PERM. Jan 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The Perm Engine Plant has orders for nine PS-90A engines for the IL-96, TU-204, and TU-214 aircraft being built in Voronezh, Kazan, and Ulyanovsk, Alexander Inozemtsev, Designer General of the Aviadvigatel JSO, told Interfax-Military News Agency Monday.
According to Inozemtsev, the plant has received advance payment for the engines.
After several years of decline, the Perm plant, part of Aviadvigatel, has been gradually increasing the production of the PS-90A, he said.
"In 2002, the plant made five such engines, four of them for the presidential IL-96-300PU airliner and another one for trials, the largest output for the past four years," Inozemtsev said.
He said that the production of the PS-90A constituted 50 percent of all work concerning aircraft engines. The other 50 percent account for repairs and prolongation of the service life of earlier made engines.
"This ratio is probably the best for the plant for the near future, although usually an engine producer has 75 percent of the output provided by repairs and the other 25 percent by the production of new engines," he also said.
He added that the plant would hold the same fifty-fifty ratio between the production of aircraft engines and gas turbines (for the gas giant Gazprom and Russia's Unified Energy Systems).
In the latter department, only new machines are being built, Inozemtsev said. "Within their current service life of 25,000 hours, they will be in for the first overhaul in about eight years," he added.
According to Inozemtsev, the PS-90As produced by the Perm plant are in active use and do not lag behind their Western counterparts. Practically all the engines are being leased, which implies that the customer pays a low fee when receiving the engine and then keeps on paying the producer for each flight hour. In this case, the plant is assigned to repair the engine and provide spare parts. The plant has been working that way for six years now.
The PS-90A costs over USD2m, while its Western counterparts about USD6m. Thus, Russia retains an almost double margin of price safety in spite of a boom in domestic prices for metal and components.