MOSCOW. Nov 10 (Interfax-AVN) - The TU-334 plane built at the Aviant plant in Kyiv, Ukraine, will make its maiden flight on November 16 or 17, Grigory Stilbans, director general of the Natsionalny Proekt 334 JSC, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"The aircraft built at Aviant has been handed over from the assembly shop to the plant's flight testing station. It is to perform its maiden flight on November 16 or 17. The plane is to join certification tests in late November," Stilbans said.
The TU-334 development generally progresses as scheduled, he stressed.
"The first plane has nearly completed the main volume of certification tests. There are enough grounds to believe that the TU-334 will get a certificate before the end of the year," Stilbans said.
The Lukhovitsy plant continues assembling the airframe for the next plane. "Vertical and horizontal surfaces and the wing have been attached to the fuselage, and the chassis has been received," the director general noted.
According to him, Aviant and the Lukhovitsy plant are nearly ready for the plane's mass production.
Stilbans did not rule out that the recent removal of Nikolai Nikitin from the position of the MIG aircraft corporation's director general would affect implementation of several agreements. Nikitin was fired by Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on November 4.
"Negotiations with several commercial companies, including the Russian Savings Bank, on launching the funding of existing leasing contracts for TU-334 supplies have been in full swing lately. I believe that they will inevitably slow down somewhat, because Nikitin was the center of the negotiations. Nevertheless, I am sure that the plane has good prospects, because it is in demand among airlines," Stilbans said.
According to Russian experts, the TU-334 designed by the Tupolev JSO will become the country's main short-range passenger plane and perform up to 80 percent of domestic flights before 2010. It will replace the TU-134 Crusty and TU-154B Careless planes that have become outdated and worn out. The basic price of the aircraft will vary between USD15m and 18m. According to preliminary expert estimations, the demand for the aircraft on the CIS market will amount to about 800 items before 2010.