Prototype of Russia's SJ-100 plane, built under import substitution program, conducts first flight

MOSCOW. Aug 29 (Interfax) - A prototype of Russia's SJ-100 regional passenger plane from the Superjet family has performed its first flight, the press service for the Russia's Industry and Trade Ministry said.

"The tests confirmed the stable operations of all domestically produced systems and the plane's handling and stability in the air," the press service said.

"Russian developers and producers managed to produce their own design solutions and technologies and install them on the plane, including avionics, chassis, an auxiliary power unit, an integrated control system, as well as electrical generating, air conditioning, fire safety systems and many others," Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said when commenting on the flight.

Some 40 systems and units on the SJ-100 have been replaced with domestically produced ones as part of the import substitution program.

It was reported earlier this week that the SJ-100, built at Rostec's PJSC Yakovlev Production Center, had successfully finished test runs with the front landing gear off the runway.

SJ-100 is a short-haul narrow-body aircraft, which is being created under the program of import substitution of systems and components but still using French-Russian SaM146 engines. Two such planes are expected to be handed over to Aeroflot/Rossiya Airline in late 2023.

The second SJ-100 prototype already equipped with Russian PD-8 engines will soon start flight tests as well. The PD-8 engines are currently undergoing a series of test-bench runs and flight tests aboard the Ilyushin Il-76LL flying laboratory, the Industry and Trade Ministry said.