HELICOPTER COMPANY OF NEW TYPE

We continue to publish a cycle of articles confined to a decennary of the “Time and Money” newspaper covering the development history of the Tatarstan enterprises within recent years -  today Mr. Alexander Lavrentiev, General Director of the “Kazan Helicopter Plant” JSC will take the floor.

Among the founders of world helicopter industry there are a lot of our own nationals: Alexander Lodygin, Boris Yuriev, Aleksei Cheremukhin, Ivan Bratukhin, Nikolai Kamov, Mikhail Mil and others. Within last 10-15 years much was done to make no new names appear among those magnificent ones and to make an original school of the Russian helicopter building (the Kazan helicopter plant is a part of it) become a thing of the past. But our enterprise managed not only to survive but to offer products that would mark, we hope, a new milestone in the development of our plant and the entire Russian helicopter industry.

For the period the company has passed all stages of decline that are supposed to suffer all Russian machine-building enterprises: breaking of established relations, reduction of production volumes and, at last, plant laying-off.  It was easy to reduce the 7-thousand staff by 90% and to start producing pans like many other plants did. But we would like to save our helicopter plant and did not dismiss the staff.  And gradually we began to produce our main products – they are the Mi-8 family helicopters. We should make profound bow to this excellent machine and its designer, Mikhail Leontievich Mil. Thanks to them, our plant has survived and is now operating.  Nonetheless, we did not want to be their perpetual “dependents”. The Mi-8 is an excellent helicopter, being upgraded, it could live 20 to 25 years more.  If you want your plant to grow, it is impossible to develop it producing only one product, though an excellent one, it is an unwritten law. That is why, we did not “guzzle” money received from sales of the “classical” helicopter, and we invested them into development of the plant. But it was not just modernization. In order to assure its positions, the Kazan helicopter plant shall do something, nobody has done before. It seemed already impossible to invent something brand new for the domestic helicopter market. But it looks so on the surface. The modern structure of the Russian helicopter fleet has long failed to meet the modern requirements of “diversity of types”. The existing helicopters are intended for transporting minimum four tons of cargo, otherwise it is unprofitable to use them. While the global aviation market prefers light helicopters with empty weight not exceeding three tons. Similar Mi-2 and Mi-26 helicopters have long become old-fashioned. What is the reason for such gap? The military industry held down the development of light helicopters in the USSR. The helicopters were built on order of the Ministry of Defense that required a lot of troop carrying helicopters rather than light ones.  Those heavy helicopters served as a basis for civil helicopters. Besides, the “sky” entirely belonged to the state, while private companies (one of the main buyers of light helicopters) did not just exist.

As the result, a vacant niche appeared: there are no light domestic light vehicles, while western ones are very expensive. Thus, an idea came: why not develop light helicopters by our own means. By 1993 we have worked out an “ideology” of such vehicle called later on “Ansat”: takeoff weight – 3.3 tonns, carrying capacity – 1,150 kg. And two years later the helicopter mock-up was shown at the Le Bourget air salon. The work went at full drive in the design bureau established in 1996, but a serious problem arose: a mass-production plant has no right to develop equipment. I could tell a lot about red-hot debates with “higher authorities” and about indifference to our ideas… Nevertheless, in January 1997 the Kazan helicopter plant was awarded a certificate of developer – the only plant among other mass-production plants of aviation industry. On August 17, 1999 the plant test-pilot, Viktor Rusetsky made a maiden flight on the “Ansat” helicopter.

This story is distinguished for one more vivid episode. Once the Kazan helicopter plant made its first success with the “Ansat”, we immediately received several proposals from western helicopter companies. Cooperation? Nothing of the kind. They offered to make “screwdriver assembly” of their equipment. On some grounds this business can be very profitable – stable production and orders, financial well-being and neither “woes” nor “throes of authorship”, but they made only one condition for us to close the “Ansat” helicopter.

But the production they offered to us engages maximum of 500 people, while the main work positions remain abroad and the majority of revenues also remain abroad, whereas the Kazan helicopter plant engages thousands of people. Aviation is after all a sort of locomotive engine. Only in Tatarstan we cooperate with 30 enterprises, all in all we have 1 200 suppliers. Around the country the Kazan helicopter plant provides jobs for 450 ths people. Considering the “family ratio” the plant supports 1 mln 200 ths people.   Only under the “Ansat” project a lot of organizations are engaged, they made equipment pursuant to our specifications that have no peers both in Russian and foreign aviation. But a specific problem emerged: the developers (institutes and design bureaus) are in no haste to give these products to mass-production plants, as they exist at the expense of selling these units to us. Of course, the Kazan helicopter plant does not approve such approach, as only stable technology can ensure quality. Thus, we specified for our partners to give all engineering designs to specialized mass-production plants. Though it took some tough sledding, they did it…

So, we had to reject “tempting” offers of our foreign colleagues. Now we already have projects for “screwdriver assembly” of “Ansat” helicopter that was certified in 2004 by a number of countries. These plans are supported by active sales of the helicopters both in the Russian and foreign markets. Now we can say for sure that the “Ansat” has nicked it and money (it is not a billion roubles: development is an expensive pleasure) we invested in this vehicle will work for our team. For example, the Mi-8 helicopter has forty modifications. We expect the “Ansat” to share the same “fate”. Today the training version of the helicopter is highly requested by military men, in the near future it is scheduled to develop such helicopter versions as scout, target designator etc. For civil purposes the helicopter will be modified into VIP version, fire-fighting, police, ambulance and forest guard versions. This year we have produced 6 “Ansat” helicopters, but there are all pre-requisites to produce 30 to 40 machines annually.

