Russia unveils Tupolev Tu-454 widebody concept amid engine shift and industry gaps
Posted by -NewYork-@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 254 comments
KangarooWeird9974@reddit
Looks like someone at Airbus picked up one of those free USB-sticks lying around in the parking lot again.
Treinrukker@reddit
Wait until you find out where Boeing had an design bureau before the war started.
BoringBob84@reddit
They closed the Moscow office, but not the Kiev office. Some of the Ukrainians were still coming to work with bombs exploding in the distance - even though Boeing offered to pay their salaries whether they worked or not.
I think all of this is sad on many levels. The USSR developed some great aerospace talent, but modern Russia is so corrupt that they are unable to develop complex products like commercial airliners that are competitive.
Ok-Parfait-9856@reddit
Honestly it’s sad as hell to think about what things would be like if Russia peacefully integrated itself into the global economy over the past 3 decades instead of plotting a delusional attempt to revive the soviet unions rotting corpse. So much unnecessary suffering. If their govt cared, they could still have a competitive space program, airplanes that actually rival modern tech, and other scientific discoveries. So much lost potential.
regnull@reddit
Russia cannot peacefully integrate itself into the world. Russia is an empire held together by violence. If violence ceases, Russia falls apart. As simple as that.
madtowntripper@reddit
Sad to think about what the US could be… Instead of plotting, a delusional attempt save the Middle East… in an attempt to make America great again…
Same fucking story
aviation-ModTeam@reddit
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rafiwrath@reddit
"the west" was never open to full and fair integration of russia into the global economy which is incredibly stupid given that they've essentially been pushed into china's sphere as a result
gefahr@reddit
What does this even mean? They have veto rights on the UNSC, they were added to the G7 (making it the G8).
(Then they annexed their neighbor and lost the latter.)
Luci-Noir@reddit
I was just thinking about this today. They had the oil and gas revenue to fund anything they wanted. They were still even providing rocket engines until very recently to Europe and their jet engines are still very good. We trusted them for years to bring astronauts to and from the ISS! It doesn’t make any sense. Even if they won every war they get their money from trade and they ruined that.
Vithar@reddit
We are still regularly using them for astronauts to and from the ISS. We have the spaceX option now, but we are actively using both.
Luci-Noir@reddit
I didn’t know they were still being used for ISS. Soyuz is amazing.
Dr_Trogdor@reddit
They chose vodka instead.
Boeing367-80@reddit
There's no reason that a well-run Russia couldn't have a GDP twice what it is, or more. It has (or had - many of its best people have left) a fantastic scientific and technical heritage.
BoringBob84@reddit
Russia's shitty governments have been complete assholes to the rest of the world (and their own citizens) for centuries and they pretend that they are somehow the victims.
DietCherrySoda@reddit
V interesting what politics the mods around here find acceptable.
BoringBob84@reddit
OK, I deleted it to be polite.
cvnh@reddit
They actually did quite an effort to be fair, not only in Aerospace but many companies. Life for locals has always been bad and there's always been corruption around, but around the 2010s they did some quite good progress in stabilising and opening up the economy. After a few years that the dark side of the regime started showing up again and from there things went downhill. There was a number of interesting Aerospace cooperations, lots of it is not really visible to the general public but those are interesting times.
oliilo1@reddit
I have no love for Putin, but I do feel sorry for the people in St.Petersburg and Moscow who felt they were a part of the west, only for them to be robbed of that fantasy when the war broke out.
Perfct_Stranger@reddit
Russia is the definition of the resource paradox.
OracleofFl@reddit
In commercial aviation, the "moat" got bigger with the investment needed for carbon fiber and the magic of the current generation of jet engines. There are billions of investment from Boeing, Airbus, GE/RR/CFM/PW into contemporary materials, wind design, supply chain, service network, engine design, etc. plus scale that there is really no way an outside entrant can play in anything 737/A320 and above particularly in total cost of ownership including operating expenses.
Melech333@reddit
I agree and that makes good sense but in regards to your conclusion at the end ... Do you think COMAC will be an exception here in another one or two decades time span? The US and Europe can protect their home markets for a while but that still leaves a lot of the world that could slowly start to adopt COMAC planes, like in Asia, Africa, South America, etc.
Off topic but that sort of market growth seems to be happening in the electric automobile industry already. Maybe worth noting as a similarity, idk. I have to wonder: I wouldn't want a $10k Chinese EV as it's built to a much lower safety standard, but it makes me wonder why an American company can't build a $15-20k car at better standards instead of $40k. If there's room to squeeze the margins in commercial airplanes, the fact that established supply and support networks are critical won't prevent adoption, only slow it down.
OracleofFl@reddit
Only in the <= 373/a320 market is there a chance if all the domestic market in China goes with COMAC. The 737/A320 market is super high volume and very competitively priced PLUS airlines (including those in China) have a ton invested in pilot and mechanic training. To even move from one to the other is a major undertaking that rarely happens. It would be a really big deal for an airline with a big investment in 737s to migrate to A320s. Migrating to COMAC even if half the price wouldn't be attractive if the airline can't keep them flying.
