The weaponization of civil aviation

One domain where the ? west ? had a clear advantage over the Soviet bloc during the Cold War was in the manufacture of civilian airliners and their associated components (aircraft engines, avionics, simulators etc).

While the Soviet Union had many aircraft manufacturers that built civilian airliners (Antonov, Beriev, Ilyushin, Tupolev and Yakolev), as well as several aircraft engine manufacturers, none were able to thrive in the post-Soviet era.?The Soviet Union hung on to its own certification standards to the very end and never adopted Western Manufacturing and certification standard, based on the US FAR 25, that ICAO and most of the World chose as its model for aircraft manufacturing standards.?As a result, the Soviets could only sell their aircraft to allied or client States such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and Eastern European States that had previously accepted the Soviet Standards.?

When the Soviet Union broke up, one could buy cheap and low time aircraft such as Tu-154s, Tu-134s, Yak-40, Il-76s, and many airlines, mostly in Third Word nations, did buy them (where they could be registered), but these aircraft failed to penetrate the western markets of First World nations, not only because they did not meet FAR 25 standards, but also because they burned much more fuel than their western counterparts (which also limited payload.?Their Soviet era engines were their biggest flaws.?These engines not only burned much fuel, their reliability were not as as good, their TBOs (time before overhaul) were not very high, and getting parts for them was hit and miss.?Many parts suppliers had simply gone out of business after 1990…

Many post-Soviet Russian airlines inherited Soviet aircraft from Aeroflot, used them to get off the ground, but quickly moved on to Western Aircraft once their finances allowed it. The others went out of business.

A few cargo companies thrived using Soviet cargo aircraft such as the Il-76 and the An-124, not because these aircraft were fuel efficient, economic and reliable, but solely because they had no western civilian equivalent.

When Soviet aircraft became widely available for sale on the market in the nineties, one could find ten to twenty year old airframes that were being offered for sale with just 3 to 5 thousand hours of flight total time on the airframe.?In the West, an aircraft will typically fly at least 4000 hours in a year.?A 10 year old aircraft will have 40,000 hours, not 4,000. Because aircraft were so cheap and plentiful, Soviet and Eastern block airlines flew their aircraft very little in a given year. When one was broken, the airline would just park it and put another serviceable aircraft in service.?They could then take their time to fix the broken one, while waiting for the needed spares.?If another aircraft broke down and there was no spare, the needed part would be taken from one of the unserviceable aircraft. Soviet and post-Soviet aircraft manufacturers were not accustomed or geared to support an aircraft that flew 4 to 5000 hours a year.

One of the Soviet aircraft manufacturers, Antonov, ended up in independent Ukraine, outside of Russia.?Antonov tried very hard to manufacture new aircraft types and to market them to the Western World: they build modern aircraft such as the AN-140, the AN-148, the AN-158. The only clients they found for these aircraft were in Ukraine, in Russia, in Iran, in Cuba and in North Korea. Antonov was never able to secure corporate investment from western investors and Ukrainian oligarchs were too busy making easy money to invest in manufacturing aircraft. The Government of Ukraine was too broke and corrupt to invest in Antonov. Ukraines’s western friends were interested in plundering what ressources Ukraine had to offer, but not in investing in any Ukrainian industries or in buying Ukrainian industrial production. Ukraine tried very hard to sell its An-70, a military airlifted, but fond no takers. By February 2022, Antonov, which all western countries are now crying crocodile tears over, had already long been bankrupt.

None of Russia’s existing major civilian aircraft manufacturers made any significant effort to create a real new aircraft after 1991. The TU-204/214 was the closest thing to a modern airliner, but it was developed at the end of the Soviet era, and to date, under 100 airframes have been built. It is a Boeing 757 look-alike but obviously does not have the performance, economy or reliability of the 757. Ilyushin tried to modernize its IL-86/96 model, but the days of the 4 engine airliners were already counted in the west, much less one with Soviet engines.

