Aircraft from all over the world are soaring in the skies over China. The country is holding the Airshow China exhibition. Russia presented a joint project with its Chinese partners and plans to sign a contract to supply 200 models of arms and military equipment.
Arseny Molchanov with the details from China.
A handy tool for those who forgot their sunglasses for the traditional performance of the Red Eagle crew and their Middle-Eastern counterparts the Saudi Hawks. It's the 12th Airshow China since 1996. The flights aren't as colorful as at the Russian MAKS even though teams from 43 countries participate in the event.
Wang Shi Wong, aerospace engineer: “I'm an aerospace engineer. I came here from Shanghai to watch the performance of our aircraft".
At the exhibition, Russia and China presented a model of the long-range wide-body CR929 aircraft the C means China and the R means Russia. The aircraft was developed by the Russian UAC and the Chinese Comac. The development began four years ago. CR929 will be able to carry between 250 and 300 passengers depending on the model of the aircraft. Its range will be between 7,500 and 8,7000 miles. However, the aircraft won't appear on the market until 2025. Russian engineers hope that CR929 will replace the Il-class of aircraft. However, the aircraft won't pay for itself any time soon.
Yury Slyusar, CEO of UAC: "It's a capital-intensive project which might cost us from 13 billion to 20 billion for the Chinese model. It'll take a long time for the project to pay for itself. But we hope that it'll happen within 15 to 20 years. After that, we'll create a series of airplanes based on this model. The project will live on for decades".
The first aircraft will have Western engines produced by the American General Electric and the British Rolls Royce. But after 2030, the engineers plan to use the promising Russian PD-35 engine.
Cheng Ying Chung, lead Chinese engineer of CR929: "The wide-body market occupies half of the entire aircraft market. Over the next 10 years, we'll require about 10,000 similar aircraft. 3,000 or 4,000 will be produced in Russia and China which means more than 100 aircraft per year".
The demand is high due to increasing passenger flow. According to the estimates by UAC, it'll be growing by 4.5% annually which means the world's producers will sell a total of 43,000 airplanes over the next 20 years. In monetary terms, it's $6 trillion. The demand for helicopters is also growing.
Andrey Boginsky, CEO of Russian Helicopters:
- Our demo-tour begins at the Zhuhai exhibition. It's basically our first destination. After that, we'll visit Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
- Do you have any news on our joint heavy helicopter project?
- We've almost finished negotiating the technical details. The only thing that's left are the parameters but we expect and hope to be done with that shortly. After that, we'll be able to sign the contract.
Moscow and Beijing continue their cooperation in the arms field. Three new contracts were signed at the exhibition. So far, their details are classified. Among the arms that are already being supplied are the S-400 missile systems and Su-35 fighter jets.
Arseny Molchanov, Dmitry Bolshakov, and Andrey Yurchuk Vesti, Zhuhai, China.