These two airframes aren't going to change much until B and A can figure out how to build a low cost, high volume aircraft with carbon fiber major components (at least wings). Until they can figure that out, that class of aircraft will remain basically the same and aluminum. The bigger 787/777/A350 airplanes with significant carbon fiber are very expensive to make and the technology and testing to make them safe and "dispatchable" isn't something a COMAC or even Embraer are going to catch up on soon. The fact that COMAC isn't displacing Embraer is interesting.
Techhead7890@reddit
For transport category airliners, I feel like anyone rich enough to buy a plane isn't going to go for the cheapest commodity they can get if there's a potential risk for a safety gap, even if it's hard to quantify how much worse the C919 is than equivalents.
Maybe exceptions for small island nations - I believe Air Vanuatu once operated a Harbin aircraft (which has a long list of 3rd world states as operators and seems ro be mostly successful). But there is a long shadow cast by the many many incidents of the Xian Ark 60 which is at 110:14 for hulls to incidents and hundreds of injuries.
That being said, I'll be interested to see them flourish - mainland China has had some leaps in advanced engineering, if mostly to do with ground vehicles - so maybe in few decades with the predicted "new engine generation" we might see them start to figure out a way ahead.
BoringBob84@reddit
I agree that the cost of entry is far too high and the possible market share is far too little for it to make sense from the perspective of private investors.
However, huge governments with deep pockets (like in the EU and in China) are doing it with state support. That would be more difficult for Russia because they have cut themselves off from international trade and it would be extremely difficult to make everything in house. Even China is relying on traditional international aerospace suppliers (for now) for components on the COMAC C919.
GrandJelly_@reddit
Russia has no problem with designing/engineering things.
But when it comes to building them, oh boy.
BoringBob84@reddit
Yep. That is why Boeing had a Moscow office. There is some excellent talent in Russia.
fireburner999@reddit
And Airbus!
G25777K@reddit
757-500 that never was
A_storia@reddit
It’s a wide-body proposal, so more like a 767-400ER ;)
LinguoBuxo@reddit
the "R" in this case stands for Russki, ey?
GeraintLlanfrechfa@reddit
Airuskboelev
Techhead7890@reddit
Antono-vus
Mikoyan-Gebusovich
Aviaruskhoi
Yakobus
Obyedient Airbus Korporatsiya
Airpovlev
Ilyushбус
I feel like I overused the second half lol. Probably should have gone with an EADS one or something if I could have made it fit. (European Antonov Defense and Freight? Then again Ukrain is legitimately pro-Euro so wouldn't need to do espionage).
Matuteg@reddit
Team Rocket
nauticalfiesta@reddit
there's only so many ways to style a flying pencil
SimDaddy14@reddit
If that gap is yet another shitty, Russian aircraft then yeah I guess lol
Adjutant_Reflex_@reddit
Right, I’m sure Tupolev will get on this right after they finish up the PAK-DA…
Ultimately, like most of the Russian projects over the last few decades, the issue isn’t if it can be built it’s whether they can build more than a couple at a time. And if what they can build can be maintained (see: SSJ100.)
martian4x@reddit
Most of these issues can be solved by large order from airlines, and that's a big ask by itself.
anandonaqui@reddit
What countries have airlines that would conceivably be customers of Russian airliners?
RealPutin@reddit
India is probably your best bet. Their state owned aerospace company contributed to the development of a bunch of MiGs, and they're squarely between the West and Russia and won't be touching COMAC anytime soon with their relations with China. They just signed a deal to produce the SSJ in India a few months ago.
harshit_j@reddit
Indian here. It's unlikely our airlines would buy Russian. Pretty much all our airlines have invested heavily into the Boeing/Airbus ecosystems, and it would be a large expense to set up a fresh network of aircraft, parts and pilots from scratch. All this, in a country which is especially brutal on its airlines, and one mistake leads to the airline promptly going out of business.
Long haul is especially dicey, since our airlines have major plans to expand to European and North American destinations (thus bypassing the ME), and this jet will probably not even get certification there, so it wouldn't even be able to fly there.
scanferr@reddit
Brutal on airlines? With the Air India crash cover up that is going on?
harshit_j@reddit
Ok, first things first, the "cover-up", as you call it, is not by the AAIB. By all accounts, they are pretty much leaning towards the deliberate cut off theory, as was indicated in the prelim report, and is likely to be the conclusion in the final report as well.
The "concerns" are raised by the father of the PIC and the pilot's association, both of whom have vested interests in a report clearing the pilot. Unfortunately, our shite media loves sensationalizing it, and there's no shortage of delulu people in our country.
Second, when I say brutal, I am talking about it from an economical perspective. Taxes on aviation fuel are amongst the highest in the world, and the Indian customer base is highly price sensitive, leading airlines to provide features rivaling full service carriers at LCC prices.
