Russian Superjet lands in Paris for world premiereREUTERS
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
By Tim Hepher and Dmitry Solovyov
PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's first post-Soviet era passenger jet, the Superjet-100 developed by warplane maker Sukhoi, landed at Le Bourget on Wednesday to be premiered at the Paris Air Show next week, Sukhoi and industry sources said.
The plane has been developed in partnership with Italy's Finmeccanica, which is also involved in trying to win export contracts. France's Thales and Safran supplied avionics and partnered on engines respectively.
"A middle-range Sukhoi Superjet-100 passenger liner landed today at Le Bourget Airport where it will be premiered during the 48th Paris Air Show opening on Monday," Sukhoi said in a statement sent to Reuters.
"The Superjet is the first new Russian civilian passenger plane created in the past 20 years as a result of broad international cooperation unprecedented for Russia."
European industry sources confirmed the arrival of the plane at Le Bourget where the show will be held on June 15-21.
"The Superjet will be the only new passenger plane to make demonstration flights for the show's visitors," Sukhoi said.
"The demonstration flights in Paris will allow the aviation community to make sure that the plane assembled in Russia meets all the standards of the world market, and its buyers to gain confidence in the company's potential to successfully implement the project," Sukhoi quoted its head Mikhail Pogosyan as saying.
Sukhoi, better known as Russia's most successful military exporter that has sold Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets worth billions of dollars, said more than 30 aerospace firms, system designers and spare part makers had taken part in the Superjet-100 project.
SUKHOI'S KEY TO SUCCESS
"Sukhoi's success lies in a winning combination of a new generation of young engineers and efficient management brought in by Pogosyan who headed the company in 1997," Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Reuters.
The Superjet project is widely seen as the brainchild of Pogosyan, who opposed plans by Sukhoi's earlier management to build a mammoth transport and passenger plane, KR-860, weighing up to 650 tonnes and carrying 860 to 1,000 passengers.
"This one had been due to become our response to Airbus' A-380 project. But this is madness. Imagine building this in the chaotic 1990s!" Makiyenko said.
Russian Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko said last month Russia planned to build a total of 1,000 Superjets. He denied media reports of cuts in production plans due to the weak global aviation market.
Sukhoi said in March national carrier Aeroflot would receive the first Superjet in December. Aeroflot had been originally promised first deliveries would take place at the end of 2008.
Sukhoi is developing the Superjet in partnership with Italy's Alenia Aeronautica, which last month acquired just over 25 percent of the Russian firm. French engine maker SNECMA is also a partner in the project, which has consultancy support from U.S. plane maker Boeing, according to Sukhoi's website.
The Superjet, a regional plane that can carry between 75 and 95 passengers, made its maiden flight -- initially planned for 2007 -- in May 2008 and is still undergoing tests.
The jet is designed to replace ageing Tupolev-134 and Yakovlev-42 planes on routes between Russia's regional cities, and has been developed by the civil aviation unit of Russia's state aviation corporation.
(Additional reporting by Anton Doroshev in Moscow)
(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Simon Jessop)
Source
http://news.uk.msn.com/world/article.aspx?cp-documentid=147903761
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