Russia was developing a modernized Il-96-300 aircraft with an elongated fuselage and two engines, but the project failed purely for political reasons. This opinion was expressed by Leonid Komm, former Vice President for Innovation of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC, part of the Rostec State Corporation).
According to him, the aircraft was then equipped for the first time in the history of Russian aviation with American Pratt & Whitney engines with a thrust of 17.03 tons. As a result, the only machine saw the sky in 1993, but in 2009 the government considered the production of such aircraft unpromising, Komm noted.
The Americans decided that Russia did not need to make such a competitor. Although the plane turned out to be very good, we never had such engines, and it became clear that we needed to develop our own.
In return, they were allowed to import foreign aircraft with a capacity of more than 300 passengers into Russia. Komm is sure that the project failed "due to purely political reasons."
UAC announced plans to consider the possibility of creating an Il-96-300 with two Russian PD-35 engines, which is currently in the prototype stage. Aviation expert Roman Gusarov called this task difficult, but solvable.
Earlier www1.ru reported that ODK избавила авиадвигатели от опасного дефекта: решена проблема помпажа компрессора.
