On March 4, 2024, the airline OGUP Aviation Kolyma announced the beginning of a four-day flight of two Mi-38-4 helicopters it received from the Kazan Helicopter Plant (as part of JSC Russian Helicopters) to their permanent base in Magadan. Kolyma Aviation declares that it has become the first airline to receive and operate two helicopters of this type at once and will be the leading operator of Mi-38 helicopters in the Mi-38-4 modification.
Mi-38-4 helicopters of OGUP Aviation Kolyma airlines with registration numbers RA-14340 (factory number 26004, serial number 01-04) and RA-14343 (factory number 26006, serial number 01-06) during an intermediate landing at Omsk airport during a flight to their permanent base in Magadan, 03/05/2024 (from) Omsk Live / vk.com
It is reported that the flight on the route Kazan - Magadan with a length of 6.5 thousand kilometers will take 35 hours of flight time and will pass through 11 cities and take 4 days. Weather and other unforeseen circumstances can make their own adjustments to the schedule. On the morning of March 5, the helicopters arrived in Omsk during the flight, and in the evening - in Krasnoyarsk.
The airline plans to use Mi-38-4 helicopters in the passenger version with 30 seats on the Yamsk-Takhtoyamsk route and operate it on one flight, now it is a separate flight to each locality. The possibility of introducing a new route Magadan-Susuman-Yagodnoye-Seimchan-Magadan is also being considered.
On the part of bmpd, we point out that the Kolyma Aviation Airline received two Mi-38-4 helicopters, originally manufactured at the Kazan Helicopter Plant (KVZ) for the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Special Flight Detachment (SLO) "Russia" of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, but never put into operation - helicopters with registration numbers RA-14340 (serial number 26004, serial number 01-04) and RA-14343 (serial number 26006, serial number 01-06).
In December 2019, the then General Director of Russian Helicopters JSC, Andrey Boginsky, announced that the Office of the President of the Russian Federation had signed a contract for the supply of two Mi-38 helicopters for the Rossiya SLO, which were to be delivered in 2020. The first RA-14340 helicopter performed by Mi-38-4 under this contract made its first flight in 2020, and the second RA-14343 in 2021. Both of them were first painted in the colors of the SLO "Russia", but they were never put into operation as part of it, they remained at the KVZ, and now they are leased by the airline "Aviation Kolyma" due to a subsidy allocated by the government of the Magadan region.
Maxim Startsev, director of the Kolyma Aviation Airline, said that "thanks to the governor [of the Magadan Region] Sergey Nosov, we managed to take these helicopters at a discount. Also, Russian Helicopters extended the warranty for two years and 300 hours more for free. Due to their speed and modern flight navigation system, these helicopters can automatically bend around the terrain during flight and transport people in comfortable seats. These are modern machines that will make it possible to open new flights within the region, as well as flights to other regions in the future."
It can be assumed that the operation of the Mi-38-4 in Kolyma Aviation will not last long.
In February 2022, Nikolai Kolesov, CEO of Russian Helicopters, stated that the production plan for the KVZ for 2022 was 12 Mi-38 helicopters, and in total "there are firm contracts for 25 helicopters until 2024, including for foreign operators." For 2023, the new preliminary production plan for the KVZ was nine Mi-38s (apparently "moved" from the 2022 program). In fact, in 2022, 2023 and so far in 2024, not a single Mi-38 helicopter has been built. In total, to date, according to known data, four prototypes of the Mi-38 helicopter (from OP-1 to OP-4) and nine flight production models have been built, the last of which will be in 2021.
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Mi-38-4 helicopters of OGUP Aviation Kolyma airlines with registration numbers RA-14340 (factory number 26004, serial number 01-04) and RA-14343 (factory number 26006, serial number 01-06) during an intermediate landing at Omsk airport during a flight to their permanent base in Magadan, 03/05/2024 (from) Omsk Live / vk.com
Mi-38-4 helicopters of OGUP Aviation Kolyma airlines with registration numbers RA-14340 (factory number 26004, serial number 01-04) and RA-14343 (factory number 26006, serial number 01-06) during an intermediate landing at Novosibirsk airport during a flight to their permanent base in Magadan, 03/05/2024 (from) NskPlanes / vk.com
