ULAN-UDE, December 4. /TASS/. Russia must have its own aircraft industry, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Friday in an interview with NTV television.

"A huge country with so many time zones simply must have its own aircraft industry", he said, calling "a big mistake" the current situation in which "80% of all long-haul aircraft are foreign" and "when our (Russian) medium-and short-range aviation equipment is being substituted today."

"Therefore, we hold with certain regularly all kinds of meetings with the aviation industry representatives, with designers, manufacturing engineers, provide the needed funds for advanced projects," Rogozin said.

Rapid development of military aircraft industry

"As a result, our combat aviation is booming today," the deputy prime minister said. "Here we have recently made a huge stride."

"Take, for example, aircraft of the Sukhoi firm," Rogozin said, citing such achievements as the Su-30SM Su-35S, Sukhoi PAK FA aircraft, the new MiG-35 fighter, which is coming soon."

"We have completely transferred the Ilyushin Il-76 plane production from Tashkent to Ulyanovsk and created a new modernised aircraft, the Il-476 has been 80% upgraded, the work is underway on the strategic aviation renewal," the deputy prime minister said.

According to him, it has been decided to do the same "in the civil aircraft industry," because the "tourist flows due to various reasons will be turning inside the country."

It has not been done over past 29 years

Speaking of the situation in the civil aircraft industry, Dmitry Rogozin said that "a few days ago the Russian president was informed of the beginning of flight tests of our latest aircraft engine PD-14 - a principally new engine made with the use of composite materials and innovative solutions." "Its fuel efficiency is 30% higher than that of the PS-90 engine that is currently used in all our heavy aircraft," the deputy prime minister said.

According to him, it happened in Zhukovsky: PD-14 was put on an IL-76 plane. "The aircraft has four engines, one was dismantled and replaced with this new Perm engine with 14-tonne thrust," Rogozin said.

"The first take-off was a very touching, powerful emotional event for all the aviation workers. Because we have not done this for the past 29 years", the deputy prime minister said.

Now, he said, the flight tests will be continued. "We hope that series production of this engine and its installation on advanced aircraft will be started in 2018," Rogozin said.

Advanced core for engine family

The hot part (engine core) of the PD-14 engine, Rogozin said, can be scaled up and form the basis for the creation of a whole family of engines. "This is PD-10 and PD-12V - the helicopter version of the engine that can replace the Ukrainian engine on the Mi-26 helicopter, as well as on the Russian-Chinese prospective helicopter," the official said. "And also a more powerful engine than the PD 14 - modernized for 15.5 tonnes of thrust. It can be used also for a larger version of our MS-21 aircraft."

The deputy prime minister said that in fact, a core engine that will, hopefully, have "a very long life’" has been created for the first time and it "will be used in the segment of 9 to 18 tonnes thrust."

Russia’s new aircraft in 2017 and 2018

Serial production of the MS-21 long-haul aircraft (Irkutsk Aviation Plant) will begin in 2017, Rogozin said. "We’ll fly it next summer and plan to begin its serial production in 2017. And in 2018 it will fly with our engine, not with Canadian," the deputy prime minister said.

He added that "fuselage has been fully assembled" for this unique aircraft and "it has black light composite wing."

The official said that Russia "urgently needs" the 64-seat Ilyushin Il-114 plane. "This unique aircraft should be created. We will assemble it in Nizhny Novgorod. It can be used both for military and civil purposes," Rogozin said. "The aircraft’s patrol version can stay aloft for a very long time - up to 10 hours. And now all the solutions with the engine have been thought out. The work on has also been started." "In 2018, I hope, the plane will be ready," the Russian deputy prime minister said.

Building up design potential

Rogozin said that one of the problems of the national aviation industry is that the country’s design bureaus are "overloaded with work." "It’s not only the planning of the production itself, digitizing of documentation," he said. "All our design bureaus are currently overloaded with work. The Ilyushin Plant lacks the design potential, they are currently boosting it, developing it very rapidly," the deputy prime minister said.

According to him, the future plans include the creation of a long-range aircraft. "We propose to make it together with the Chinese colleagues. They are interested in it", the deputy prime minister said, adding that "as a result, the whole civil aviation fleet will be restored with the use of modern solutions."