There's a reason the Indian aviation sector is basically a duopoly, where one airline is run extremely lean and super efficient (sometimes too lean for its own good), and the other is owned by one of India's largest conglomerates, and is basically a project they can sink as much money as they want into it until it succeeds.
navigationallyaided@reddit
Wasn’t the SSJ being tested by the Indonesian/Malaysian carriers that flew into a mountain because the pilots switched off the TCAS/GPWS systems?
Dalnore@reddit
There was a crash of SSJ-100 in Indonesia, but it was a demonstration flight performed by test pilots of Sukhoi. Indonesian [Sky Aviation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Aviation_(Indonesia)) had 3 SSJ-100 delivered in 2013, all of them haven't found a new owner since the company ceased operations in 2014.
navigationallyaided@reddit
yea, that was it - I was watching a Mayday episode about that.
Yaonoi@reddit
India. lol. Of course in reality IndiGo is the largest A320NEO operator on the planet with deliveries stretching into the mid-2030s By the time this unproven uncompetitive plane is anywhere near prototype stage Airbus will have built a whole A320NEO FAL in India that will assemble more planes in a quarter than this program will ever achieve in its whole lifespan.
Joseph_0112@reddit
Other than Russia it’s self, maybe China. Unless an ex-soviet country like Uzbekistan can justify a widebody which I doubt. Either way it would probably be more politically charged that wanted
Adjutant_Reflex_@reddit
China will be forcing their airlines over COMAC as soon as is feasible. Even if their products find only limited success on the export market they have a massive domestic market they can exploit.
CharacterUse@reddit
And they'll exploit that domestic market to develop upgraded versions which will be competitive in the west. Same as they did with electric cars.
ABoutDeSouffle@reddit
Probably India, Iran and North Korea. Venezuela seems a bit unlikely lately, and Cuba is too poor. Africa seems to buy Western and would rather switch to Chinese than Russian, I guess.
co1063@reddit
Uzbekistan already has a fleet of 787s
Joseph_0112@reddit
I’m actually an idiot, I’ve seen one with my own eyes
pope1701@reddit
Russia and China, maybe India. That's a quarter of earth's population.
Kojetono@reddit
Comac will have a widebody in production long before the first flight of this thing.
And both China and India want widebodies that can fly into Europe and the US, which no russian design will be able to do.
navigationallyaided@reddit
Cuba, Brazil, and other Central/South American countries. if Iran wasn’t reduced to shambles I can see them ordering Russian jets too.
Drunkenaviator@reddit
Why in the world would Brazil, home of Embraer, buy shitty foreign airliners instead of making their own, or flying western equipment?
navigationallyaided@reddit
Price. While Embraer does specialize in the <100pax market that’s a hole between smaller jets and the 737/A320, they might be tempted to go Russian if they have decent relations with them but more than likely now.
ChoMar05@reddit
India only buys Russian if they're economically better and reasonable safe, reasonable as in "allowed to fly in the EU". China is a bit more complex, but I dont see them needing Russian planes anywhere.
BoringBob84@reddit
China might buy one, so that they can disassemble it, inspect it, and steal any valuable technology.
Maverick-not-really@reddit
I think its safe to say that China has surpassed Russia in technological advancement by now. Russia has been in a severe brain drain for 10-20 years by now, there are no revolutionary ideas coming out of there any time soon
BoringBob84@reddit
You make a good point. There may be a few good technologies in there, but China has to decide if they are likely to be worth the price of buying the aircraft and stealing the technology from it.
Zhukov-74@reddit
India has also placed large orders for Airbus and Boeing planes in the past few years.
Air India adds 100 Airbus aircraft to its firm orders
Air India Orders 30 Boeing 737 MAX Jets to Expand Single-Aisle Fleet
Zhukov-74@reddit
Why would India switch from Airbus and Boeing to Tupolev?
India has already placed large orders for Airbus and Boeing planes in the past few years.
Air India adds 100 Airbus aircraft to its firm orders
Air India Orders 30 Boeing 737 MAX Jets to Expand Single-Aisle Fleet
das_war_ein_Befehl@reddit
China has COMAC and they’re past the point where Russia offers them anything technically advanced they can’t make themselves.
martian4x@reddit
Also Africa
sofixa11@reddit
Africa? Which country in Africa? Most airlines there operate heavily Western fleets, and have for decades.
Ethiopian pride themselves on their modern fleet (787 and A350). Royal Air Maroc, EgyptAir, Kenya Airways mostly fly to European destinations, so Russian planes are nogo.
Nobody else uses widebodies.
Pixel91@reddit
Nah. The airline market is too competitive for that. In countries that are not sanctioned, this thing would have zero chance in the market. Even if the engine (that does not exist yet) would have near-peer efficiency, which is a big if.
They can't even maintain a fleet of regional jets, as there's already been reported maintenance issues with the quite new SJ-100. There is no shot any long-haul airline buys this thing when the maintenance and parts situation is similarly dire.