One more project of our design bureau is underway. It is a super light “Aktai” helicopter capable of transporting three passengers and up to 300 kg of cargo. The maiden flight of the first prototype is scheduled for the next year. It is very difficult to fulfill one more project alone. We have already spent more than RUR 100 mio for the “Aktai” project, and we will have to invest even more. Today the Russian government is working out a purposeful program of revival and development of small civil aviation equipment. We would like to participate in the program. Besides, according to legislation, development of new product types shall be federally financed provided that the local investors invest money in those projects. We requested assistance of the Tatarstan authorities and we hope that they will help us.

We also have large-scale projects. The world helicopter-building experience proves that neither a company nor a single state can fulfill such project; they need to develop all forms of international cooperation.  The example of such cooperation is the program of designing the Mi-38 new generation multipurpose helicopter that will be able not only to expand the Mi-8 helicopter fleet, but also to replace the Mi-6 and Mi-10 heavy helicopters in some operations.

The international investments into development work amount to half of the program price and make it highly beneficial for our state. The “Mil” Moscow helicopter plant implements design, ground and flight tests of the Mi-38 helicopter. The Kazan helicopter plant is responsible for building of prototypes, mass production, sales and further support of helicopters in Russia and CIS countries. The “Tranzas” company provides flight and navigation equipment, units of control system. The engine was developed by Pratt & Whitney (Canada) with the help of Moscow and Kazan specialists. In December 1992 there was established the “Evromil” joint-stock company to coordinate activities of the program participants.

The Mi-38 made its maiden flight on December 22, 2003 at the flight base of the Kazan helicopter plant and the test flight was performed on August 25, 2004. Today the helicopter is in Moscow to pass through the final stage of the program – certification. It will take a great deal of work: we have to build three more prototypes, work out a test schedule and to fulfill 600 to 700 flights. But even now we see that the Mi-28 meets not only the design target values, but also surpasses them. It seems to be a very good machine. This time the support also corresponds to the program, for the first time (!) the project was adequately financed.

In general, we are getting the impression that as distinguished from the whole world, Russia has no need of aviation. Their “care” of the branch results only in collecting money from the enterprises. For instance, in order to produce high-quality aircraft and helicopters, the plant equipment shall be fully changed every 10 to 15 years. Of course, we upgrade our facilities, but it costs us a lot! We work on the principle: “Get it or die!” Once we asked a president of Pratt & Whitney Canada: “What are total receipts of your company?” “$1.5 bln”, he answered. “And what about revenue?” “We have no revenues. Moreover, as we create new jobs and produce high-tech products, our government regularly provides us with a certain sum of money for research and development works. Our government sets a high value on our company…”

While we bring real money to the country!  90% of the Kazan helicopters are exported.  We annually receive $ 200 to 220 mio from sales of products. It is not a mere sale. It is a policy. We have authority in the country, and I can say explicitly that the country depends on us. Every year we conquer new markets. Today our helicopters operate in 80 world countries. We have conquered almost the entire African market, the same is true for South-Eastern Asia and Latin America except for the countries that would be glad to buy our products, but have no money. What an opposition to our expansion we encounter! They oppose to it at all levels and by all means. The Kazan helicopter plant has conquered the world market – it is a great victory for us. We are not going to lose our gains.

Now our employees are loaded with work. We are going to hire people, first of all, workers. Though it is associated with some problems: today most machine building enterprises experience famine of young turners, fitters etc, there is no a good training program for people to run a lathe in Russia. On our own initiative we opened special training classes and workshops at the Kazan helicopter plant. But the problem is that young people have no time to secure a footing as they are drafted into the army. Nevertheless we are willing to pursue our plans and to expand our technical training department.

As for engineers, today we employ a lot of graduates from the Kazan-based Tupolev state technical university that come to the plant being already at the third course. They come to our plant to do practical work, to study in practice the work of designers and technicians. If a student puts up a good performance, we pay him a salary. When graduated from the university, he comes to our plant and work not just as a design engineer, but he is awarded a certain category. So the plant becomes a facility for young people to apply their forces and knowledge. Moreover, in recent years the plant structure has considerably changed. There appeared a design bureau, a repair center and a training center. In fact, we established an aircraft company that is of new type for Russia – it is a company of the entire cycle: design, production, repair, maintenance and training.

For recent two decades our aircraft industry has lost a lot, some things were irretrievably lost. But Russia is still an aviation state. Whilst we have not yet totally bargained away our scientific and personnel resources and traditions, we have to think of that the aviation is not a mere branch of industry, it is an ideology allowing Russia to hold the position of a world power and its citizens to feel themselves as a part of one nation. I hope that the Kazan helicopter plant has contributed a lot and will contribute even more to make Russian helicopters occupy a worthy position in the world.

On the eve of the newspapers’ decennary the Kazan helicopter plant wishes the “Time&Money” to move always forward and to issue great challenges even if they might seem impossible to fulfill today.