Kasyanov has adopted this program. The authors of the Federal target program proposed to modernize the fleet of Il-96–300 and Tu-204–300 aircraft, create Il-96-400T/M, modify the Tu-204-300 and develop the family of Ukrainian An-124 aircraft. The CEOs of Russian airlines and airports, with whom I spoke a lot and often at work, believed in the program. The General Director of Yakutia airlines, Ivan Prostit, told me in October 2005: "in 2006-2007, we expect to replace the old an-24 With new An-140-100s."
But it turned out differently. Since 2012, one or two Tu-204 aircraft have been built, as well as the same number of Tu-214. As for the An-140, due to the political crisis between Russia and Ukraine, the UAC curtailed its construction program and switched to the Russian Il-112B project.
The result of the first Federal targeted programme development of civil aeronautical engineering is this: in 2016 758 aircraft mainline, regional and Charter airlines (not including specialized state-owned airline), the European "Airbus" was 33.2%, the American "Boeing" – 29,9%, Soviet-Russian-Ukrainian – 24.1%, the canadian "Bombardier" – 8,8%, other producers – 4%.
Survival Program
Today, the topic of civil aviation is firmly registered in the media. This excitement stems from the implementation, and may be, failure to comply with the decree of the RF government dated 15 April 2014 № 303 "On approval of the state program of the Russian Federation "development of the aviation industry." It has undergone several revisions in six years. The latest changes were made by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 312 of March 20, 2020.
The state program includes six subprograms: "aircraft Construction", "helicopter Construction", "Aircraft engine construction", "Aircraft units and devices", "Aviation science and technology", "Integrated development of the industry". The total amount of budget allocations exceeded 898 billion rubles. as of March 2020. At the same time, since March 2019, the program budget has increased by 156 billion rubles.
The implementation of the state program takes place in three stages. The third, the last, will start in 2021 and last until 2025. The result is expected to be quite modest: the share of domestic aircraft in the fleet of the largest Russian carriers should increase from 12.9% in 2017 to 17% in 2025, and in the global civil aircraft market should be 2.9%.
There are still questions about the content of the state program. First, 17%, and if in absolute numbers – about 130 domestic aircraft, including those already in operation, will not solve the problem of import substitution in civil aviation.
Secondly, the item on the creation of wide-body long-haul airliners with a dual purpose fell out of the subprogram.
Third, there is no mention of the development of local airlines. They still operate AN-2, which make up almost half of the entire domestic fleet. Meanwhile, Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat (until February 11, 2011 – Salavatnefteorgsintez) stopped producing special fuel for AN-2 engines. "They fly on ordinary automobile gasoline. And these are very aggressive conditions for the operation of the engine, so the piston group simply burns out after 400 hours of operation, " says Senator Sergei Ryabukhin.
Fourth, the state will continue to have to use the federal budget to compensate for the costs of business for the production and repair of aircraft, and from regional budgets – to subsidize passenger air transportation. Since the beginning of 2020, 318 regional routes have received subsidies. In December 2020, their list was supplemented with another 71 routes. They will be financed from the federal budget within the framework of 3 billion rubles allocated from the reserve fund of the Government of the Russian Federation in the third quarter of 2020. These subsidies are aimed at providing transportation on regional routes on aircraft manufactured in Russia after January 1, 2009.
Budget money is constantly required for the maintenance of runways that are federally owned, and sometimes for subsidizing airports. For example, on December 15, 2020, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order to allocate an additional 1.94 billion rubles for the modernization of three airports: Chara in the Trans-Baikal Territory, Grozny (Severny) in the Chechen Republic and Krasnoyarsk Airport.
When will aviation start to make a profit? Geographical conditions and the area of territories, as well as the distribution of settlements, dictate certain rules for building a flight network and the structure of the air fleet. Based on this, it would be advisable, according to some top managers, to have medium-haul aircraft designed for 160 seats, regional – with 75 seats and local airlines aircraft designed for 12 passengers.
"The unwillingness of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to listen to the aviation industry leads to disastrous consequences. The civil aviation industry today is deeply unprofitable. It is subsidized. What will an attempt to give aviation the wrong size of an airplane lead to? It will lead to the fact that aviation from an industry that generates profit and GDP for the country, will turn into a leech that will suck money. Today, there are companies that fly on SSJ100, and their revenue consists of 60% of subsidies of various types, " says Vladislav Filev, co-owner and General Director of C7 Group of Companies CJSC.
The new state program promises neither mass import substitution of equipment, nor growth of profits of airlines. In short, this program is not a renaissance, but so far only the survival of the aviation industry.
In the military reserve
In the State Register of Civil Aircraft of the Russian Federation, 5115 aircraft are registered: from the ultra-light type "Virus" and ultralight type "Chick-2" to the AN-124 "Ruslan" – the third in the ranking of the largest civilian and the first among the largest military aircraft in the world. The vast majority of them will be mobilized during the special period. It is no accident that civilian pilots wear small shoulder straps on their jackets and shirts. Even a small "Virus" can be useful in war.
In 2015, the Indian Armed Forces bought 194 Slovenian-made pipistrelvirus. It is used by the military for observation flights and training of future pilots.
Our old AN-2 was also not left without attention, and whose-the Pentagon! According to RT, with reference to the notification to the potential contract, the US Defense Ministry wants to purchase the Russian AN-2 aircraft. The well-known military expert of the Center for Military-Political Journalism Boris Rozhin, better known in social networks under the nickname colonelcassad, explained the Pentagon's interest in the AN-2 by the practice of its use by Azerbaijan to open Armenia's air defense systems during the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the Soviet Union, almost all passenger aircraft were created on the basis of the military. The civilian AN-24 is the sibling of the military AN-26. The ancestor of the passenger Tu-104 and Tu-124 was the Tu-16 bomber, and the Tu-114 was designed on the basis of the Tu-95 bomber.
At first glance, Ilyushin's line of aircraft has a purely civilian biography. However, this wide-body aircraft was useful to the military department as a flying laboratory for testing space technology. In addition, since 1996, the IL-96-300PU (PU – control point) has become a presidential aircraft.
In the XXI century, the paths of military and civil aviation diverge sharply. However, nothing is permanent, and in every rule there are always exceptions. At the Kazan Aviation Plant named after S. P. Gorbunov on January 25, 2018, Vladimir Putin was shown a demonstration flight of a supersonic strategic bomber-missile carrier with a variable sweep wing Tu-160. "We, we have just discussed, need to think about the civilian version of such aircraft," the head of state said.
But this is still a very vague idea. First, modern passenger airliners are far ahead in economic terms from military bombers. And secondly, the Kazan plant received a contract for 10 Tu-160 aircraft, which will be built until 2027. Therefore, if the presidential idea is ever returned to, it will happen in the next decade.
And dreaming is always useful. Because, as the classic said, if the dream takes hold of the masses, it becomes a material force. Russia really needs it to return to the club of aviation superpowers, to ensure its aviation sovereignty. In the meantime, nothing can be done, you will have to fly mainly on "Boeing" and "Airbus".
Vladimir Gundarov
Vladimir Alexandrovich Gundarov is a military observer.
