MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. The fully import-substituted SJ-100 aircraft with the Russian PD-8 engine will take off and begin testing in December 2023, Head of Rostec Sergey Chemezov said in an interview with Rossiya-24 TC channel.
"I think that somewhere at the end of this year in December we will already fly a fully localized aircraft and it will begin to conduct tests," he told reporters.
The SJ 100 is the first civilian aircraft developed in Russia. Following the imposition of Western sanctions against Russia, the Ministry of Industry and Trade launched the Superjet New initiative. At the same time as the import of components is being replaced, processes related to system reliability, increasing comfort, safety, and maintaining airworthiness are being improved.
In August, a prototype of the imported SJ-100 built by Yakovlev's production unit successfully flew for the first time in the Russian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. To speed up the testing process, the first prototype of the aircraft was powered by Franco-Russian SaM146 engines. The second prototype will begin testing with local PD-8 engines.