Sukhoi announce S-21 and S-80 on hold due to lack of funds

Published: 11/29/1999

During an interview with Agence France at the Dubai Air Show, Sukhoi spokesman, Yuri Cherakov lamented that lack of investment was forcing the group to abandon a number of its current projects. According to Cherakov, Sukhoi has put on ice the long planned and much discussed S-21 supersonic executive jet. Given the cost and time period of this project, the ‘postponement" is no real surprise to those who felt that the project was beyond Sukhoi"s current resources, particularly without the help of a financially strong partner to replace the original partner, Gulfstream, who called it a day in 1992 after a four year collaboration. Despite the obvious doubts about the project following the cancellation of the Falcon SST, Sukhoi, through its General Director, Mikhail Pogosyan, was still insisting at MAKS-99 that it was not interested in becoming potentially involved with Boeing Business Jet on a supersonic project, arguing that cooperation would favour Boeing (www.concise.org 9th September 1999). This supported the view expressed in public by Simonov, Chief Designer at Sukhoi, that the group had sufficient resources to undertake the project itself. More surprising news was the confirmation, by Cherakov, that the S-80 twin turboprop regional aircraft, the flagship of Sukhoi"s efforts to convert from military to civilian projects, has been suspended due to lack of funding. First marketed in May 1998, this programme was reported to have built two aircraft, one of which was to begin a test flying programme in September 1999 at Zhukovsky in Moscow (www.concise.org 10th September 1999). The postponement of the project will come as a disappointment to General Electric, which has actively participated in the programme since 1995, when it agreed to fit the CT7-9 turboprop, and has endeavoured to assist the project on the ground through its Moscow office. The S-80 was also an important development for the design bureau and for the manufacturing plant, KnAPPO in Komosolomsk on Amur, currently the centre of a privatisation argument between the federal government and regional authorities in the Russian Far East. The S-80 has courted controversy since its inception as part of the “conversion" programme initiated in 1991. Many felt that the aircraft"s twin tail boom construction would make the aircraft too expensive to manufacture and reflected the design bureau"s lack of civil aircraft design and manufacture experience. The aircraft, when launched, would also have been entering a market in which a number of established Russian and Ukrainian competitors are attempting to sell product to largely insolvent carriers, particularly at the regional level, where the S-80 was designed to operate, with its high wing configuration allowing operation from unprepared landing sites. Of the bureau"s military programmes, Sukhoi said that funding was also tight for the S-37 and it was still waiting for confirmation of an order for the Su-27KUB for the Russian Navy. Reflecting on the prospects in the Middle East, Chervakov commented that Sukhoi military products were also not generating much interest from countries in the region and that many of Russia"s traditional customers had switched to Western suppliers since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did, however, add that Sukhoi products still accounted for 50% of Russia"s arms exports and were likely to increase that share over the next year.

Article ID: 1140