Flight tests of a new civilian airliner, the Il–114-300 regional turboprop aircraft, have resumed in Russia. Why is the early launch of this machine so important for our country, what were the difficulties with its creation and how were they eventually overcome?
On March 31, it became known that the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) resumed the Il-114-300 flight test program, within which the second prototype aircraft made its first flight from the airfield of the branch of PJSC UAC – P.A. Voronin LAZ. The flight lasted 40 minutes and took place at altitudes up to 900 m and at speeds up to 230 km/h.
"Aircraft manufacturers still have a large amount of certification work ahead for the Il-114-300 aircraft, including flight tests. Modern Russian-made regional aircraft are extremely necessary to solve the tasks that the country's leadership has set for air transport. This is an increase in the mobility of our citizens, an increase in the intensity of air traffic in Russia by one and a half times by 2030," said Dmitry Yadrov, head of the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Indeed, a few years ago, the country's leadership set the task of creating its own regional passenger aircraft. "We know how difficult it is to deliver passengers in the Far East, in Eastern Siberia, and within regions. Often people have to fly to nearby neighboring regions via Moscow or via St. Petersburg. This is absolutely unacceptable… In this sense, our own regional aircraft, especially with the ability to land and take off from unpaved lanes, is of great importance to us," President Vladimir Putin said back in 2016. And now this task is close to being realized.
What is a "regional plane"?
Today, domestic air transportation is largely tied to flights of the type "City – Moscow" and "Moscow – City". In other words, for a flight, for example, from Perm to Nizhny Novgorod, you have to use the airports of the capital's air hub to transfer between two flights. And all because a direct flight from Perm to Nizhny Novgorod flies conditionally only twice a week, and flights through Moscow – daily, and even several times a day. Flying between regions more often in the conditions of the current fleet and passenger traffic is too expensive and unprofitable.
To solve this problem, we need a specialized regional aircraft that provides cheaper transportation and is able to carry fewer passengers. It should be a small liner designed for 20-110 passengers and capable of serving routes with a range of 500 to 1,500 km.
In the USSR, the main regional aircraft in the post-war period was the IL-14, and since the 1960s – the An-24, which was produced until 1979. To this day, a large number of old "Ans" are operated both in the countries of the former USSR and in many countries of Asia and Africa. In the early 1980s, the fleet of An-24 turboprop aircraft began to become obsolete – it was at this time that the fascination with a new type of engines began in the segment of regional aircraft: turbojet engines. In the USSR, such liners as the Yak-40 and Yak-42 began to compete with the An-24.
It seemed that the future of local lines was only for turbojet aircraft – they provided higher flight speed and lower noise levels. However, the price for these advantages is worse fuel efficiency compared to turboprop machines. The successor of the Soviet turbojet regional airliners in Russia today is the Superjet (SJ100), which is actively being imported .
In such a situation, the initiative of the Ilyushin Design Bureau, put forward in the early 1980s, seemed outdated: they made a proposal to create a new turboprop passenger 60-seat aircraft for local airlines IL-114.
However, turboprop machines have the most important quality: they are more suitable for take-off from unpaved, ice and other poorly prepared runways. In addition, a turboprop aircraft is much less demanding on the length of the runway. This is a significant advantage for a regional aircraft that focuses on a network of local airfields. Especially in a country with such long distances as Russia.
IL-114-100 and Il-114-300
The fate of the original version of the Il-114 turned out to be sad. The prototype aircraft performed its first flight in March 1990, but testing, fine-tuning and certification of the machine were extremely delayed against the background of the collapse of the USSR. Due to lack of funds, the certificate of airworthiness from the IAC for the Il-114 was received only in 1997.
Another blow to the future of the IL-114 was the decision to produce it at the Tashkent Aviation Production Association named after him. Chkalova (TAPOiCH). With the collapse of the USSR, TAPOiCH ended up on the territory of independent Uzbekistan. By the early 2000s, it was lost as an aviation plant, switching to small-scale production of household items for the population.
As a result, the first version of the IL-114, called the IL-114-100, was built only in a small series of ten sides, which by the mid-2010s were chained to the ground. The IL-114 would have remained a dead-end branch of the aircraft industry if not for the changes in the segment of regional airliners that occurred in the mid-2000s.
At that time, the rise in jet fuel prices led to a revision of the approaches used. The classic 50-seat turbojet regional aircraft has become unprofitable. Its high cost per passenger seat and the inability to use cheap airfields that do not have a long and high-quality runway made turboprop machines attractive again.
Against this background, Ilyushin Design Bureau decided to return to refining the Il-114, taking into account new realities. In 2014-2015, work began on the project of an updated Il-114-300 passenger aircraft.
It was decided to install two new turboprop engines TV7-117ST-1 with a capacity of 3,100 hp in take-off mode on the aircraft. These engines provided an impressive increase in power – TV7-117SM were installed on the old Il-114-100, each of which produced only 2,620 hp in take-off mode and 2,000 hp in cruising mode.
The new TV7-117ST-1 has wider power adjustment limits – from 3,600 hp in emergency mode to only 1,500 hp in cruising flight. This reduces runway length requirements and reduces fuel consumption. In addition, the engines were equipped with new six–blade propellers AV112-114, which significantly reduced noise in the cabin.
Thus, the new Il-114-300 can take off and land at those airfields where its competitor Sukhoi Superjet is simply unable to fly. The increased fuel efficiency of the turboprop liner also allows you to reduce the price of tickets and the cost of transporting goods.
Error correction
In December 2020, the first prototype Il-114-300 with new TV7-117ST-01 engines took off for the first time. It was a specimen, the fuselage and main systems of which were created back in the 1990s in Tashkent. In parallel, another machine of this modification was manufactured, but already completely at domestic facilities. Today, various components of the aircraft are manufactured in Voronezh, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod and a number of other regions of the country.
However, tests of the new machine were stopped in 2021, after the crash of another aircraft, the military transport Il-112B. Both of these aircraft were actually united by one power unit. "It is necessary to analyze the details and circumstances of what happened with the Il-112B, including the analysis of objective data from the flight recorder. Therefore, test flights of an experimental Il-114 aircraft equipped with a similar power plant will not be conducted for some time," the manufacturer's official message said.
And now flight tests have resumed. The new Il-114-300, built entirely in Russia, took to the air. In addition, it actually coincided with another, not so noticed event: two Mi-38 helicopters of the Kolyma Aviation company were handed over to the customer and went to their place of work in Magadan. But the Mi-38 is equipped with virtually the same engine, only in the helicopter modification TV7-117V.
Over the past time, the developer and manufacturer of the engine, Klimov company, has carried out an impressive amount of design and testing work. "In 2024, starting from the first quarter, we plan to supply at least six more engines already in production form to support the Il-114-300 program," Vsevolod Eliseev, General Designer of Klimov, said in the middle of last year.
The modified design passed bench tests in the amount of 1800 cycles, and the Aviation Register of the Russian Federation issued a type certificate to the TV7-117ST-01 engine in January last year. Both the flight tests of the Il-114-300 and the dispatch of the Mi-38 to the customer mean one thing – the main parameters of the TV7-117ST-1 engine have been brought to working condition.
With the first flight on updated engines, the IL-114-300 enters the stage of decisive tests. At least this and next year it will take to thoroughly check the upgraded TV7-117ST-01 in all modes and make sure of its complete reliability. As previously stated by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, serial deliveries of IL-114-300 to airlines should be started in 2026. In total, 70 such machines are planned to be produced by 2030. Russian regions will finally receive a reliable, inexpensive and unpretentious passenger airliner of completely domestic production.
Alexey Anpilogov
