Kazan is finalising preparations for the start of flight tests of import-substituted systems on the Tu-214 RA-64509 flying laboratory. Konstantin Timofeev, First Deputy Director General of UAC and Managing Director of Tupolev JSC, said in his TG channel.
‘Completion of construction and equipping of new production sites of Gorbunov KAZ, as well as commissioning of a number of facilities is planned by the end of the year. This will make it possible to significantly increase the rate of aircraft production. I held a meeting of the staff on the flying laboratory. In the near future, its flight will take place after complete replacement of imported components,’ the top manager noted in the results of the week.
The aircraft with the flight number RA-64509 made its first flight in November 2006. From April 2007 to October 2015, the liner carried passengers in the fleet of Transaero Airlines. After a long period of storage and restoration of airworthiness, on 14 June 2024, this Tu-214 made a flight from Kazan to Minsk to the 407th Civil Aviation Plant, where it was repainted in the UAC corporate livery.
‘According to the order of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade No. 663 of 31 March 2015, more than 240 positions of onboard equipment components had to be replaced with Russian ones on the Tu-214 aircraft. It was about the systems of warning of collision in the air and dangerous proximity to the Earth, meteoradar, radio stations, satellite and inertial navigation equipment, units of radio navigation equipment, drive-generators, fuel and hydraulic pumps and pumping stations, various sensors, relays, electrical connectors, contactors, filters, elements of household and rescue equipment and so on,’ Tatar-Inform writes .
In the summer of 2023, it became known that the Tu-214 is 87 per cent made of domestic purchased component parts. Kazan Aircraft Plant and Tupolev by the end of 2024 should replace all imported parts in the Tu-214 design with Russian ones and get approval for them to the type certificate. It is expected that the Tu-214LL will test the Russian inertial navigation system, early warning system of ground proximity and meteorological radar station, as well as rescue equipment. It is these systems that were supplied by foreign companies.
Earlier, Konstantin Timofeev said that the readiness of the Mechanical Processing Centre at Kazan Aircraft Plant is 52 per cent. Works on glazing of the building and pouring of the floor slab of the first floor, laying of engineering communications and arrangement of foundations for machine tools are in progress. By the end of the year, the thermal circuit of the building will be closed, interior finishing and installation of technological and storage equipment will begin. 144 people and 23 units of special equipment are involved in the construction of the facility.
Erection of the new shop is carried out within the framework of the complex programme of development of the aviation industry, here it is planned to place more than 120 machining machines, which will ensure the construction of 20 Tu-214 aircraft per year. Also the managing director of Tupolev reported about the plans to put into operation three new logistics centres with a total area of about 90 thousand m² at KAZ by the end of 2025.
According to him, the old building has been dismantled for the construction of the 1st building, networks are being relocated and the pile field is being prepared. Dismantling works are being carried out for the construction of the 2nd and 3rd buildings. The construction of the first two facilities is planned to be completed in summer 2025, and another one – in autumn.
As part of the large-scale modernisation, 24 facilities will be built and reconstructed at Kazan Aircraft Plant, nine of which have already been commissioned. The construction works are to be completed by the end of 2026 in order to start serial production of 20 Tu-214 civil airliners per year in 2028.
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