China and India are big, big domestic markets and yet there was basically zero interest in the SJ-100, which actually fills a niche that neither Boeing or Airbus cover. Nobody wants these things. Except Russia itself.
techbro84@reddit
China wants to use their own aircraft or Western if need be; India isn’t going all in on Russian jets so it’s Russia and some smaller contracts in places like Africa, North Korea and some smaller airlines.
st_owly@reddit
Belarus.
Radiant_Honeydew1080@reddit
Yeah, from what I understand the main issue with SSJ-100 was lack of service infrastructure in comparison with Boeing and Airbus. Which itself isn't worth building and maintaining if there are no big contracts for the planes.
sonicenvy@reddit
I mean a huge problem many Russian airlines are facing is that they don't have the level of aircraft maintenance facilities that they would need for total independence from Western aircraft maintainers and manufacturers, especially for their Western built aircraft. A lot of Russian airlines were sending their Western built aircraft to Western countries in Europe for heavy maintenance prior to sanctions because they did not have the capability to perform this maintenance themselves.
If you want a really good in-depth look at the SSJ-100 and some of the issues faced by it, admiralcloudberg's article on Gazpromavia flight 9608 is a great read: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/crucible-of-the-cascade-the-crash-of-gazpromavia-flight-9608-50e225baece3
Obvious-Hunt19@reddit
Damn I did not realize she had to personally translate a couple hundred pages of Russian to get the full story and released it for free. That’s fucking heroic
st_owly@reddit
The Admiral out here doing the lord’s work
AdultContemporaneous@reddit
Yup. Been reading her stuff for what feels like a decade.
G25777K@reddit
Facts, but this will be an aircraft made for Russia, anyone else it’s a pipe dream. I’ll be surprised if it gets built in the next 10 years
cat_prophecy@reddit
But why order this instead of an Airbus or Boeing? Unless the country is under embargo by the US/EU in which case their airlines definitely don't have the funds to make a large order.
shermanhill@reddit
The Russian airlines potentially could sustain something akin to a fleet that demonstrated capability for further export, but again it’s down to showing ability to produce and sustain that is continually the problem with Russian domestic producers.
anandonaqui@reddit
What countries have airlines that would conceivably be customers of Russian airliners?
I_like_cake_7@reddit
Russia’s economy is also in absolute shambles right now, so that isn’t helping either.
arnotino@reddit
Lol no
Delladv@reddit
For SSJ100 crashing with several airline reps onboard did not help for sure...
das_war_ein_Befehl@reddit
Why buy a plane of questionable reliability from Russia when you can just buy a Boeing or Airbus?
Russia’s problem is that its industry isn’t particularly advanced compared to alternatives and could mostly exist because the ussr acted like a big captive market.
throwawayaccyaboi223@reddit
It's for the internal market that can't source parts from abroad (or can, but with great difficulty) and for its puppet states.
das_war_ein_Befehl@reddit
Those puppet states kinda don’t exist. In Europe it’s like…Belarus. Central Asia is quickly moving into the Chinese sphere.
LupineChemist@reddit
I mean mostly. Cubana still flies an IL-96, thought it doesn't cross the Atlantic anymore (guessing EASA won't let it land in Spain)
North Korea still flies IL-62s and more modern Tu-204s
But yes, they're mostly gone. And anyone in that space that would need it would far more likely be strongarmed into buying COMAC
AfonsoFGarcia@reddit
China would only need to strongarm them if Tupolev would be insanely cheap. Tupolev doesn’t have a maintenance network, this plane will not have western type certification, and Russia will not be able to build a plane that’s technically competitive with comac (if they can build it at all).
blueberrycauzez@reddit
Atm China seems to be more afraid of American retaliation then Russia. Iran really wants transport aircraft, to the point that it was a major component of Obama's nuclear deal. Cuba, NK, and Iran are all potential operators.
CharacterUse@reddit
That's neither a large not well-funded market to sell/develop aicraft for. Between them Cuba and NK have just five or six Tu-204s, Iran has none. You'd think the Iranians would at least have bought SSJs for internal use but no.
LupineChemist@reddit
Yeah...don't worry, we have a worse plane with less support, but at least it's more expensive!
Dalnore@reddit
The US lifted Boeing export restrictions on Belarus, and Belavia already has plans for new Boeing planes.
sunsetair@reddit
Same as it was in the Soviet era. Nobody touched the Soviet planes outside of the block. They built and used “huge” numbers within the block.
PeckerNash@reddit
Bloc. No K.
Apexnanoman@reddit
Or maybe just Airbus. At this point if it's Boeing I'm not going. Or "You're Boeing to die."
Though even a 737 Max with the auto crash function and door plug falling out might be better than a Russian plane lol.
elwiscomeback@reddit
And if you want to get an alternative, I'm sure you would look at China before Russia
USA_A-OK@reddit
Or Brazil
kristina_42@reddit
sanctioned countries
das_war_ein_Befehl@reddit
Not enough of those for a market, nor does Russia have the $$ for it
kayl_breinhar@reddit
More like PAK-NYET.
