The suspension of the airline Dobrolet's operations over Western sanctions creates favorable conditions for Russian aircraft builders, a source in the Russian aircraft industry told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
"The situation with the airline Dobrolet is intensifying the work on the Tu-204SM plane," the source said.
"We are now working on a program to manufacture the Tu-204SM. Bearing in mind the economic sanctions imposed on Russia in the airline industry, it can be assumed that there will be no delays with the launch of the production of planes of this modification in the Ulyanovsk aircraft factory," the source said.
The first batch will consist of ten Tu-204SM planes made for the airline Red Wings, which already has experience of using Tu-204 planes.
"In further operation and launching of the serial production of the Tu-204SM, flight tests will need to be performed to expand its operation conditions," the source said. The developer currently has one Tu-204SM plane (№151), on which the needed flight tests can be performed, the source said.
The Tu-204SM is a modernized version of the basic plane
Tu-204-100. The Tu-204SM uses PS-90A2 engines, which are more reliable than their predecessor PS-90A. The Tu-204SM also has new onboard equipment and systems and carries a smaller crew.
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