Nezavisimaya Gazeta: "Prime minister visits MAKS"
Vladimir Putin testing Russia's wings in Zhukovsky.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the 10th International Aviation and Space Show, MAKS-2011, that is being held under his patronage and with the support of the Russian Technologies State Corporation.
Some 800 companies from 40 countries displayed their aircraft and armaments in Zhukovsky, a town near Moscow. Contracts worth $10 billion are expected to be signed. However, in the past two decades of its history, MAKS has not become the Mecca for world aircraft companies that still prefer to demonstrate their achievements at Britain's Farnborough and France's Le Bourget shows.
The debut of Russia's fifth-generation T-50 fighter was all but the only important event at the air show. Yesterday Putin saw the latest domestic fighter, the name of which is all too similar to a Russian tank model. The fighter flew into the skies for demonstration purposes. The prime minister took the opportunity to see the fighter up close presumably to confirm that hundreds of millions of taxpayer roubles had not been spent in vain.
In addition to the super-secret T-50, Putin showed interest in other aircraft at the show – the Sukhoi SuperJet RRJ-100, the Russian-Ukrainian AN-158 aircraft, the French Airbus-A380 and the American Boeing-787 Dreamliner.
During his visit to the air show Putin confirmed that Zhukovsky will accommodate a world-class aircraft industry cluster. "We require a powerful intellectual and technological centre. As you know, here in Zhukovsky, we have decided to set up a centre for the national aircraft industry, which will include leading research institutions, design bureaus and experimental plants," Putin said, adding that this centre will form the basis of the innovative core of the domestic aircraft industry.
"We hope it will become a world-class research and production cluster containing the necessary educational, social and transportation infrastructure," Putin said and expressed the hope that "by the next air show, MAKS-2013, there will have emerged a new headquarters building for Russia's United Aircraft Building Corporation (UABC), along with other facilities of the national aircraft industry centre that we are envisioning."
Analysts estimate that the sum of the contracts that could be signed at MAKS-2011 will exceed $10 billion. This is one of the major criteria for assessing an air show's importance. Time will tell whether this forecast will come true. On the opening day of the air show, the Indonesian company Sky Aviation signed a contract worth more than $380 million for the purchase of 12 Russian Sukhoi SuperJet-100s to be delivered before 2015.
However, this success was preplanned. The parties signed a letter of intent at the air show in Le Bourget last June. It was there rather than in Zhukovsky that the Sukhoi Superjet-100 made its world debut. It turns out that even Russian producers who want to conquer world markets are more interested in the long-standing foreign air shows than MAKS.
Putin paid little attention to these nuances. In yesterday's speech he mapped out the new vistas for the domestic space industry. He said Russia has become fourth in the world in annual expenditures on space exploration and is resuming programmes on the exploration of planets in the solar system. "The government will continue to support the aerospace complex, which is an absolute strategic priority for us," Putin said. "Even during the crisis and the downturn in the economy, we did not cut a single air or space programme, despite the all too familiar global and national economic difficulties. We financed all of our programmes in full, and without missing a beat," he emphasised.
Many experts are critical of MAKS-2011. "As for space exploration, this show has nothing but mock-ups. The T-50 fighter is underdeveloped. It's got nothing new inside. No new engine, avionics or armaments have been designed for it," Andrei Kislyakov, an independent expert on cosmonautics and arms, complained. He thinks it is inappropriate to compare MAKS with Farnborough or Le Bourget. The Moscow air show cannot compete with them. What's more, the Le Bourget show is held the same year as MAKS, diverting many participants.
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The aviation industry centre in Zhukovsky is to become the core of the domestic aircraft industry
Igor Naumov
