The Kazan Aircraft Plant may join the production of the MS-21, but it will not be possible to quickly replace the Tu-214 with the new airliner. The existing final assembly line will have to be almost completely changed for this, explained aviation expert Oleg Panteleev to "Pervy Tekhnichesky".
It is incorrect to say that yesterday Tu-214s were assembled in Kazan, and literally tomorrow MS-21-310s will be produced. Without a radical redesign, the final assembly line of the "Tu" cannot be used for assembling another type of aircraft.
At the same time, some of KAZ's equipment can be relatively quickly adapted for the new machine. Machine tools will require new control programs and tooling, after which they will be able to produce a different range of parts.
Panteleev believes that creating final assembly for the MS-21 in Kazan right now is hardly rational. OAK already has distributed cooperation: airliner components are produced at several specialized sites and then sent to the final assembly plant.
But with growing demand, Kazan can receive additional orders for components. If the capacity of the Irkutsk Aviation Plant is no longer sufficient, a separate line can be built in Tatarstan.
This will require new assembly production. With sufficient funding, it is quite possible to build a new workshop, purchase equipment, and train personnel in a few years. Such a task cannot be solved in a few months. Given that the life cycle of aircraft manufacturing programs can be measured in decades, three to four years to create a parallel assembly line is not much.
The question is not so much about the technical possibility of assembling the MS-21 in Kazan, but about the future volume of orders for the airliner, Panteleev concluded.
Currently, the Kazan Aircraft Plant, key for "Tupolev", in addition to the Tu-214, also carries out a defense order for the deep modernization of Tu-160M "White Swan" strategic bomber-missile carriers.
Read more on the topic:
- Tu-214 given an economic verdict: small-scale production will remain for a long time
- "Tupolev" will not agree to take on the MC-21 program
- People will be denied assembly of MC-21: "dark factory" will blow up the aviation industry