Despite possible Boeing overtures Sukhoi plays hard to get over SBJ

Published: 9/9/1999

A bright future for supersonic business jets (SBJ) was being painted at the recent MAKS-99 Air Show. In an interview with Concise, Borge Boescov, President of Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), confirmed that the company was keen to develop an SBJ and acknowledged that Russian expertise could prove invaluable in the development programme, which could take a decade or more. He added that cooperative possibilities were being discussed with Sukhoi. Mikhail Pogosyan, General Director of Sukhoi, conveyed less enthusiasm about a potential partnership, observing that Boeing would be more likely to keep as much of the development process as possible in-house, so as to maintain its leading market position. He denied that Sukhoi had had any detailed discussions with Boeing on such a project. Sukhoi is currently working on the development of the S-21 SBJ (www.concise.org 22nd June 1999) and a model of the S-21 was displayed at the recent Paris and MAKS air shows. The S-21 has been much touted by Mikhail Simonov, Chief Designer of Sukhoi, with somewhat grandiose claims having been made as to its progress and the resources available within Sukhoi to complete the project. At MAKS-99, Pogosyan endorsed the prevailing confidence in potential market demand for SBJs, referring to recent US forecast agencies assessments that the estimated market had grown to around 300 airframes. Pogosyan contended that this was due both to the general world economy and to the creation of companies prepared to offer fractional ownership of expensive business aircraft. This according to Pogosyan, substantially increases the viability for companies and business people of having such an aircraft at their disposal and also had the effect of lifting the unit price limits allowing funding of high SBJ development costs. Pogosyan revealed that he had had a meeting with Gulfstream at the Paris Air Show, to discuss the possible resurrection of collaboration on the SBJ abandoned in 1992, but that Gulfstream had confirmed that it had chosen to form an alliance with Lockheed-Martin in this area. In spite of considering any cooperation with Boeing as “questionable”, he stressed that Sukhoi would not be averse to the development of a cooperative agreement per se, insisting that a decade of experience on the S-21 would prove valuable to would-be foreign partners.

Article ID: 849