RuAviation

On 1 November, perhaps one of the main events of 2023 took place: the Russian IL-96-400M wide body aircraft made its maiden flight. Now we are waiting for the certification of the PD-8 engine and the first flight of the SJ-100 aircraft with this propulsion system.

The day before, a commission arrived in Voronezh on a flight from Zhukovsky on the MC-21 aircraft to make a decision on the date of the first flight. On November 1, the weather in the central European part of the country was clear and warm, not autumnal. On the factory airfield of VASO on the bonnet of a black “Volga” were signed documents authorising the take-off of the airliner. The flight list was signed by Daniil Brenerman, Managing Director of IL PJSC, and Konstantin Letov, Head of the Flight Test Centre of IL PJSC. The tradition was introduced more than 50 years ago by Genrikh Novozhilov, then General Designer of the Ilyushin Design Bureau, who signed the flight manifest of the IL-76 transport aircraft on the bonnet of his company car. That flight was successful and such signing became a good Ilyushin tradition.

IL-96-400M was lifted into the air by the crew headed by the aircraft commander, Chief Pilot of PJSC “IL”, Honoured Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Sergey Sukhar, consisting of: Honoured Test Pilot of the Russian Federation Igor Zinov, Honoured Test Navigator of the Russian Federation Sergey Goremykin, Flight Test Engineer 1st Class Pavel Litvyakov and Flight Test Electrician Dmitry Semyonov.

During the flight, the aircraft stability, controllability, performance of systems, power plant and radio-technical means of approach were tested. The test programme went on as normal. The flight took place at altitudes up to 2000 metres, speed up to 390 km/hour and lasted 26 minutes.

IL-96-400M is equipped with PS-90A1 engines (earlier we reported from the words of Alexander Inozemtsev, General Designer of ODK-Aviaadvigatel, that IL-96-400M is equipped with PS-90A3 engines) and can accommodate up to 370 passengers. UAC said that the passenger cabin of the airliner can have one-, two- and three-class layout. It is equipped with a modern infotainment system providing access to the Internet, television and satellite communications, modern buffet and kitchen equipment. The maximum flight range in the passenger two-class configuration is 8100 kilometres.

The IL-96-400M was developed on the basis of the -400T transport version, so its fuselage is 9.35 metres longer than the base aircraft IL-96-300 and makes 63.939 metres. The main differences of the -400M version from the previous modifications are two pilots in the cockpit.

In the future, the airliner can be used in transportations to the Far East, China, Thailand, India, Egypt. It may be in demand on long-haul routes with high passenger traffic. But for Russia with a population of 150 million people there are few such destinations, and therefore it may not be profitable to “drive” a four-engine giant from Moscow, St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad to Novosibirsk or Irkutsk. On such routes, and we have the majority of them in our country, the A321 size is enough.

The prospects of the IL-96-400M were discussed in August 2022 by a TASS source in the aviation industry. According to him, the decision on the feasibility of serial production of the machine will be made after certification tests, and the first IL-96-400M will be used as a flying laboratory.

At the same time, the comprehensive development programme of the aviation industry for the period up to 2030 does not mention the IL-96-400M. Instead, the plans for this period include the construction of 12 Il-96-300 aircraft. Specialists, to whom the editorial staff of the site “Aviation of Russia” addressed, cannot explain such a metamorphosis.

But today’s event, despite all of the above, is significant. The first flight of IL-96-400M shows that civil aircraft construction is not in the doldrums, it is developing, and only Boeing, Airbus and UAC build aircraft of this class in the world. In the future, we can expect that on the basis of the developments on IL-96-400M a new SFDMC will be designed for two PD-35 engines with passenger capacity for 280-320 people.