The rumors circulating online about alleged plans to get the Tu-334 off the ground have nothing to do with reality. In its current state, this aircraft is only suitable as a monument or museum exhibit, and not as an aircraft for testing, aviation expert, editor-in-chief of Avia.ru Roman Gusarov, told «Perviy Technicheskiy».
According to him, there are no trained pilots for the Tu-334, unless test pilots are involved. However, flying a 30-year-old aircraft that has been removed from storage is a big risk.
They took it out for painting... Either to a museum, or as a monument. I am sure that they will not even find drawings for it, the Tu-334 was still designed on paper. There are even no slipways for assembly. It will take 10 years to bring the Tu-334 to the level of the Superjet.
Gusarov added that the Tu-334 also does not meet modern certification requirements. That is, if the project is revived, all work must start from scratch.
Now the question is - why do we need two identical aircraft? The «334th» was certified with a creak even according to our requirements, and not at all according to world standards. I liked the plane itself, but its time is gone forever.
The Tu-334 was developed in the 1990s to replace the Tu-154B, Yak-42 and Tu-134 that were being decommissioned. The passenger aircraft became a competitor to the Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, and therefore mass production never began. As a result, the Tu-334 production project was frozen, but formally it was never closed.