As the newspaper Kommersant reported in [...] Aigul Abdullina's article, "Clouds are gathering over Baikal. The replacement of the "corncob" will be replaced by the "corncob", the project to create a light multipurpose turboprop aircraft "Baikal" may be frozen or transferred to S7 Group. This is due to the structural problems of the aircraft, which, according to Kommersant's sources, may take up to five years to resolve. The motorized An-2 is being considered as a temporary alternative in the supply program until 2030. The production of the engine needed for this will cost, according to estimates by the United Engine Corporation (UEC), 1.8 billion rubles, while the completion of the Baikal, according to Kommersant's interlocutors, is at least five times more expensive.
The first flight prototype of the LMS-901 Baikal aircraft, February 2023 (c) Boris Yarkov / Ural Worker
Fog over Lake Baikal
As it became known to Kommersant, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is resolving the issue of the An-2's remotorization amid problems with the Baikal light multipurpose turboprop aircraft (LMS-901), which was supposed to occupy the niche of the outdated Corncob. Several Kommersant sources in the industry, including those close to the Ural Civil Aviation Plant (UZGA), insist that the fate of the Baikal project has not yet been decided. In the fall, it was reported that the delivery dates would be shifted to 2026. But according to Kommersant's interlocutors, the aircraft requires constructive improvements with a realistic deadline of three to five years.
When designing the aircraft, a number of "dramatic mistakes were made, which were finally revealed only now," says a Kommersant source close to the Ministry of Industry and Trade: "The aircraft actually needs to be reassembled."
He and three other Kommersant sources note that problems with stability at low speeds, high steering forces, as well as the need to increase the tail unit, transfer the tail wheel and redesign the landing gear have been identified.
According to two Kommersant sources, UZGA requested additional financing from the Ministry of Industry and Trade (according to one of them, about 10 billion rubles) to finalize the aircraft. It is unknown whether the allocation of funds has been approved. One of Kommersant's sources close to the Ministry of Transport believes that the Baikal program can be "painlessly closed" after an alternative solution is found.: "Perhaps the plant will be allowed to concentrate on Ladoga and Osvey (a Russian-Belarusian project), which will reach the An-2 market." A source close to the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that it may not be about the final curtailment of the program, but about the transfer of production to S7 Group. The decision to consider this possibility was recorded following a meeting at the Ministry of Industry and Trade in late December. Kommersant sent a request to S7. The office of Yuri Trutnev, who offered to find another contractor for Baikal, redirected Kommersant's questions to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The department and UZGA did not answer whether work on Baikal will continue.
According to Kommersant, the United Engine Corporation (part of Rostec), on behalf of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, will resume production of the TVD-10B engine for the An-2 aircraft.
For these purposes, according to UEC estimates, which are cited by Kommersant sources, it will take about 1.8 billion rubles. A source close to Rostec confirmed the work on the TVD-10B, but the state corporation and the UEC did not comment on the situation.
The Soviet TVD-10B turboprop engine was developed in Omsk in 1965. It was produced for the An-28, and it should be replaced by the VK-800 produced by UZGA. The timing of serial deliveries of the VK-800 is still in doubt, Kommersant's interlocutors clarify, and therefore it was decided to restore the TVD-10B at the site of the ODK-Saturn branch in Omsk. The head of SibNIA (the current developer of the An-2), Vladimir Barsuk, clarified to Kommersant that the institute is currently exploring the possibility of installing TVD-10B already in operation on the An-2 before restoring production in Omsk. According to him, it may take about one and a half to two years.
The issue of the state and prospects of Baikal production and the search for a temporary alternative in the KPGA (comprehensive aviation industry development program until 2030) was discussed with Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev at the end of September. As follows from the minutes of the meeting, the Ministry of Industry and Trade was instructed to work out the issue of the volume and sources of financing for the retrofitting of the TVS-2MS (a modification of the An-2 from Rusaviaprom with American engines) and its inclusion in the KPGA when replacing engines with domestic ones. Alexey Kryukov, CEO of Rusaviaprom, told Kommersant that a decision on financing and including the aircraft in the KPGA has not yet been made. A source close to the government told Kommersant that these issues would be discussed only when it was clear whether it would be possible to operate the An-2 in a passenger version.
On the way out of the "corncob"
According to the minutes of the meeting with Mr. Trutnev, the Federal Air Transport Agency was instructed to ensure the certification of the An-2 by the end of 2024, and the TVS-2MS in the first quarter of 2025.
