Published: 6/19/1998

During his visit to Uzbeki capital Tashkent, Valery Okulov, general director of Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines, expressed an interest in acquiring as many as 20 Il-114 regional airliners. This move was made in the wake of a powerful marketing campaign developed by Ilyushin and its new risk-sharing business partner, Incombank, one of the prominent independent financiers in Russia. In May, Ilyushin and Incombank signed a letter of intent "on the fulfilment of a five-year programme (1998-2003) for the modernisation, manufacture and increase in production output of the Il-114 aircraft".More importantly, the bank wants to make this aircraft available via its aircraft-leasing facilities to CIS operators under financial lease terms.Under this scheme an airline would pay monthly rentals over a period of 7-10 years until the full cost is paid off. Aeroflot, which is expanding its network of inner-CIS routes -including the recently-opened flights to Sochi, Anapa and Kuban - needs highly-economical regional airliners to replace its Tu-134 jets on relatively short domestic routes, where this type is not profitable. Seemingly, Okulov expressed his interest in the Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC)-powered version of the Il-114. According to Nikolai Talikov, chief designer with Ilyushin for the Il-114 project, the maiden flight of a PW-127-powered prototype is planned for the beginning of next year. The decision to go ahead with this version, first revealed at the Paris Air Show last year, was taken earlier this spring, Nikolai Talikov says, after the Uzbeki national carrier, Uzbekistan Khavo Yullari, had promised the Canadian engine manufacturer an order for at least ten airframes in exchange for favourable terms on delivery of the engines. Talks on this topic began a year ago, when Arslan Ruzmetov, general director of Uzbekistan Khavo Yullari, approached P&WC. Back in 1994, the carrier took delivery of two TV7-117-powered Il-114s for operational trials, which ended unsuccessfully due to limited TBO, at 500 hours, of their half-experimental power plants. The situation then worsened further, with the crash of a pre-series airframe being flown by Ilyushin pilots from the Zhukovsky airfield, due to an engine failure and the subsequent "freeze" of the Stupino SV-36 propeller in a high-pitch position. Talikov says that now the Il-114's teething problems have been cured. Klimov company of St.Petersburg has increased the initial TBO for the TV7-117 to 1500 hours and is raising it to 3000 hours during this summer. Eventually, the TBO could be 5000 hours, Talikov claims. Also, Ilyushin has serious plans to maintain this type "on-condition", after a sufficient number of airframes are sold and extensive experience of its operational usage is obtained. Currently, the airframe is certificated for a lifetime of30,000 flight hours, 30,000 cycles and 30 years of service. In future, Talikov says, the lifetime might be increased to 45,000 hours. In March 1997, the Il-114 obtained an airworthiness certificate to NLGS-3 requirements from MAK, the Interstate Aviation Committee. The certificate allows the manufacturer to conduct commercial passenger operations on the type. In basic passenger version, the Il-114P, aircraft can transport 64 passengers over 1100km or 50 passengers 1500km. The Il-114's "glass" cockpit has five colour displays, similar to those in the Il-96-300 airliner, and the TsPNK-114 digital flight management system allowing ICAO C landings. (AL698.1) (VK)

Article ID: 198