Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Russia's All-New MC-21 Jetliner

The MC-21 jetliner, Russia’s answer to the Boeing-737 and the Airbus A-320, which made its maiden flight in late May, brings together the very latest in the field of aircraft and engine design. According to the press service of the MC-21’s builder, the Irkut Corporation, the MC-21 is a medium-range passenger airliner and comes in standard and shortened versions: the MC-21-300 with a capacity of 132-163 passengers, and the MC-21-200 (165-211). The MC-21 is a twin-jet airliner, developed by the Yakovlev Design Bureau and produced by Irkut. The first MC-21-300 rolled-out on June 8, 2016 and made its maiden flight on May 28, 2017. Short- and medium-haul airliners with passenger capacity of between 130 and 220 and a range of up to 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) are the most mass-produced type of passenger aircraft around. A representative of the Irkut press service told Sputnik that even though the MC-21 is a single-aisle plane, it is actually a wide-bodied design with six seats on each side giving it the most spacious cabin to be found on the planes of its class. The MC-21 also boasts bigger windows, more comfortable cabin air pressure and improved climate control. Even better, the MC-21 is fully compatible with the existing 4C ICAO- and III FAA-approved runways currently used by Boeing and Airbus airliners. The MC-21 is designed to be faster, more efficient and less expensive than its Western counterparts, incorporating the latest in the field of airframe, engine and avionics systems technology in its design, including a composite wing design, which improves fuel efficiency. Irkut was the first to employ composite materials on narrow-bodied planes repeating the breakthrough solutions Boeing and Airbus earlier used with their jumbo-class aircraft. The MC-21s will be powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1000G or Russian-made PD-14 turbofan engines, which meet and exceed global safety, noise, and fuel efficiency standards. All these innovative solutions will make the MC-21s 15 percent cheaper in operation compared with their foreign analogs. According to the Irkut press service, an MC-21-300 made its successful maiden flight on May 28, 2017 in Irkutsk. The first flight ran for 30 minutes at an altitude of 1,000 meters at 300 kilometers an hour. “Amazing! The plane is so easy to fly that you just don’t need to get used to it!” one of its two test pilots, Roman Taskayev, enthused after the plane had made a perfect landing. When asked whether Irkut planned to open MC-21 assembly plants and service centers in the BRICS countries or elsewhere in the world, a representative of the press service said that they want to sell the plane abroad, including to Brazil. With Latin American air carriers expected to need about 2,000 medium-range airliners of the MC-21 class before 2035, Irkut expects to supply an estimated 150 MC-21s to the region. Hungary, Bangladesh and India have aklready shown interest in interested in purchasing MC-21 planes, Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) President Yuri Slyusar said. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/russia/201706101054511864-russia-plane-interview/