Yaonoi@reddit
They built it alright. And then crashed a few frames. 230 jets delivered, 5 hull losses, 89 fatalities.
Cerulean_Malstrom074@reddit
da
TheAgedProfessor@reddit
Not even any winglets??
"We don't care bout no efficiency!" - Russians
Designer-Salary-7773@reddit
Lotta concepts coming out of Russia these days. The concept of winning in. Ukraine is a good example
aviation-ModTeam@reddit
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Chessdaddy_@reddit
Reminds me of all the German concepts being thought up in late 1945
OracleofFl@reddit
You mean concepts that ain't gonna happen.
Guardsred70@reddit
I hate to say this, but I wouldn't feel safe in anything made in Russia. I mean, I have so many incredible international stuff in my house: Chinese, American, Mexican, Italian, German, English, Malaysia, Indonesian, Greek, French, Egyptian, Belgian, Australian, Canadian, Korean, etc.
But there is no way in hell I'd buckle a seatbelt in a hurtling thing of Russian manufacture.
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dead_toyou@reddit
they should probably focus on the il-96-400...
LateralThinkerer@reddit
(A350 + B787)/2 = T454?
Pol_Potamus@reddit
No, that would be the T568.5.
Striker1102@reddit
I would argue it's the (A+B)/2*568.5
Alpha_Majoris@reddit
You should go back to highschool and this time attend math class
Striker1102@reddit
Oh yeah?
Alpha_Majoris@reddit
Really.
This thread started with: (A350 + B787)/2 = T454
If you come to this conclusion, you haven't paid attention: (A+B)/2*568.5
Striker1102@reddit
(A350 + B787)/2 = (A+B)/2*568.5
Snobben90@reddit
But. A letter before a number is that number times the value of the letter...
NoDoze-@reddit
The math doesnt add up! Likely how the plane will crash like Russia's previous iterations.
RevoOps@reddit
It's ruxxian math. The 114.5 fell out of a sixth story window.
rikk789@reddit
r/theydidntthemath
alb92@reddit
76.2% A350 and 23.8% 787
KingOfFools1984@reddit
It's 2,5 actually.
Ok_Pin_4554@reddit
Looks mighty fine. PD-14 is already flying. It seems they will be able to create PD-26 given PD-35 is still being developed albeit slowly.
vaska00762@reddit
Looks like an A350 Render.
What are the chances it needs a fight engineer and uses a Soviet engine design?
not_logan@reddit
Russia already developed two types of civilian aviation engines (for small and mid-size planes). Why do you think this plane will use soviet ones? They are not suitable for current use due to economic and ecological requirements
vaska00762@reddit
The Aviadvigatel PD-14 is effectively a high-bypass version of the PS-90, which is a Soviet design in origin.
Coming up with a new cleansheet design would take years, if not decades. The last Russian wide-body is the Il-96, a quadjet with the PS-90, the same engine used on the Tu-204/214, and even the Il-76.
I have my doubts a large ultra-high bypass engine will come out of Russia anytime soon. They'll either realise they need a quad-jet with 4 PS-14s, or they'll need to consider copying a Western design like the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000/XWB or the General Electric GEnx/GE9x. If they don't have the metallurgy sorted, that could be costly.
The MC-21 was originally intended to use Pratt & Wittney PW1000G engines, but abandoned the plan due to sanctions. While the Geared Turbofan is highly problematic, it still has widespread use on the A320neo, A220 and Embraer E2 Jets.
By contrast, the Chinese didn't bother with a new engine design for the Comac C919. They just used the CFM Leap, same as the A320neo and 737 MAX.
The Sukhoi Superjet (original version) used modified CFM56 engine designs, which the A320, 737 and A340 already used. After sanctions, the aircraft was "Russified" into a Yakovlev Supetjet with a PD-8, also a PS-90 re-engineered.
So... really, all Russia can do is just take Soviet engine designs and mildly modernise them. This is a problem they have in the space sector too. They may have put digital instrumentation into Soyuz, but it's still the same basic rocket design that put Yuri Gagarin in space, and the capsule is not structurally different to Soyuz 1. It just navigates by Glonass now instead of Intertial Systems.
njsullyalex@reddit
The former is zero, neither the MC-21 or SSJ need a flight engineer. Later IL-96 variants also don’t have a flight engineer.
The latter is a bit higher chance, though instead of using a blatantly Soviet design it will be developed from a Soviet design and advanced. Will still likely be multiple decades out of date though.
Dalnore@reddit
All Tu-204/214, including ones built right now, still need a flight engineer. Tupolev in collaboration with Red Wings even had to create new flight engineer courses from scratch in 2024 to cover for the lack of qualified people.
Far_Breakfast_5808@reddit
I'm so confused. My understanding is that the IL-96 is FBW. So why the need for a flight engineer?
