Russian airlines that use import-substituted spark plugs for Russian-French SaM146 aircraft engines have begun to complain about their service life. It is several times shorter than that of foreign counterparts.
<b>What Happened to the Spark Plugs for Aircraft Engines</b>
The SaM146 in question is a Russian-French aircraft engine installed on Superjet 100 (SSJ100) aircraft. However, its design included parts from other countries as well. In particular, spark plugs for the SaM146 were manufactured in the USA by Unison Industries. Their service life before replacement was 1000 hours.
After Western sanctions and the severance of technological ties with European partners, Russian designers began working on import substitution of dozens of components on the SSJ100, including domestic spark plugs - previously they were not developed or manufactured in Russia.
In December 2023, it became known that Rostec's subsidiary, UEC, developed and created Russian spark plugs for the SaM146 at UEC-Saturn.
Rosaviatsiya successfully certified them, and the first batches of spark plugs were sent to SSJ100 operators. But after just over a month of operation, it turned out that the spark plugs manufactured by the Ufa Aggregate Production Association (UAPO, a Rostec enterprise) under the UEC-Saturn project can only work for 100 hours before replacement.
This information first appeared in Vedomosti - they referred to sources from among representatives of aircraft manufacturing enterprises and SSJ100 airline operators. There are no complaints about the quality of the spark plugs, but the costs of purchasing them are becoming larger.
For example, according to data from open sources, the Russia airline alone will spend about 11.5 million rubles on spark plugs for each of its 78 SSJ100 aircraft in 2024. In total, about 900 million rubles will be spent on this item of expenditure alone. The fact that 90% of the cost of spare parts is compensated to the airline from the state budget helps the situation a little.
<b>What the Manufacturers Themselves Say</b>
Rostec State Corporation acknowledges the problem with the short service life of the development - and promises to fix it.
At the first stage, in order to confirm the quality and reliability of the products, a shorter service life is documented. After additional tests, it will be increased. At the moment, no cases of domestic spark plugs failing have been recorded.
They note that Ufa spark plugs are "better than imported ones", even though such products have never been produced in Russia before. In addition, domestic spark plugs cost significantly less than their foreign original, and the state budget compensates the aviation business for 90% of their purchase.
