UAC considering creating 2-engine Il-96 aircraft

MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) is considering a possibility of creating a two-engine version of its Ilyushin IL-96 aircraft, the company's chief Vadim Badekh said in an interview with Rossiya 24.

"We are now considering a possibility of creating a two-engine, more economical Il-96 aircraft with new Russian PD-35 engines, and such work is underway," Badekh said.

The wide-body long-haul Il-96-300, designed by Ilyushin Design Bureau in the late 1980s, has four PS-90A engines. In recent years the airliner was produced in limited series for government agencies.

"[The Il-96-300] is fairly modern and technically mature, which suggests it could be further developed and upgraded," Badekh said. Tests on the upgraded Il-96-400M, designed for a larger number of passengers, began earlier, he said. "[UAC is] confident of its commercial success," Badekh said.

"I can say that it's a global practice, a global trend, a tendency, that aircraft are not created from scratch. Any aircraft today is Western-made, this is an evolution of what was created many, many years ago. And we believe that in the class of long-haul aircraft the most reasonable and logical step is to develop a fleet of and develop Il-96 models," Badekh said.

Plans to produce Russian-made aircraft are reflected in the 2030 Aviation Industry Development Comprehensive Program. It stipulates a total output of 994 civilian airliners. The long-haul fleet in the program is represented by 14 Il-96-300s only.

The need to develop a modern, cost-efficient long-haul aircraft was emphasized before, including by Aeroflot . "In regard to Il-96, it is not in our plans, but we certainly will welcome the creation of a new Russian long-haul aircraft. We expect to see one being two-engine, economical, effective and safe," the company's general director Sergei Alexandrovsky said.