StatisticianBroad690@reddit
Ahem…don’t forget the navigator….
vaska00762@reddit
There's no glass nose for the ~~bombadier~~ navigator to see the ground.
burgonies@reddit
Has a seat in the cockpit for the political officer
nonreligious2@reddit
Flight commisar
InfiniteOrchardPath@reddit
I just went 3 rounds with our local fight Engineer. Couldn't get my design change by him.
Ldghead@reddit
Rule #1 of flight club-you never talk about flight club
CeleritasLucis@reddit
What about Mile-High club?
st_owly@reddit
Fedor Emalianenko would like a word
pope1701@reddit
Did they steal the plans for an A350 without the efficient wings?
OracleofFl@reddit
...and without the technology to make the carbon fiber fuselage and other components.
Drunkenaviator@reddit
Or the engines.
zasedok@reddit
Or the avionics.
OracleofFl@reddit
Absolutely...I just assumed they would get them from GE/RR/CFM like everyone else!
RevoOps@reddit
If you can make a rocket from stainless steel, surely you can make an airliner from cast iron.
DosEquisVirus@reddit
The damn wings are the most important part of the airframe and way better protected. 😂
pope1701@reddit
Just like chicken!
ABoutDeSouffle@reddit
They even copied the black mask on the A350
Role-Business@reddit
I thought that was an A350 at first.
TwujZnajomy27@reddit
i'm putting my bets on 10 sales max, One from Cubana, One from Air Koryo, Aeroflot will be forced to buy 3 and the rest will go to the russian government
Gramerdim@reddit
a330/350 clone?
freneticboarder@reddit
Yeah, yeah... The specs are derivative. It'll never leave the design phase. Got it.
Can we talk about the concept livery?
Dafuq?
DosEquisVirus@reddit
Ok… So one takes A320(neo) and merges its design with the tech that is well tested TU134. And there you have it: 320+134=454! Solved!
DosEquisVirus@reddit
I am guessing Kasperski had a good security deal with Airbus. 😂😂😂
KehreAzerith@reddit
Russian aviation industry hasn't produced anything noteworthy since the 80. Even China struggles to produce domestic civilian airliners despite having a significantly more resources, technology and manpower. Russia is very good at producing CGI dreams of planes for the past 20 years
Far_Breakfast_5808@reddit
The SSJ-100, while not the best plane in the world, was decent and had a promising future before the maintenance issues and politics killed it. It probably would have never set the world on fire, but had Russia not gone the path it did and worked closer with the West, while building up its aviation industry, the SSJ could have been a good starting point for a better industry. Kinda like how the C909 and C919 were never really intended to be cutting edge but to build experience.
CaptainSwaggerJagger@reddit
Russia is also a market leader in CGI renders of warships they'll never build, it's somewhat of a specialty area for them.
Signal_Quarter_74@reddit
“Both engine programs remain under development, and neither has reached a level of maturity comparable to Western counterparts such as the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB or General Electric’s GEnx.”
So yea this thing is going to be quite inefficient. Won’t sell much if any outside of Russia
Rallymodeller@reddit
Last decent engines developed by Aviadvigatel were the PS90s, back in... the 90s. Bascially equivalent to late RB211s.
They're three generations behind.
avar@reddit
It was developed in the 80s, it entered service in the early 90s, a process that was delayed due to the collapse of the USSR.
Rallymodeller@reddit
And there we have it.
IcyTable6584@reddit
They should just put the afterburning turbojets from the SU57 on it 😊
n00bca1e99@reddit
Maybe I should announce my own aircraft. It’s technically under development…
AnvilEdifice@reddit
Photoshop 🤝 Russian aerospace "industry"
Doubleoh_11@reddit
Are you selling shares I can use to launder my cash through? Otherwise I’m out
n00bca1e99@reddit
No, but I do have a washing machine and a dryer, and money is closer to cloth than paper, so...
mpg111@reddit
in the normal times (not during the war and without sanctions) they were able to build an airframe - but not the engines. So I don't believe they can make decent engines now
Mr06506@reddit
They've just got less picky about what counts as a decent engine.
The design goals will be downgraded from safe, quiet, efficient, reliable to hopefully just safe, broadly reliable.
mpg111@reddit
I'm not sure they can do "just safe". I know that they can do loud and 100hrs time-between-overhauls
disergi0@reddit
good job.
223-Remington@reddit
Looks neat, hopefully it does well.
Cool to see other companies and countries try their hand at making jets.
SnoutStreak@reddit
Don't test it near mountains.
Texas_Kimchi@reddit
It will be made out of recycled Mig 17's.
citymanc13@reddit
Looks like a A350 lmao
FMC_Speed@reddit
looks good, the more competition in the market the better
sarahlizzy@reddit
Yes. Russia has a long history of designing stuff that “looks good”.
CaptainPonahawai@reddit
I'd argue that they both look and perform poorly.
The IL96-400 looks like an a340 crossed with a 732.
sarahlizzy@reddit
TU-144 was quite pretty. Saying nothing about its performance though. I was born the same year as THAT airshow.
