Week of June 9, 1997
In A Queue For A U.S. Visa
Back To BasicsThe Il-103 is not one of those airplanes that shakes people's imagination. A classic "no-frills" design with fixed landing gear and maximum speed of 210 km/h, the model 103 is the slowest and simplest airplane ever created by the design bureau. If we look at absolute parameters, the Il-2 armored attack aircraft, the first Ilyushin to go into mass production and the most numerous airplane of World War II, may seem a more advanced design with a speed twice that of the current Il-103. The simplicity of the latest Ilyushin is determined by its task to become an affordable vehicle for pilot training and leisure flying. Ilyushin hopes that the low acquisition cost, ease of maintenance and fuel frugality of the Il-103 will allow the company to find a niche in the local and international markets for general aviation aircraft. The manufacturer charges USD156,500 per one Il-103 in standard specification. Such a low price is determined by a relatively simple package of flight instrumentation. "In a sense, the basic version does not have avionics at all. This is because this plane is intended primarily for initial training of civilian pilots in good weather conditions," Pupkov explains. For those who need instrument flying and dead reckoning, Ilyushin has developed two other versions, the first with an Allied-Signal avionics suite and the second with a mixture of instruments from various manufacturers. Among other things, those two versions carry US-made satellite-based global-positioning navigation systems, instrument landing systems and automatic direction finders. All three versions have the same powerplant, consisting of a Hartzell two-blade propeller and the 210-hp Teledyne IO360-ES engine running at 2800 rev/min. This combination enables the Il-103 to have a smooth cruise ride at a speed of 180-200 km/h. Pupkov says the aircraft has a maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 13. Were the landing gear absent, the ratio would be 15, he adds.
Production And TestingThe first two Il-103 airframes, including a flyable development prototype, were assembled at the Ilyushin pilot plant located in Moscow. A production line for the series is being prepared at the factory in Lukhovitsy, Moscow Region. Manufacturing issues have been solved with the help of a pre-series run of five airframes. Three out of those five are flyable, while the remaining two were sacrificed for lifetime and structural tests on the ground.Pupkov says that about 20 airframes are now in various stages of completion, including seven aircraft already flown. Three flyable planes are based at the airdrome of LII, Gromov's Flight Test and Research Institute in Zhukovsky. Those are leading aircraft undergoing various tests of high intensity. Among the tests already performed were engine-out landings and landings with a flap jammed in the down position. By now the seven flyable Il-103s have logged 1,000 flight hours with the leader contributing over 500 hours. Ilyushin and LII engineers and pilots are now carrying out additional testing and experiments on noise. The next task for them is to complete flight tests of the aircraft with a take-off weight of 1,320 kg, the figure given in the plane's specification. Pupkov hopes those tests will be completed during the summer. He says that the figure of 1,320 kg is not the ultimate and that the take-off weight may be increased further. "The structural design limitation for the take-off weight is 1,460 kg," the chief designer adds. Although the aircraft has space to accommodate five people inclusive of the pilot, officially it can take only four. "We have yet to resolve the problem with human body mock-ups," Pupkov says. The standard Russian ones refuse to take all three places in the rear cabin. "People proved more flexible then those mock-ups," Pupkov grumbles.
CustomersIlyushin has already received payments for several Il-103s from a number of local operators. An ecological organization, located in the territory of a national park near Baikal lake, paid for one airframe. This particular aircraft has been fitted with a tailor-made package of equipment for ecological monitoring. Another two examples are requested by the Academy of Civil Aviation in St. Petersburg. Kamchtka Airlines has on order two aircraft and some more Il-103s are booked by the aeroclub in Kazan.None of the planes ordered and pre-paid has left the factory in Lukhovitsy as of yet. This situation is caused by two things. The first is that some customers are happy to fly their aircraft from the factory's airport under the supervision of experienced test pilots and skilful ground technicians. The second thing is that the Federal Aviation Service (FAS) of Russia has not yet issued a special decree on implementation in operational practice of the full package of Il-103 manuals.
Such a long road from getting the certificate to becoming operational has been caused by the process of permanent changes in air worthiness regulations and the structure of aviation authorities in Russia and the CIS since the collapse of the USSR. The enforcement of the new Air Code of Russia on 1 April should put an end to this period of changes and uncertainty. Pupkov looks optimistically into the future, hoping that the CIS market for general aviation will generate 1,500 sales by the year 2002. This rosy prognosis, however, may be severely corrected by the economic situation in the CIS countries.
The Guinea PigPerspectives for Il-103 overseas sales are even more vague. The cheap sector of the international market is full, with the second-hand Yak-18T and Yak-52 priced between 30 and 80 thousand US dollars depending on flight time and overall condition. The Cessna 172R, whose production gets apace, is priced at USD 140,000. The market situation definitely does not look very optimistic for Ilyushin offering the Il-103 at USD 156,500.Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Administration continues working on the Il-103 certification to FAR Part 23. This process is better know as a "shadow certification," because the appropriate certificate can be issued only after the Russian and US Governments sign the long-awaited bilateral aviation agreement. Technically, the Il-103 has been found good enough to meet all the requirements in FAR Part 23. The last question to Ilyushin designers remaining unanswered is dynamic testing of seats. Pupkov says that unlike the Russian Air Register, which was happy with a dynamic equivalent of the tests, the FAA needs them done properly. The chief designer does not think the tests will take a long time. The Il-103 is about to be released from its temporary employment in the US as the Guinea Pig in "shadow certification". Will the plane find a more decent job in America? Pupkov believes his baby can satisfy many potential employers. The only question is how long the Il-103 will wait for its US visa. | |
Andrei Pupkov states that although the FAS has already approved each and every document in the Il-103's documentation package, the plane still cannot enter service with operators. According to the chief designer, a special decree is needed on the subject and the Service promises to issue the document in two weeks' time. Officially, the Il-103 received its air worthiness certificate to the AP23 requirements on 15 February 1996, but it was issued by the Air Register of the Interstate Aviation Committee, a different structure to the FAS.
