Russia researches engine for supersonic planes

MOSCOW, Jul 19 (PRIME) -- Russia is conducting a research and development of a new engine for civil supersonic planes, which no country can boast of, Mikhail Gordin, general director of the Central Institute for Aviation Motors, told PRIME on Friday.

“Before creating a plane, one has to create an engine, because no one in the world has a ‘civil’ propulsion unit of this class. We have to do everything gradually, as if we include an engine into the project now, we will see this plane only in about 15 years, because we also don’t have an engine core basing on which we could create such an engine,” he said.

The major problem of the future plane is the overland sonic boom, as regulations of the International Civil Aviation Association prohibit supersonic flights over inhabited lands. “We can theoretically create a plant and special routes for it over the Siberian taiga and relocate people that are living under the flight’s route, but no one will do that, obviously,” he said.

The institute and other leading Russian research and development institutions have been working on creation of a demonstration prototype of a civil supersonic plane since 2017, and development has already cost 1.37 billion rubles.

Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said that technical assignment for a showcase prototype of the plane’s technologies should be worked out, then a prototype should be created and tested for improvement of its aerodynamic characteristics in 2020–2022. United Aircraft Corporation should start draft and engineering development of the plane until 2026.

Mikhail Mikulochkin, head of the Tupolev aviation engineering projects division, said in January 2019 that the supersonic plane should make its first flight in 2027. Aircraft producer Tupolev estimated the cost of research and experimental works at 42 billion rubles, the cost of development engineering at 57 billion rubles, and the cost of mass production at 6 billion rubles per plane.

(62.8286 rubles – U.S. $1)

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