Until last November Russia's first turbofan engine with a high bypass ratio and was the only engine of this kind in Russia. PS-90A began flight testing on chetyrehdvigatelnoy flying laboratory IL-76 in 1987. Twenty-eight years later, on November 3 last year, at the other IL-76 began flight tests of the second Russian turbofan engine with a high bypass ratio.
The first flight with the PD-14 at the end of last year was a milestone in the Russian aircraft industry. Prior to flight test the PD-14 with a bypass ratio of 8: 1 for almost three decades, Russia, whose industry has spent the available scarce resources to military aircraft, remained aloof from the US and Europe of commercial turbofan engine technology. PD-14, supposedly created as a local alternative to Pratt & Whitney PW1400G for the MS-21, is now the main hope of Russia in the global commercial turbofan engine market.
United Engine Corporation (UEC), the holding company Rostec, which includes "" OAO, does not hide that it intends using the PD-14 to compete with Western manufacturers of engines in the battle for market share outside of Russia. In a statement (corporations) Flightglobal, JDC notes that the company is committed to its engines (PD-14) raised in the air jets produced in the so-called BRIC countries (Russia, plus Brazil, China and India). "No specific arrangements yet, but we expect that after the confirmation of the competitiveness of performance and economic parameters of the engine in the flight test, the foreign partners are ready to discuss the various options of mutually beneficial cooperation ", - says APC.
The first phase of flight testing was accompanied by a total of 16 flights, which are not revealed "serious complaints" to the PD-14, noted in the UEC. The second phase of flight tests, is expected to take 3-4 months and will complete the half calculated for 2 years flight test program, aimed at obtaining the certificate of airworthiness. "" OAO designed PD-14 so that the fuel consumption was 10-15% less than the CFM56 and V2500, and the operating costs are 14-17% lower. "Flight tests fully confirmed the declared parameters", - says APC.
In the PD-14 is no gearbox fan drive circuit, as in a family PW1000G engines, and ceramic composites, like family CFM Leap (these engines are installed on the latest single-aisle Airbus aircraft, Boeing, Bombardier, Comac, Embraer, "Irkut" and Mitsubishi). However, PD-14 has a number of innovations, including wide-hollow titanium blades; swirlers in the combustion chamber, made using 3D-technology; and turbine blades of the single-crystal alloys. Nacelles, developed "" OAO, 65% is made up of composite materials. Despite these improvements, we PW1400G still have serious advantages. Not the least of which is - the possibility of increasing the diameter of the front fan by applying reducer circuit bypass which brings the indicator to 12: 1.
Nevertheless, through the efforts of "" OAO managed to almost catch up with the best Western manufacturers of engines for fuel efficiency. Bjorn Farms, Leeham analyst and former engineer and test pilot of Saab, has estimated that PW1400G superior to the PD-14 on fuel efficiency of only 2.5%. The real test for the Russian commercial motor may lie in a different plane than the fuel consumption. GE Aviation, P & W and Rolls-Royce made significant progress over the past three decades in the field of engine reliability - so, CFM56, is expected to remain "on the wing" 20 thousand flight cycles. Some engines have worked "on the wing" of 50 thousand cycles before it took to remove them for repair.
"It will be important engine reliability -. Wrote Farms in published in February analytical material -. His (PD-14) competition held in this respect, the bar very high" .Rynok inclined to agree with the analysis of farm. Of the currently available 175 firm orders for the MS-21, two Russian engine the customer chose to install it to a total of 27 aircraft. Apart from the airlines is expected to PD-14 will seriously fight for a place "under the wing" of MS-21, which will be commissioned by the government and the armed forces in Russia. In addition, the first in more than 30 years a major project to create a turbofan engine in Russia is an important milestone (for future projects). The future of Russian-Chinese widebody aircraft will be powered by the engine or the GE Rolls-Royce, but both countries are planning to establish local and alternative engines. If we talk about Russia, the JDC has plans to develop a new engine in a class of about 32 tons of thrust. "Preliminary work for PD-35 has already begun." - Confirms the JDC. - Today it is - at the stage of scientific research. "