Pretty_Aside_7674@reddit
they do like designing them to land pretty good on rough terrain props to them for that
Pretty_Aside_7674@reddit
Pretty cool livery for it
nowayhozai7804@reddit
And the first production aircraft available in 2060.
ALA02@reddit
The Airboeing 3587
SuppliceVI@reddit
Yeah the guys conducting war on horseback can definitely produce new planes.
Anyhow let's see how Su-75 development is going
ke1c4m@reddit
I heard that Ivan drank all the vodka meant for the cooling system, just like in the MiG-25, otherwise it would already be flying.
Pal_Smurch@reddit
Why is Yuri Andropov painted on the tail?
Agreeable_Mud_8338@reddit
Paid for by the Chinese probably (so they can own the blueprints to make their own back home)
Much_Horse_5685@reddit
Nope, this is actually a knockoff of a Chinese plane. The Comac C929 was originally planned to be jointly developed by Comac and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (which Tupolev is a subsidiary of), but Comac ditched Russia in 2023 because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and unrelated difficulties with working with Russia and continued with the C929 alone. The Tu-454 is a paper plane knockoff of the C929 the UAC came up with after getting kicked out of the C929 program.
pizzlepullerofkberg@reddit
hahaha I wonder who the buyers will be? nobody!
CaptValentine@reddit
I don't want to get on the Russian 787
ywgflyer@reddit
Looks like a love child between a 787 and A350.
Which, to be fair, it likely is. More reverse-engineered crap, but with corner-cutting that will make Boeing blush.
MRM4m0ru@reddit
Never thought we would need crj cargo layout on widebody but here we are with two fwd cargo doors
BillWilberforce@reddit
Why do they need an aircraft with a 15,000KM/9,320 mile range?
Where are they going to fly to? The only place would be, going around Ukraine and going to fellow BRICS Brazil.
It's got virtually no chance of getting off the ground and which non-Russian operator would go for it? When you've got a choice of Airbus, Boeing and CAIC?
WesternBlueRanger@reddit
Moscow to Vladivostok is about 7,000km via the most direct route.
Assuming the usual degradation of performance from the early spec sheet to the actual design that is often common on Russian aircraft designs (often due to the engines not meeting spec and excessive weight), something that can routinely fly long distances is kinda needed for flying within Russia itself.
ABoutDeSouffle@reddit
That would match the wing without any wingtip-devices.
Djinnmenken@reddit
Russian planes still travel to Cuba. So there's two destinations. But it's still most likely never flying to either.
BillWilberforce@reddit
And what if America does invade Cuba?
irisfailsafe@reddit
Russia doesn’t know anything about composites. They don’t have access to western electronics and their engines are 70 years behind
Lapkonium@reddit
MC-21 is 40% composite according to wiki
Dalnore@reddit
They planned using US-produced composite materials but had to switch to Russian materials at the expense of increased weight. As a result, the plane is currently planned to have the maximum range of 3830 km (2070 nmi). The base A320neo and 737 MAX 8 have some 70% more range. So Russia can work with composite materials, but it's debatable if it can create anything useful from them.
Rallymodeller@reddit
Ooh, so it's built to 1990s Western airliner standards. Cool, cool.
irisfailsafe@reddit
Very reliable source. You can look at the SU-57 and how it is full of rivets
Lapkonium@reddit
it’s literally not
max_lapshin@reddit
I'm afraid that it is more a picture.
MC-21 - yes, it is going to fly and it is a real achievement. SJ-100 - yes.
Tu - they need a very serious shake to restart building planes.
V-Jupiter@reddit
Lmao there isnt a single MS21 in the sky and they fantasizing about a widebody
Click_This@reddit
Will this also have an accident rate of 3 per million flights like the SSJ?
RundleSG@reddit
What a pretty picture. Maybe they can move past the drawing phase one day /s
granny_inside@reddit
Честно говоря надежды мало, учитывая состояние, в котором находится наша авиапромышленность к сожалению
l8nightbusdrivr@reddit
The Borscht Bus.
SchnellFox@reddit
Looks like the Alaska Air Eskimo has moved to a different airline, but now with a tie and glasses and a lot less hair.
CaptainMcSlowly@reddit
Boy, that sure does look... familiar
SlagathorTheProctor@reddit
And you can bore that 454 out to a 512 without too much difficulty.
sneijder@reddit
Is that the final aircraft type designation ? EASA and the FAA will be wanting to finalise the ban legislation before the design passes the cocktail napkin design phase.
WeakCelery5000@reddit
These aviation subreddits seem to be pumping a lot of russian stuff lately.
No_End236@reddit
Unveiling a widebody concept "amid industry gaps" is an interesting choice lmao. unless they found a way to 3d print western-grade turbofans out of sheer spite, this is just more paper planes to keep the headlines busy. the industry gap isn't just a gap, it's a canyon at this point tbh.
