RYBINSK, Yaroslavl Region. March 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The Saturn research and production association has launched bench tests of the first prototype of the AL-55I aircraft engine.
"The prototype of the AL-55I engine manufactured in early March is successfully taking the first stage of bench tests," Alexander Sarkisov, designer general and director of Saturn's research and production center, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
The program is unique as far as its period of implementation is concerned, he said. Saturn is to complete the program within 23 months from the moment of signing the contract. The engine is to be developed and handed over for flight and design tests to India before this deadline.
"If we meet the deadline, it will open a new mage in the history of domestic aircraft engine building," Sarkisov noted.
When flight tests are over, licensed production of AL-55I in India will begin. In Russia, mass production of the engine will be handled by two enterprises - Saturn will manufacture the gas generator and the Ufa engine-building association will make the engine's cold parts.
Sarkisov recalled that the active stage of the program began in 2004 after AL-55 became the winner of the competition among engines for the HJT-36 trainer of the Indian Air Force. The contract with India's HAL corporation for AL-55I development and arrangement of licensed production was signed in August 2005. The full-size mock-up was prepared and handed over to the customer for linking it to the HJT-36's nacelle. Six engines are to be assembled and tested this year.
Experts say AL-55 has great commercial prospects. It has a unification of 95 percent, which is very convenient for production and operation, and can serve as a basis for deriving a series of various engines for trainers (such as Russia's MiG-AT and YAK-130), UAVs, super-light supersonic fighters, and attack planes. Technical solutions embodied in AL-55 can be widely used in development of economical gas-turbine industrial power plants of a new generation.