RuAviation

Four years after the first flight and almost two years after the crash of the IL-112V light military transport aircraft, the first positive news on the project has appeared. The AviaComments Telegram channel reported that work on the IL-112V programme will continue, with changes to the engine and wing.

In 2017-2019, Alexei Rogozin served as the United Aircraft Corporation’s vice president for transport aviation and general director of PJSC IL. He left this post almost immediately after the first flight of the IL-112V – in early April 2019.

By 2017, development of the IL-112V had been underway for more than 15 years, but was repeatedly halted due to a lack of engines with the necessary power. The first flight of the IL-112V prototype was planned for 2016-2017. However, the aircraft first flew in the air in Voronezh on 30 March 2019. The resulting aircraft turned out to be heavier than designed, and Rogozin was tasked with reducing the weight of the machine and getting it into the sky.

“To begin with, the CEO ordered his workbench to be set up directly in the final assembly shop of VASO. No, the General Director of Ilyushin did not stand above the soul of the assemblers of the “one hundred and twelfth”. But he preferred to fix in person and remove the problems in the process of saturation of the prototype with components.

The new Director General established a kind of crisis management headquarters capable of resolving the issues related to the finalisation of the design of the first prototype, as well as the co-operation of the competences of the plant, Design Bureau, Financial Department, and so on, in the shortest possible time. In essence, this headquarters became the prototype of a new management model bringing together manually “on a live thread” in a situation where there is no time to bounce, Design Bureau, factories and kiters,” RIA FAN reported in February 2023.

Rogozin himself commented on the news of continued work on the aircraft as follows: “Not only an aeroplane was created under the program in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Defense (not without flaws, but the first specimens always have them). For the first time in modern Russian history, a transport aircraft was created from scratch with the maximum level of import substitution. Dozens of enterprises participated in the cooperation, creating the most modern domestic aviation systems, electronics”.

According to him many technical solutions have been matured, most of which are now in demand for the manufacturing of the MC-21 and SSJ-New aircraft as well as for the airworthiness maintenance of the foreign aircraft included in the Russian airlines’ fleet.

“The work of the IL-112 designers has not been wasted but, of course, if we talk about transport aviation, a lot of time has been lost. One way or another, there was no and there is no alternative to this project. The aircraft to replace An-26, An-32 and even An-12 should appear.

I hope that in the near future the work on IL-112 taking into account the urgent structural changes will be resumed. Russia needs a domestic light transport aircraft,” emphasized Rogozin.