The United Aircraft Corporation (UAC, part of Rostec) was considering creating an Il-96 aircraft with two domestic PD-35 engines. Aviation expert Roman Gusarov called this task complex but solvable.
He recalled that the PD-35 is a huge power unit weighing about 10 tons, 8 meters long, and 3 meters in diameter.
Suspending it at one point under the wing is a difficult task, but it is solvable. Serious calculations are needed, and structural changes to the wing, chassis, and fuselage will certainly be required. The main thing is that everything is feasible, and we have the resources and specialists for this.
Among the difficulties, the expert mentioned a large proportion of manual labor and the lack of digital models of previous projects. Unlike short-haul and medium-haul aircraft, a wide-body fuselage is difficult to put on a conveyor belt, so relatively few such aircraft are built in the world, Gusarov noted.
The high price is due to the number of specialists involved in the assembly, as well as the longer production cycle — 18 months at best. Plus, a serious dependence on subcontractors, the number of which can reach hundreds.
The Il-96-300 is a wide-body aircraft, the first flight of which took place in 1988. Currently, the aircraft is operated only by the "Russia" special flight detachment; commercial airlines in the Russian Federation do not use it.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that the production of systems for the Il-114-300 and MS-21-310 has been expanded in Nizhny Novgorod.
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