Russia is interested in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates on the development of a supersonic passenger airplane, Russian Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov told journalists.
According to him, the UAE “has all the prerequisites” to become a customer of such a plane.
“As far as investment is concerned, yes, sure (the UAE can help Russia with the implementation of the supersonic aircraft project - note by TASS). Regarding the potential market, it is one of the main things that we are interested in, - Manturov said, adding that in order to get the UAE’s investment, Russia will need to develop competences necessary for jet design in the Emirates. - Do we need investment? Yes, we do. It means that we must develop competences instead of this. It will not be a global competence allowing us to produce everything on turnkey basis tomorrow, design and move forward”.
“So investment and the market, as far as technology is concerned, are the main things, if we are being frank, they [the UAE] have a great composite plant,” the Minister added.
Stage 1 costs
The amount of investment into the Russian/Arabic supersonic business jet development project is assessed as $100m at the first stage.
“This will not be too expensive. Implementing the project until the demonstration prototype stage requires about $100m. If the demo prototype takes off in 2023, we must spend over 6 billion rubles, either alone or together,” - Manturov said.
Supersonic airplane development
According to Manturov, if the demonstration prototype of the jet is ready in 2023, it is possible that an actual airplane will be built in 2027.
As Manturov said earlier in an interview for The Vedomosti, the development of the terms of reference for the demonstration prototype of the supersonic passenger aircraft, design and research activities were slated for 2020-2022. According to the Minister, the basic and detail design of the aircraft may begin in 2022-2026.
The Minister added that the airplane must be compact and have a capacity to carry 16-19 people. Its speed must reach 2000-3000 km/h, since developing an airliner for 1500 km/h is not feasible because the current commercial aircraft can reach 900 km/h. Manturov also noted that the airplane to be developed will be considerably more expensive, as the present-day technology does not allow to design a supersonic jet at the cost of a subsonic aircraft.
However, as First Deputy General Director of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) Alexei Medvetsky said, the technical offer for demonstration prototype development may be submitted as early as the end of this year.
In 2018, in an interview for TASS, President of the United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar noted that the supersonic business jet is mostly aimed at the world market, the potential markets being the South-East Asia and the Middle East. These are markets with a large number of flights, where the time factor is very important for top-level businesses, Slyusar explained.
Source – TASS
