Russia challenges Airbus, Boeing with new jet

Russia unveiled Wednesday the primary MC-21 medium-haul passenger plane as Moscow objectives to revive its beleaguered civil aviation industry and project giants Airbus and Boeing.

The prototype of the MC-21 aircraft that can bring as much as 211 passengers was presented within the hangar of the Irkut aircraft manufacturer within the Siberian city of Irkutsk in a glitzy rite broadcast on Russian nation television.

the unveiling of the plane become a "long-awaited event for our civil aviation, for aeronautic creation and for our complete country," said high Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"This confirms that we are capable of create such aircraft that not simplest make our civil aviation progress but so that it will compete with different nations," he said.

Medvedev also pledged that Russia could preserve updating its regionally-produced civil aircraft.

The MC-21 passenger jets -- which may be as much as forty two.three metres long and have a wingspan of 35.nine metres -- are expected to replace the growing old, Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-204 and make their first test flights via the give up of the year or in early 2017.

The aircraft, 30 percentage of that's made of overseas elements, is scheduled to come into service in past due 2018.

Irkut stated that it has signed contracts with a number of airways, together with Russian flagship provider Aeroflot, UTair and the Kyrgyzstan Air corporation, for the delivery of a hundred seventy five planes and that it had preliminary agreement to sell any other one hundred planes.

a number of the planes could be purchased with the aid of state-owned Russian organizations for leasing.

Medvedev said that the demand for Russia's MC-21 would grow as soon as it makes its first flight.

Russia has its hopes set on competing with the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, which dominate the worldwide civil aviation marketplace.

the unveiling of the MC-21 comes 5 years after Russia's brief-haul Sukhoi Superjet plane got here into service and has in view that had serious technical troubles.

Russia's aviation agency in 2013 grounded the Superjets -- that have had technical problems with touchdown equipment and leak detection systems because they got here into provider in 2011 -- over a series of technical problems before being allowed to renew flights.

A Superjet performing at an Indonesian air display in 2012 slammed right into a volcano, killing all forty five on board, in a crash Indonesia blamed on pilot mistakes.