IRKUTSK, September 12 (Itar-Tass) — The Irkutsk Aviation Plant will start the first series deliveries of the Yak-130 military training plane by the end of this year, President of the Irkut Aircraft Corporation Alexei Fyodorov told Itar-Tass on Monday on the sidelines of the Baikal Economic Forum.
“About 30 fighters have already been assembled and are at the final stage of readiness,” he said. According to him, the first 16 aircraft will be delivered to Algeria before the end of the year.
“Another contract - with Libya, unfortunately, has been frozen for obvious reasons. We do not know what will happen to it. But in any case, the planes that have been made for this country will be reoriented for another customer, first of all – for the Russian Air Force,” Fyodorov said. “The contract with the Defence Ministry, I think, will be coordinated by the end of the year, and we will start the deliveries early next year,” the Irkut Corporation president noted.
Irkut Corporation (MICEX:IRKT RTS:IRKT) is a Russian aircraft manufacturer, member of the United Aircraft Corporation. It is best known as being the manufacturer of the Sukhoi Su-30 family of interceptor/ground-attack aircraft. The company was founded in 1932 in the Trans-Baikal region in the Russian Federation. Irkut has its head office in Aeroport District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow.
The Russian government merged Irkut with Ilyushin, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Yakovlev as a new company called United Aircraft Corporation. Irkut has also entered into a joint venture with Indian military aircraft manufacturer HAL to manufacture the UAC/HAL Il-214, which will be designed by Ilyushin.
In 2008, Irkut made a net result of the equivalent of US$34.8 million. The company’s revenue was of the equivalent of $US1.25 billion, 25 percent more than in 2007.
According to Irkut’s website, the Corporation employs over 14,000 professionals, involved in design, manufacturing, sales, and after-sales support of a wide range of high-tech products. The current order book of IRKUT is the largest in the aircraft industry and amounts to US$ 6 billion. For the last 5 years company’s income doubled and came to more then 1.6 billion US$ in 2010. The Irkut share in the Russia’s arms export comes to 15 percent.
The IRKUT Corporation’s main products are combat aircraft of the Su-30 family. The Corporation is a prime contractor in manufacturing the Su-30MKI multi-role fighters for the Indian Air Force. Under a product diversification program, the Corporation is also developing and manufacturing Yak-130 combat training aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and components for Airbus passenger airliners. In the recent years IRKUT has launched the program of developing the new passenger airliner MC-21.
Within the past 5 years IRKUT continuously rates among 100 world leading defence companies according to the competent US publication Defence News. In 2007-2009 Irkut Corporation was awarded Company of the Year Prize in the Russia’s Defence Industry nomination. Irkutsk Aviation plant (Irkut’s manufacturing facility) became the first enterprise in Russia to obtain EN9100 certificate.