“Our aviation has become faceless and nameless”: anniversary with tears in our eyes

100 years is, of course, a super-round date. It’s a sin not to congratulate. One “but” – the anniversary is obtained “with tears in the eyes.”

Of course, on this day we will definitely remember the designers who stood at the origins of our civil aircraft industry: Antonov, Tupolev, Ilyushin, Yakovlev … The whole country once knew their names. They sounded in the names of the aircraft they created: “An”, “Tu”, “Il”, “Yak” …

Giving their own surname to their offspring, each of them seemed to sign under the work done. He was responsible for the flight of the aircraft. It was always clear from whom, if anything, to ask, whom to punish, and whom to reward …

I would also like to name today’s designers, but it will not work. We just don’t know them. Our aviation has become faceless and nameless, and the Russian air fleet now consists almost entirely of foreign aircraft. We make our own. Basically the long-suffering Sukhoi Superjet 100. But even its name sounds in English and is denoted by the Latin alphabet – SSJ.

Someone might say: so what? All the same, the name of this aircraft is the name of our designer – Sukhoi. Yes, but he didn’t do it. Sukhoi created a company that successfully built and is building combat fighters. In this civilian project, the name of the legendary designer was simply covered up. But in fact, if you stop some passerby on the street and ask for the name of the person who made the Superjet 100, I guarantee no one will name him.

What’s on the street! Even in the leadership of the aviation industry, it is unlikely that anyone will immediately remember the one who designed the Superjet 100. This means that there is no one to ask where the budget billions spent on the aircraft from Western components went.

Perhaps it is very convenient for someone? Nameless labor is a collective response.

For example, we know that Minister Lavrov is responsible for international affairs in our country, Sergei Shoigu is responsible for the Armed Forces, Tatyana Golikova is responsible for the social sphere … We support them in some ways, criticize them in some ways. But in any case, it is clear to everyone who to ask for what.

And who can we ask about the problems of civil aviation, the 100th anniversary of which we are celebrating? Mystery… There is no such person. And why? Yes, because we do not have, as it was in 1923, the Civil Aviation Council. There is no Ministry of Civil Aviation, as it was in the USSR.

Now in our country several structures are responsible for civil aviation at once. Management and regulation in the field of civil aviation are given to the Ministry of Transport, Rosaviatsiya, Rostransnadzor, Rosaeronavigatsia, the Interstate Aviation Committee – MAK, Rosimushchestvo … At the same time, none of these departments is assigned the functions of analyzing the financial and production indicators of the industry as a whole. And everyone knows how a child feels with seven nannies …

For example, for a long time one could hear complaints about the lack of funds for the creation of modern aircraft. But the money for the construction of an ultra-modern office of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) – skyscrapers made of glass and concrete in Moscow on Bolshaya Partizanskaya – was easily found. By the way, a similar building was already under construction for UAC in Zhukovsky several years ago. And it didn’t cost a couple of million. However, aviation officials apparently did not want to leave the capital, they remained in Moscow. Now they are sitting in new office rooms with beautiful assistants, “passionately in love” with aviation and deftly clicking graceful fingers on computer keyboards.

UAC absorbed (very accurate business term) all the companies that used to design and manufacture civil aircraft. As part of the UAC, their former proud names and legendary names – Tupolev, Ilyushin, Yakovlev – were taken away from them, turning them into a single nameless division of civil aviation.

According to the head of UAC, Yuri Slyusar, this model has an economic justification, since “investments go to one brand, and are not dispersed in many directions,” because the products are presented in one segment.

“Products” is, of course, a strong word. There were products before, when various aircraft – “Tupols”, “Yaks”, “Ils” – were made annually by the hundreds. Now it is more correct to talk about one product, which is the main focus in the civilian segment – the MS-21 aircraft.

It is given such importance that even the symbol of the 100th anniversary of Russian civil aviation has become not the Il or Tu with a glorious history, but the MS-21, which has not transported a single passenger yet. An MC-21 is also depicted on the commemorative medal issued by presidential decree for the holiday. The description of the award of the presidential decree says: “On the front side of the medal is an MS-21 passenger plane taking off against the background of a stylized image of the Northern Hemisphere with a map of Russia superimposed on it.”

Perhaps this is right – we need to look to the future. And the future of our civil aviation is largely connected with this aircraft. But a century of experience should not be forgotten either. It contained a lot of value. And, by the way, the hope of Russian aviation – the new generation MS-21 aircraft was not made at all thanks to the current numerous aviation bureaucratic structures. It was created on the basis of the Yak-242 aircraft project developed back in the 1990s.

In June 2016, I happened to be present in Irkutsk at the roll-out of the MS-21, then still with American Pratt & Whitney engines. At the celebration, it was announced that the first aircraft would be named. And indeed, when the MS-21 appeared on the factory floor to the music and in the light of spotlights, on its cockpit the signature of the creator of the aviation company that made this aircraft was emblazoned on its cockpit: Alexander Yakovlev.

Now the MS-21, together with the Superjet 100, are going through the stage of import substitution. If they are not completed in the near future, then very soon we will all have nothing to fly on. The West will not sell its cars to us, and those of their planes that are flying now will gradually fail.

This means that we have nowhere to retreat, and we have a lot of plans. As Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation – and this is another department that is also directly related to civil aviation – promises, by 2030, 500 domestic aircraft will be produced to replace Boeing and Airbus. If these plans are destined to come true, then by 2030 we should have more than 1,700 aircraft in the country’s fleet. The number of Western cars will decrease from the current 738 to 319, while domestic cars, on the contrary, will grow from 359 to 1395 units.

To be honest, it’s hard to believe it. But, as they say, the eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing. And these are the hands of those same nameless aviation industry specialists who, in the past year, saved our civil aviation, which was actually put on the brink of survival by Western sanctions. At the cost of incredible efforts, they did everything so that we could all continue to fly.

Thank you for this, and Happy Holidays! Hope and further, as always, only on you.