Currently, the aircraft is being certified only in agricultural and transport versions, which the An-2 operators openly oppose.
They emphasize the importance of the aircraft for passengers in hard-to-reach regions and are afraid of losing the aircraft for air work (see Kommersant, November 29, 2024). "The completion of the An-2 certification with the current restrictions was stopped today only thanks to the support of Yuri Trutnev, who intervened in time," says Dmitry Toropov, CEO of Lightair Airlines. In September, Lightair and almost 20 other operators sent an appeal to the Ministry of Transport (Kommersant has it) with a request to certify the aircraft without restrictions.
After they contacted the presidential administration in December, the Ministry of Transport replied that there would be no problems with operation. "We are not satisfied with this answer, since it is known that certification continues with the signing of the data card, which has already been subject to operating restrictions," said Mr. Toropov.
The developer's position also consists in requesting that the aircraft be certified without restrictions and given several years to replace the folding benches with modern seats, Vladimir Barsuk emphasized to Kommersant. In addition, other restrictions on the aircraft should be lifted, he added.
In addition to the ban on passenger transportation, the type certificate data card for the An-2 indicates aircraft alignment restrictions and an instrument speed limit of up to 225 km/h.
At the end of January this year, the Zhukovsky Research and Development Center sent a letter to the Federal Air Transport Agency (Kommersant has it) stating that these "operational restrictions will lead to a complete shutdown of the fleet," and the ban on passenger transportation will lead to "the cessation of transportation on local airlines, including in the Far North, Siberia and the Far East." East", where the plane remains "the most accessible or the only mode of transport." The alignment restriction, the SIC added, will reduce the weight of the permitted cargo from 1.5 thousand kg to 600 kg, and the number of passengers from 12 to 8. They asked for repeated flight tests and a review of the type certificate data card.
The Federal Air Transport Agency did not respond to Kommersant at the time of publication, and the Ministry of Transport declined to comment. But, as noted by an interlocutor of Kommersant close to the Ministry of Transport, all the complaints of the SIC are related to the commercial efficiency and social significance of the An-2, while the Federal Air Transport Agency is primarily responsible for the safety of equipment. He doubts that the regulator will review the established restrictions: problems with alignment have already led to the crash of the TVS-2MS Naryan-Marsky aviation squadron in 2017.
How the An-2 was modified
Background of the issue
The AN-2 was developed in 1947. Its production in the USSR continued until 1971, with a total of about 18,000 aircraft built. Currently, there are about 1.2 thousand in Russia. The AN-2 still uses the ASH-62IR nine-cylinder piston engine, developed in 1938 at the A.D. Shvetsov Design Bureau based on the American Wright R-1820 model of 1931.
In the 1960s, due to the gradual obsolescence of the aircraft's design, ideas began to appear about its remotorization - replacing the piston engine with a more modern, turboprop. The cost of one aircraft then was 65 thousand rubles.
In 1967, the design of the An-3 aircraft with a TVD-10A turboprop engine developed by the Omsk Design Bureau of V. A. Glushenkov was presented. Due to the reduction of the ICD, work on the engine was suspended at that time and resumed only in 1978. By 1991, tests of the An-3 with a new version of the TVD-20 engine were completed, but mass production did not begin due to the collapse of the USSR.
In the late 1990s, the project was revived. Omsk Polet software, after certification tests, began to convert the An-2 into the An-3T, increasing the engine power from 1,000 to 1,325 hp, the fuselage length from 12.7 to 14 m, and the payload from 1.3 thousand to 1.8 thousand kg. Due to the high cost of modernization (from 7.5 million to 12 million rubles) Production of the AN-3T was discontinued in 2009. In just ten years, 25 aircraft were built.
In 2010, work on the modernization of the An-2 began by order of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The Siberian Chaplygin Aviation Research Institute proposed replacing the Soviet ASH-62IR with the American Honeywell TRE-331-12 engine, while maintaining the airframe design and installing a five-bladed propeller. Rusaviaprom was established in Novosibirsk in 2011 to produce an upgraded version called TVS-2MS. Since 2011, he has produced 25 TVS-2MS. The average cost of an aircraft is about 200 million rubles. In 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade refused to allocate Rusaviaprom 9 billion rubles for remotorization, citing the lack of a TVS-2MS certificate.
