By the end of 2021, the first copy of the Russian light multipurpose aircraft LMS-901 "Baikal", designed to carry nine passengers and cargo up to two tons, should take off.
The construction of a prototype machine is deployed on the basis of the Branch Special Design Bureau for Experimental Aircraft Building (OSKBES) and the Department of Aircraft Manufacturing Technology of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI).
To date, a glider of "Baikal" has been manufactured, the on-board systems and assemblies are being installed.
LMS-901 in the coming years should replace the legendary An-2, nicknamed "Corn".
In many modifications, this Soviet machine has been in operation for seven decades.
Due to its high reliability, unpretentiousness, maintainability in the field, cheapness and ease of maintenance, the aircraft gained immense popularity in the post-Soviet space, in Eastern Europe and China.
In 1960-2002, the An-2 was produced in Poland.
After the cessation of production, the intellectual rights to the Soviet aircraft were bought by Airbus Military, the military transport division of the European concern Airbus.
According to the Association of Aircraft Fuel Supply Organizations of Civil Aviation of the Russian Federation, the An-2 fleet is steadily decreasing every year.
In 2020, about 1,000 units remained in Russia: of which about 300 machines had airworthiness certificates, and over 700 aircraft, although they were listed in the register, were in disrepair.
Experts predict that in 7-10 years the operational resource of the An-2 family will be practically exhausted.
In this regard, the task of replacing "Kukuruznik" with "Baikal" was set in advance at the highest state level.
The LMS-901 project is mainly financed from the funds of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation.
The main requirement for the car is to comply with the limit of the cost of a flight hour of 30 thousand rubles.
If this criterion is met, then "Baikal" should become an inexpensive and widely demanded vehicle in Russia and abroad.
Vadim Demin, chief designer of Baikal Engineering, spoke about the design features of the LMS-901 and the prospects for this project in an interview with RT.
Chief designer of the company "Baikal Engineering" Vadim Demin
© mai.ru
- Vadim Yurievich, next year there will be an anniversary date - the first flight of the legendary An-2. Everyone knows the secret of his popularity. Why should Russia create a new aircraft? Why can't you just start mass production of the slightly modernized An-2, having bought, if necessary, the intellectual rights from
Airbus
?
- In exceptional cases, it is, of course, possible to modernize the An-2, but if we want to systematically develop small aircraft, it does not make economic sense.
It is impossible to endlessly carry out restoration work and extend the flight life of the Kukuruznikov.
It is unacceptable to pull with the replacement of the An-2.
A little more - and Russia will face risks for the transport connectivity of remote regions, it will lose part of its agricultural aviation fleet, the FBU Avialesokhrana and the Ministry of Emergency Situations will face difficulties, whose services are quite actively using the An-2.
Therefore, the deployment of serial production of such a machine as the LMS-901 can be called a timely and uncontested solution to problems.
- What disadvantages, in your opinion, does the An-2 have as a small aircraft and have they been taken into account in "Baikal"?
- It is important to understand that the An-2 was created for operation in the regions of a country destroyed after the war, devoid of asphalt roads and hard-surfaced airfields.
It was a kind of "luck", able to rise and land from almost any flat area, up to a cornfield.
In addition, until the end of the 1950s, most of the population of the USSR lived in rural areas, and the An-2, of course, was created primarily so that the inhabitants of villages and villages could move and perform various household work.
Since then, of course, a lot has changed.
Our country and the world exist in a completely different socio-economic structure.
Therefore, "Baikal" takes into account all modern trends, including the peculiarities of the market for transportation by local airlines.
Moreover, our aircraft can be called a continuation of the glorious history of the An-2.
It contains essentially the same principles - safety, accessibility, versatility, the ability to operate in small towns and villages with unpaved runways.
- How would you assess the potential demand for Baikal? It’s probably too early to talk about this, but does Baikal have any export prospects?
- We estimate the capacity of the Russian market at 170-200 aircraft until 2030.
At the moment we have “soft” contracts for ten aircraft, and for initial sales we see a clear prospect of assembling more than a hundred aircraft.
We expect that Baikal will be purchased primarily by the air carriers of the Far East and the Arctic, which operate the An-2.
Specifically, these are the unified Far Eastern airline Aurora, Polar Airlines, Naryan-Mar United Air Squadron, 2nd Arkhangelsk United Air Squadron and Aeroservice LLC.
At the same time, we are well aware that the capacity of the Russian market will not be enough to recoup investments in Baikal.
As the demand within the country is met, we will enter the markets of the republics of the former USSR, plus some countries in Asia and Africa.
With a favorable development of events, we hope to occupy up to 5% of the global market in this segment.
In total, at least 100 Baikals can be exported by 2030.
- On the pages of specialized publications devoted to the development of aviation, one can find the opinion that there is no wide sales market for the LMS-901 and from a commercial point of view the project is not very expedient. How would you comment on such a statement?
- In my opinion, and not only I think so: it is wrong to consider a small aircraft as a separate product.
It is part of a very extensive infrastructure and economic system.
As foreign experience shows, the development of local and regional aviation has a positive multiplier effect.
The point is that an increase in transport accessibility leads to an increase in the volume of air transportation, an increase in commercial and economic activity in rural areas and regions.
Naturally, before the start of the development of Baikal, the dynamics of aircraft sales in this segment was taken into account.
