Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of U.S.-based aerospace giant United Technologies Corp., and Russian partner Perm Motors unveiled on Tuesday their next-generation jet turbine PS-90A2, saying they hoped to start full-scale production in two years.
"We can get the product out in two years if we get sufficient customer interest," Michael Mike, Pratt & Whitney's Russian program manager, said in an interview on the fringes of Tuesday's presentation.
The $1.2 million engine replaces the PS-90A used by long-distance passenger aircraft Il-96 and Tu-204.
That price tag makes the new engine 20 percent more expensive than its predecessor, but the increase will be more than offset by a 40 percent savings in service and maintenance costs, said Alexander Inozemtsev, a chief designer for the PS-90A2.
"We took out many redundant components and put in many more reliable ones," Mike said. For instance, he added, there will be only one pressure sensor on the outside of a PS-90A2 compared with two or three on the PS-90A.
The engines will be produced at Perm Motors' plant in the Ural Mountains, where Pratt & Whitney has a $125 million joint venture with the Russian engine maker. Tuesday's unveiling showed renewed commitment to the partnership after Pratt & Whitney froze the venture after Russia's financial meltdown in August.
The Perm factory will be able to build up to 150 engines a year.
Inozemtsev, who is also Perm Motors deputy director for marketing and sales, said selling the engine could be "a breakthrough" for the plant, whose main production now is industrial engines for the gas and oil sector.
He added that he thought the plant stood a good chance of finding customers for the new engine in Russia's economic depression because the devalued ruble had made the cost of leasing or buying foreign-made engines prohibitively expensive.
However, Paul Duffy, an independent aviation expert based in Moscow, expressed doubt that the engine would sell well given the dire financial state of Russian aviation as a whole.
"The whole aviation industry needs substantial funding to allow a reasonable number of aircraft, which will use these engines, to come into service," he said.
Pratt & Whitney and Perm Motors set up their joint venture in 1997, with the Western partner holding a 25 percent stake.
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