RuAviation

First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Government Denis Manturov, answering a question regarding cooperation with China on the long-range wide-body aircraft C929 said that Russia is considering the supply of various components, in particular, power units. This is reported by TASS.

Manturov recalled that the format of Russia’s participation in this project has been revised, and now UAC is ready to provide the necessary in-house competences for the project on the basis of the contract of performers.

The initial plans for the joint development of the CR929 aircraft envisaged that the airliner would be equipped with one of three types of engines at the customer’s choice. UAC proposed to follow the scheme used on the MC-21 – to include several powerplant options in the CR929 project: PD-35, General Electric GEnX and Rolls Royce Trent 7000. At the same time, COMAC rejected the idea of using the Russian TPDD at the root. Various reasons were voiced, but one of the most probable ones is that the engine does not exist in “hardware” yet, and Chinese designers doubt its success. At the same time COMAC is developing its own turbofan engine, which could potentially be installed on the C929.

The PD-35 was proposed to power the CR929 back in 2017 as an alternative to Rolls-Royce’s TPDD. Back then, at one of the meetings on the CR929, Denis Manturov told Chinese negotiators: “Now there are two aircraft that have divided the global market – Airbus and Boeing. We are creating an alternative, they are unlikely to be happy. We will be at the finish line of creation – suddenly it will turn out that these big engines did not make it for some reason – there will be at least ten reasons for that.” Then the Chinese agreed.

In December 2022, Denis Manturov said in an interview with TASS that Russia may decide to switch from being a co-developer of the aircraft to being a supplier of components.

“Our Chinese colleagues currently have applications for participation in this project from various third-country component manufacturers. We do not consider this format for ourselves, given the current situation and all the risks, which we understand very well. Therefore, in order not to face them, we may decide to switch from a partner in this project to the status of a supplier of units and components,” he said.

In 2023 Russia withdrew from the project, COMAC changed its name to C929 and continued working on the liner project independently. UAC retained the role of a supplier of components, in particular, the development of a composite wing for this aircraft.