RuAviation

The Tu-214LL aircraft, after carrying out work to replace imported components with Russian analogues, made its first flight at the airfield of the S.P. Gorbunov Kazan Aviation Plant. This was reported by Konstantin Timofeev, Managing Director of Tupolev JSC, in his TG-channel.

The flight was performed with retracted landing gear, its duration was 1 hour 10 minutes. The flight task included the necessary checks of domestic systems and equipment. After landing, the Tupolev crew reported that the flight task had been successfully completed in full.

The replacement of imported components affected 15 major and about 30 minor systems of the aircraft. Among the replaced components are computing devices, ground proximity warning and mid-air collision warning systems, as well as on-board radar systems. The modernisation also included improvements to the lighting and electrical systems, the hydraulic system and the integrated control system.

The Tu-214 aircraft with registration number RA-64509 was manufactured in Kazan in 2006, and since April 2007 the airliner had been flying for Transaero Airlines. After the carrier’s bankruptcy, from October 2015 to June 2024, it was stored in Kazan, where its airworthiness was restored this year.

On 14 June, the aircraft took to the skies for the first time after a long downtime on the ground, then it flew to Minsk, where it was repainted in UAC’s corporate livery at Civil Aviation Plant No. 407 before returning to Kazan for modernisation. At the same time, in summer, Konstantin Timofeev reported about the upcoming tests on this aircraft of Russian systems, which are to replace foreign ones.

According to the Tupolev managing director, further tests on the Tu-214 flying laboratory will include checking the interaction of the new Russian systems among themselves, as well as with the rest of the aircraft’s equipment. ‘On the basis of this machine we will continue flight tests, further modernisation and development of the Tu-214 platform, including the creation of a two-member cabin,’ Konstantin Timofeev said in a statement to TG-Channel.

UAC plans to organise in-line production of Tu-214 aircraft. ‘The conveyor line is planned, it is contracted. The goal is to reach the production of 20 aircraft per year. We don’t need more, we’ll see that later, anything is possible,’ he said in the summer of 2024, giving a lecture to students of Kazan National Research Technical University – KAI.