The Kazan Aviation Plant (KAZ, part of Rostec) will have to resume mass production of the Tu-214, as the promising MC-21-310 has not yet confirmed the stated flight range. The fate of the project and the problems of the enterprise were discussed by its former General Director Nail Khairullin.
"Where else can we go?"
According to Khairullin, the Tu-214 remains the only real option for reviving the domestic aircraft fleet today.
Where else can we go? There is nothing else. The MC-21 will not have the stated range in the foreseeable future.
He noted that difficulties with the MC-21 project arose long before the sanctions. When it was announced that there was no pan-fiber for the composite wing in Russia due to the cessation of supplies of foreign materials, this was, according to him, untrue.
It has been in Russia for a long time. We worked with a plant near Moscow, which produced it. The director then said: "We will cover your entire annual program if you find 300 thousand rubles." I found it. So sanctions are just a pretext, something just isn't working out.
The former head of KAZ recalled that the company had its own composite workshop, but later it was transferred to Aerocomposite. He called such a situation nonsense and clarified that KAZ independently made carbon fiber wing mechanization, and now they are forced to order it somewhere.
Lost personnel and a destroyed system
Khairullin believes that the problem is not only in production, but also in the destruction of the professional school.
There were workshops where they trained turners and fitters. What's with them? They are gone. There is also no training center for flight personnel. Everything is done to prevent the Tu-214 from entering civil aviation.
According to Khairullin, the Kazan Aviation Plant until recently maintained the status of a federal enterprise, achieving this through the Council security, holding on to the status of a strategic asset. However, KAZ was eventually transformed into a joint-stock company.
Loss of management continuity
The former head of KAZ linked the decline of the industry with the liquidation of the Ministry of Aviation Industry, the destruction of a unified management system and the transfer of the industry from department to department.
Aviation construction was then transferred to the Ministry of Defense Industry, then to the Ministry of Economy, then to Rosaviakosmos, then to the Ministry of Industry and Energy. I have been to government meetings on the aviation industry twice. We didn't even hold a district committee bureau like that: everything was under tracing paper, no preparation.
Khairullin emphasized that professionals-aircraft builders should be at the head of the aviation industry, because the Soviet aircraft building school was one of the strongest.
And what are the Ilyushin and Tupolev companies now? It is impossible to find strength specialists, and Tupolev had the best ones. They drove away the specialists, and it takes decades to train new ones.
On Saturday, October 11, it became known that a new audit had begun at KAZ. Employees of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia stormed the company's workshops.
Earlier www1.ru reported that Russian tires for the chassis of MC-21 and SJ-100 liners have successfully passed certification.