For understanding: in 2007, our future competitors delivered 86 cars to customers, in the crisis year of 2009 - 126. Then the export-import sinusoid fell and then rose again, but even in the worst years, leading foreign manufacturers sold more than 100 cars in our segment.
This is a completely normal value.
Thumbnail image of LMS-901 in flight
© "Baikal Engineering"
- Who do you mean by competitors?
- These are American single-engine aircraft Cessna 208 and Quest Kodiak 100, Swiss Pilatus PC-6.
Baikal will surpass them in terms of the volume of commercial load and efficiency.
For example, LMS-901 is capable of lifting 2 tons into the air, Cessna 208 - 1.5 tons, Quest Kodiak 100 - 1.6 tons, Pilatus PC-6 - 1.2 tons.
The cost of a flight hour also compares favorably in favor of the LMS-901.
He will have it within 30 thousand rubles.
For Cessna 208 in terms of rubles, this figure is 78 thousand, for Quest Kodiak 100 - 72 thousand, for Pilatus PC-7 - 89 thousand.
As a result, the market price of our production aircraft will be approximately 30-50% lower than that of the aforementioned aircraft.
For its segment, "Baikal" has a decent cruising speed - up to 300 km / h.
As we expect, the maximum range of the aircraft will reach 3 thousand km (with a payload of 2 tons - 1.5 thousand km).
Fuel consumption will be 0.43 kg / km, the capacity of the main fuel tank will be about 1.5 thousand liters, engine power will be 800 liters.
from.
At first, "Baikal" will fly on the American General Electric power unit, but within about three years the aircraft will receive the Russian VK-800SM.
This will greatly reduce the risks for customers.
The airlines that will acquire Baikal will not depend on external suppliers.
- Thanks to what technical solutions did you manage to bring down the price of the plane so much?
- In order to meet the standard of 30 thousand rubles per one flight hour, we abandoned the idea of equipping the aircraft with a twin-engine engine.
It would ideally fit "Baikal", but then the cost of a flight hour would be completely different.
By the way, competing western small aircraft in this dimension also fly on single-engine engines.
It is important to understand that any product, in our case the aviation industry, is always a kind of compromise.
To achieve it, some properties inevitably have to be sacrificed.
All over the world, aircraft are designed for specific requirements and from certain points of view, of course, may seem far from ideal.
For example, now in aviation they are trying to use composite materials more often.
They have a lot of unconditional advantages regarding the rigidity of the structure and ease of production - it is very convenient that the number of components is reduced by tens and hundreds of times.
But composite materials are expensive and do not have sufficient operational adaptability, require careful treatment, which is difficult to ensure when flying from poorly prepared airfields.
The easiest way to repair a car is made of riveted aluminum alloy sheets.
We have come to this very option.
It is a cheap, lightweight, affordable and maintainable material.
Although "Baikal" was not completely complete without composites - we made of them the aileron, flap, rudder, that is, elements that are practically invulnerable to stones and where the rigidity of the structure is especially needed.
- Could you disclose other forecast characteristics of "Baikal"? First of all, are you interested in the value of the distance for takeoff and landing and the ability of the aircraft to perform tasks in harsh climatic conditions?
- LMS-901, in fact, is created for operation in regions with underdeveloped infrastructure and difficult geographic conditions.
Therefore, "Baikal" will be safe, affordable, versatile, maintainable in the field, like the An-2.
But at the same time it will have more comfort and better cruising performance.
The take-off distance from unpaved strips will be slightly longer than that of the An-2, but not more than 250 m, but it will allow the aircraft to be operated from the same sites, and the maximum cruising speed will be one and a half times higher than that of the An-2.
Moreover, our aircraft will be much more comfortable in flight than the An-2.
The big drawback of the "Kukuruznik" is the "bumpiness".
The load per square meter of the Baikal wing is significantly higher, which significantly reduces this effect.
Thumbnail image of the flight LMS-901 "Baikal" in high latitudes
© "Baikal Engineering"
The comfort of passengers when boarding an airplane of this type is an indicator of the pilot's skill, the characteristics of the car play a secondary role here.
The main thing for the pilot is to choose the optimal horizontal and vertical speed.
At "Baikal" with a normal take-off weight, the landing speed should be about 85-90 km / h, which makes it possible to safely and comfortably land on the ground, including the possibility of a “pick-up” landing.
Continuing the theme of comfort - in "Baikal" we sacrificed a little the size of the cabin - it is smaller than that of the An-2.
A Soviet plane has a ceiling height of 1.8 m, ours - 1.65 m.We could save passengers from having to bend down, but then a speed of 300 km / h, which significantly reduces the flight time, would be unattainable.
The Cessna 208 has a cabin height of 1.5 m in general, so there is nothing unusual in the decision we made.
- What avionics will be installed on Baikal?
- The onboard equipment will be Russian.
The central computer and the software in it are our development.
We collect the rest from the enterprises of the radio-electronic industry.
Moreover, the flight and navigation equipment will meet all modern requirements.
This is what it is unacceptable to save on.
The basic version of "Baikal" will be without an autopilot.
By the way, he is not always needed.
The forest protection, our potential customer, will hardly need an autopilot.
On the passenger version of the LMS-901, it is clear that the autopilot must be installed.
- Vadim Yuryevich, what are your plans for testing the LMS-901 prototype? When to expect the first flight and completion of certification?
- The Baikal will make its first flight this year, and flight certification will be completed in 2023.
At the same time, as we plan, deliveries to the airline will begin.