Then a few years ago, Russia turned to its most financially secure aircraft manufacturer, Sukhoi, which had mostly been building front line fighters, to manufacture a modern, ICAO Annex 8 (and ICAO Airworthiness Manual?(Doc 9760))?compliant, short to medium range single aile airliner, in the 80 to 100 seat category, the Superjet SU-100. It seemed like Russia had finally managed to create an aircraft that could compete on the international market and orders were secured in Mexico and Europe for the jet, but the success was short lived. Although the aircraft's design, performance and economy was at par with Western designs, the SU-100 customers quickly became disillusioned with the aircraft, citing difficulty in obtaining spare parts on time, resulting in many AOG. The engines are a joint venture between a Russian engine manufacturer and SAFRAN, a French company, and many components are Western made. Because of these US components, the US was able to block a potential sale to Iran, sale on which the Sukhoi company was counting on to increase production. This led the Russians to realize that they had perhaps made a mistake in allowing western components in the manufacture of the SU-100. Sukhoi is now working working on replacing all such foreign components with Russian sourced ones, in order to shield themselves from future interference in the sales of their aircraft.

China, has an aviation industry as well, but it has mostly been in the business of reverse engineering foreign aircraft and upgrading the resulting aircraft with Chinese technology. Their aviation industry was mostly concerned with military aircraft, fighters, transports and bombers. It is only very recently that China began to seriously invest in civilian airliners and recently created the Comac C919, although with foreign engines, for now.

When Ukraine was attacked and invaded by Russia in February 2022, there was, in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a wave of “Cancel Russia” sentiment that was not limited to the usual political and economic arenas, but a wave that took control of nearly all aspects of society, including the cultural, entertainment, literary, sports and even the regulatory aspect of the civil aviation industry, which normally are a only concerned with technical matters. Russian musicians, dancers, conductors, teachers, lecturers, academics, intellectuals, were all cancelled, chess players were banned from playing. Visas to ordinary Russians were cancelled, homes, assets and bank account of Russian citizens were seized. Russian authors were removed from library shelves and from class curriculums. Never since Hitler had such a cancel campaign been carried out in the World. Even when the United States and the United Kingdom illegally bombed, destroyed and invaded Iraq in 2003, on fabricated accusations of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, no such cancel campaign was called against them. Unfortunately, in the case of Russia, the civil aviation industry was used in full force to hurt Russia, when all the above countries closed their airspace to Russian aircraft, had all leasing companies cancel their leases with Russian airlines, prohibited insurance and banking institutions from doing business with Russian aviation companies. EASA, the European aviation regulator, went as far as de-certifying Russian aviation products that had previously been certified in the European Union, a process that is normally purely technical and apolitical.

These measures were taken against Russia for short term gains, but will have a long lasting and permanent effect on the world aviation industry, effects that will ultimately backfire and that will come back to haunt those that took these ill thought out measures. Although the measures only targeted Russia, the Chinese and the Indians took note of how civil aviation was weaponized to hurt Russia. Those that think that a country like China, which observed the manner in which Civil aviation was weaponised against Russia, will just sit back and wait for their turn are fooling themselves.

The Russians, the Chinese and probably the Indians, took note on how a few nations, which totally control the global airline manufacturing industry, (the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States) can totally paralyze their countries with sanctions that can have devastating effects on their economy and on their national security. Russia, China and India can no longer survive without civil aviation, not in the 21st century.

This is why I am certain that this year, Russia, China and most likely India, will each make it a national and urgent goal to invest massively in their civilian aerospace industries, in order to create modern, fuel efficient, and reliable aircraft and aircraft engines that will be able compete with Boeing, Airbus, Pratt and Whitney, Rolls-Royce, General Electric, CFM and Safran. It certainly wont happen overnight, it will take a decade at least, but it is already in process and it will happen. I didn’t think so last year, but I now, thanks to the aviation sanctions on Russian, I know that I will live to see modern, light, reliable and fuel efficient the Russian and Chinese short range and long range aircraft with Russian and Chinese high by pass engines, competing on the world market with Airbus, Boeing, Pratt and Whitney, General Electric, Rolls Royce and CFM.

The West shot itself in the foot by weaponizing civil aviation for short term gains and will soon come to regret it. It was a short sighted measure that could have been effective against medium powers like Iran, but will in the end, be counter-productive when applied to large economies like Russia, China and India, which have the technical and financial means means to create a viable aircraft industry. The West will soon lose its long held monopoly on the manufacture of airlines and their components.

#Boeing #Airbus #Sukhoi #Safran #Embraer #GE #PW #RR #EASA #COMAC