Photo by © Arkady Kataev / airliners.net

Transaero aircraft will be used for testing of the Russian Tu-214 avionics

Photo by © Arkady Kataev / airliners.net

The Tu-214 aircraft previously flown by Transaero Airlines has taken to the air after being restored to airworthiness. The machine will be used as a “flying laboratory”, the press service of the United Aircraft Corporation said.

“The flying laboratory will be used to test a number of assemblies and component parts of systems and on-board equipment under the full import substitution programme, as well as for modernisation and further development of the Tu-214 platform,” commented a UAC representative.

The flight took place at the airfield of the S.P. Gorbunov Kazan Aviation Plant and lasted 1.5 hours at altitudes of up to 10,000 metres. The Tupolev crew performed a check of systems and on-board equipment. According to the crew, the flight went normally, the systems and equipment worked without remarks.

UAC noted that the work to replace imported components, components and systems with domestic ones will be carried out on this flying laboratory until the end of this year. In the near future, the aircraft will have to undergo retrofitting and painting.

Transaero Airlines, which ceased to exist in 2015, had at least five Tu-204/214 aircraft in its fleet. Until recently, the carrier had two Tu-214s, these were machines with registration RA-64509 and RA-64549. According to the unofficial aircraft register Russianplanes.net, the RA-64549 was written off in 2020.

According to Vzlyot magazine, at the time of Transaero’s bankruptcy in autumn 2015, the RA-64509 was in service in Kazan, where it was then mothballed for storage. In November 2022, this Tu-214 was transferred to Kazan Aircraft Plant to restore airworthiness.

Thus, despite the fact that UAC does not specify which particular aircraft performed the flight, with a high degree of probability we can say that now it was the Tu-214 with registration RA-64509 that took to the air again.

Earlier Aeroflot CEO Sergey Alexandrovsky said that it is necessary to modernise the Tu-214 into a version with two pilots in the cockpit, now the aircraft is piloted by two pilots and a flight engineer. Tests of such an aircraft are planned to start in 2026.

Also, sources in the aviation industry reported the presence of a number of imported systems in the aircraft’s onboard equipment, which require import substitution. The Kzan Aircraft Plant and Tupolev JSC are to replace all imported parts in the Tu-214 aircraft with Russian parts by the end of 2024 – that’s 13 per cent – and get them approved for the type certificate.

It can be expected that the import substitution of the HG2030AE21 inertial navigation system, the EGPWS early ground proximity warning system and the RDR-4B meteorological radar station of the American company Honeywell, as well as the Air Cruisers emergency rescue equipment, will be the main task to be worked out in the upcoming flights.

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