The new medium-range aircraft MC-21-310 will reduce weight and increase flight range by approximately 1000 km by 2029. This was announced by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.
According to him, it is not yet known whether another less spacious modification of the aircraft will appear — the market will provide the answer.
The reduction in weight and increase in flight characteristics will coincide approximately with the appearance of a shortened version, which will immediately have a range of more than 5000 km in its base configuration, Manturov added.
It is not possible to switch to a short version now because it requires design work and testing. This will take time — approximately until 2029. The same amount of time will be required to reduce the weight of the basic version of the aircraft. As for the operators, their average flight range is 3000 km, so even with a reduced range, the MC-21 will be able to satisfy their request.
Andrey Patrakov, founder of the RunAvia flight safety service, explained to "Perviy Technicheskiy" that the drop in the flight range of the MC-21-310 is due to import-substituted composite materials, which caused the project to regress to the level of the Tu-154.
