The production of a domestic replacement for the An-2 is being slowed down due to the lack of a motor and incorrect estimates by officials
Vladimir Putin instructed to accelerate the development and launch into mass production of the Baikal small aircraft (LMS-901), as well as to make its cost competitive. The President made such a statement on September 5 during the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum. According to Putin, the number of passengers on domestic flights in the region should reach 4 million per year by 2030.
"We need to build our own aircraft, reliable, high-quality and in the volumes we need. In this regard, I ask you to accelerate the development of the Baikal light multipurpose aircraft by passenger aviation. We need to launch it into mass production in the near future. At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the cost and technical characteristics of the aircraft must be competitive so that the price of a flight on them is affordable for citizens," the president said.
However, for now, the timing of the launch of the Baikal, as well as their availability, is questionable. As already written by "SP", in mid-August it became known that the aircraft, which is to replace the AN-2, in 2025 will cost not 120 million rubles, as promised by the manufacturer during the tender, but 455 million. This price will grow by at least 4% per year and by 2032 it will amount to 587 million rubles.
The timing of the launch of the Baikal into mass production is also unclear. Next year, it was planned to deliver five aircraft to carriers, in 2026-2029 — 25 cars per year, in 2030 — 34 (a total of 139 aircraft). But, as First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said on the sidelines of the WEF, it is necessary to produce an aircraft only with a Russian VK-800 engine, and it is not ready yet. Certification is expected to take place at the end of 2025, and certification is planned for 2026 directly on the aircraft in its entirety and the start of deliveries to airlines. However, if you consider how the entire production program of "1000 aircraft" is shifting to the right, you also need to be wary of these deadlines.
Expert of the Transport Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, editor-in-chief of the portal Avia.ru Roman Gusarov believes that no matter how much the president talks about accelerating the launch of the Baikal into mass production, it is unlikely to succeed. As for the reduction in price, you can only count on government subsidies.
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| The first flight prototype of the LMS-901 Baikal light multipurpose aircraft developed by Baikal Engineering LLC in its first flight. Yekaterinburg (Aramil), 30.01.2022. |
| Source: Ural Civil Aviation Plant JSC |
— I am not ready to confirm that the data on the cost of Baikal, which appeared in the media, are real. If the price is like this, it is a lot, but it is most likely due to objective realities. Under the conditions of sanctions and restrictions, it is very difficult to make a cheap aircraft, especially since it is being developed from scratch.
Mass production can help — as soon as it starts to scale, the cost will start to decrease. But anyway, what are our options? We will not have foreign aircraft, and not only because of the sanctions, but because there is simply no such class on the market. No matter how much Baikal costs, there is nowhere to go, you will have to focus only on this product.
To make it available, the government has a whole set of mechanisms developed on the same Superjet-100 project. These are programs to subsidize the production and purchase of aircraft, grace periods, and so on.
Bank rates are also important, because if companies borrow at 20%, it's crazy. And, of course, this aircraft is intended for use on those routes that do not exist without subsidies, these are social transportation in hard-to-reach regions. So there is a package of mechanisms that can make flights on "Baikal" accessible to the public.
"SP": And what about the timing?
— I'm afraid that it will be impossible to create an airplane faster, no matter how much you invest or change contractors. There are certain cycles and deadlines for the development of aircraft, and even more so engines for it. We saw this aircraft in 2021 at the MAKS Air show, at the same time it performed its first flight.
But the current delay is due to the lack of a working domestic engine, which is being developed from scratch. And the engine is even more difficult to create, longer and more expensive than the aircraft itself.
It is better to be patient as long as necessary, but make a reliable engine. You need to understand that this aircraft has only one engine, it does not have a spare one, like large cars.
It should be a very reliable device, while being very unpretentious in the difficult operating conditions of our North. The AN-2 was created back in 1948, so many years have passed, and no one in the world has been able to create the best large biplane for our conditions over all these years.
I share the president's desire to get this plane as soon as possible, but haste is not necessary in this case. It is better to double-check everything not even seven, but a hundred times, because we are talking about flight safety.
Oleg Smirnov, a member of the Public Council of the Federal Service for Supervision of Transport, Honored Pilot of the USSR, believes that the release of "Baikal" can be accelerated if specific officials are responsible for the timing of the project. At the same time, the expert admits that even in this case, it will not be possible to quickly launch biplanes into mass production.
— We are very pleased that the problem, which has been of great concern to professionals in the field of small aircraft for 30 years, has once again been voiced by the president at such a representative event as the Far Eastern Forum. The Far East is one of the areas that cannot live normally without small aircraft, and it is almost completely destroyed here.
The President had to emphasize that once again we are talking about the release of these aircraft, once again he is being fed with false promises and government programs for "a thousand planes", but there are no results. This deception has already taken on such a total character that it looks more like a state policy in order to deceive the president and the leadership of the country in order to extract the next budget billions or even trillions, and then put them in your pocket.
I did not have enough simple phrases in my speech — such and such a minister was dismissed from office for not fulfilling his tasks, illegally obtained funds were withdrawn from such and such and launched into small aircraft construction. But we see that the deadlines are being postponed again under pretexts that look like pathetic babble compared to the bravura reports to the president that the aircraft is about to be put into mass production. In fact, we don't see anything similar to this launch.
The further fate of this aircraft depends on whether we will have a hard turn towards objective state assessments of the situation, identification of the perpetrators, appointment of those responsible for the result and determination of the actual production dates. Then there will be "Baikal" and other aircraft.
"SP": Even if this hypothetically happens, is it possible to accelerate the production of the aircraft and reduce the cost of production, or is it objectively impossible?
— That's a good question. If the plane really costs 500-600 million rubles, no company that deals with local transportation in the Far East will be able to afford it.
The state must figure out how it happened that the plane suddenly became 4-5 times more expensive. There are relevant bodies — the Prosecutor General's Office, the Accounting Chamber, law enforcement agencies — that should deal with this issue. When strict order reigns in this area, it will become clear what the real release dates and cost of the aircraft may be.
Anna Sedova