Lapkonium@reddit
That’s the same country that made high bypass PD-14 not that long ago, they can probably figure out a bigger engine too
iBorgSimmer@reddit
Nice concept. Like all those cool Luft46 German napkinwaffen.
Orlok_Tsubodai@reddit
It’s a nice picture, which is all it will ever be.
TheVoicesSpeakToMe@reddit
So they chose not to do any style of winglet?
Drunkenaviator@reddit
I mean, someone needs to compete with Comac, I guess. Who else is going to build knockoff airliners that use double the amount of fuel and fall apart at random?
Taptrick@reddit
The Comac 939 is more likely. They can buy that when it’s out.
Optimal-Leather341@reddit
Wonder if they might certify this before the 777X... :D So they've still got the Concept art working in Russia,
Left-Associate3911@reddit
😂
Left-Associate3911@reddit
I’ll be honest, my first (uneducated) mind says: A350 clone 🧐
Yaonoi@reddit
It will have an indoor toilet (that's a factual statement) ! Engines? Sorry, the VKS claimed our yearly production (a whole dozen)y
KingOfFools1984@reddit
I mean… it’s not about whether they want to build it. It’s that right now they just don’t have the full ecosystem to pull it off.
A plane like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner or Airbus A350 isn’t just “an airplane”. It’s the result of decades of accumulated know-how: engines, materials, avionics, certification, production, suppliers…
All of it working together.
And that’s exactly the problem.
The engine alone (PD-26) is still basically a question mark. And if the engine isn’t ready, the airplane doesn’t exist. Simple as that.
Then there’s everything else:
- modern composites manufacturing
- a reliable supply chain (which used to be global)
- certification and long-term reliability
These aren’t things you just figure out along the way, especially while being cut off from a big chunk of the industry. And even if, somehow, they manage to build it… who are they selling it to? Widebodies only make sense if you can sell a lot of them worldwide.
To me this feels much more like a “we’re still in the game” kind of announcement than an actual near-term aircraft program (not even long-term).
Would be cool to see it happen, honestly.
But right now, it’s a very, very long road that might not even exist.
GrafZeppelin127@reddit
Not to mention that production numbers = costs. If you build 1,200 of a plane, you can charge much, much less per plane than if you build 12 of a plane.
The players with the ability to scale to that degree are naturally going to be the ones already at the top of the industry.
KingOfFools1984@reddit
We can sum up this news in a sentence: “It’s a joke”
wwhijr@reddit
I've got a 454 in my truck I really don't think it's going to push that airplane very well
Weak_Tangerine_6316@reddit
Weird to see a concept for an airliner with large high bypass engines, a modern looking nose and fuselage, and wings from a DC-8.
FoximaCentauri@reddit
Who is the face on the back? I know him I just can’t connect the name.
Inamanlyfashion@reddit
At first glance I thought it was Milton Friedman
AsstBalrog@reddit
Epic. But they have some work to do on their mascot.
thisisinput@reddit
And just like the Felon, this looks pretty on the outside, but runs on 30 year old tech.
Immediate-Spite-5905@reddit
they're going to build 2 of them and 1 of them's gonna have an engine explode or something and crash
letdogsvote@reddit
Yeah, Russia ain't building jack shit for new airliners given the Ukraine war and international sanctions. More Russian vaporware.
No-Suit1490@reddit
Thieves… as usual
Backspkek@reddit
This'll make a fine money pit. After like 10 years they'll have fuckall to show for it, maybe a prototype if that.
Honest-Estimate4964@reddit
Concept of the plane.
mrafinch@reddit
No positions for AKE’s but ample for their proprietary ULD model, the AK47
Great_Guidance_8448@reddit
More vaporware for someone to get rich off...
Dreamerlax@reddit
Eh. Good luck with that.
electriclux@reddit
A350-ski
NeedleGunMonkey@reddit
When Russia/Tupolev is karma farming.
Calm_Initiative_4536@reddit
tupolev more like POOPolev
gottem chat
Cananbaum@reddit
“American components. Russian components… ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!”
agha0013@reddit
struggling to build anything, but hey let's announce more plans for stuff we'll struggle to build never mind actually sell.
probably sacrificing one of the few A350s they received before sanctions shut that down so they could build a knock off.
cactuscore@reddit
My 6yo unveiled something similar from lego last week. Both designs have the same chance of actually flying.
No_Greed_No_Pain@reddit
A rendering of an aircraft that will forever remain fableware.
Fast_Masterpiece_184@reddit
The pic looks like the plane has big boobies.
SiestaPossible@reddit
A three fiftski
joeykins82@reddit
Is AI hallucinating this being ever certified by EASA as well, or just the render?
Dasgerman1984@reddit
Sorry kids, We have A350 at home
mbleyle@reddit
I also make airplane pictures on my computer
Pristine-Standard970@reddit
Welcome russian airbus a350
-NewYork-@reddit (OP)
Source: https://www.airdatanews.com/russia-unveils-tupolev-tu-454-widebody-concept-amid-engine-shift-and-industry-gaps/
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