One of the key stages in the certification of the import-substituted short-range airliner Superjet 100 (SJ-100) with Russian PD-8 engines has been successfully completed. The aircraft with registration RA-97021 made a flight along civil air routes from Zhukovsky to Ufa and back, covering about 2500 kilometers in 3.5 hours of flight time. Special attention was paid by specialists to the performance of flight modes over the Elkibaevo village area — from 10:15 to 11:30 UTC.
In parallel, work continues on the transition from French-Russian SaM146 engines to fully domestic PD-8 engines. According to Gennady Abramenkov, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia, the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirms the technical feasibility of such re-motorization, but it has not yet been determined who will carry out the modernization work — the state, the manufacturer, or the operators.
It should be reminded that, according to the analytical resource "Let's Fly Together", the certification process of the SJ-100 with PD-8 engines is actively accelerating: in December 2025, three prototypes of the aircraft took to the air simultaneously, and the overall level of readiness for the completion of certification reached 92%.