Kazan Deputy Director confident of funding development of Ansat

Published: 9/9/1999

Kazan Helicopters has said that it is confident that the Ansat helicopter, which made its maiden flight on 17th August 1999, has a commercial future. As yet, there are no firm orders, although the Russian Federal Border Police has expressed interest in 100. (www.concise.org 28th July 1999). In an interview with Concise, Valery Kartashyev, Deputy General Director, confirmed that the company had rejected a recent Western offer to fund the Ansat programme, insisting that Kazan's own resources “are sufficient to develop the project further”. According to Kartashyev, the kind of terms proposed by would-be Western investors are simply “not attractive”. The Ansat is expected to have a unit price of $1.7m: significantly lower than that of a comparable Western helicopter. Kazan hopes that the Ansat's competitiveness will be boosted by its remote control flight control system, that makes it the first fly-by-wire civilian helicopter in the medium-weight class. The system was developed by the NPO Avionika design bureau of Moscow and is based on previous systems designed by NPO Avionika for Sukhoi fighters.

Article ID: 847