PAUL DUFFY / MOSCOW
Post-Soviet Union, the aircraft industry in Russia and the CIS continues to find new ways of filling the spare parts gap - a problem aggravated by dilemmas facing the region's maintenance and overhaul companies.
In Soviet times, the ministry of civil aviation established at least one dedicated overhaul plant for each type of aircraft in service. Sometimes two types were assigned to a plant. If a sizeable number of a particular type was in service, a second factory was added. The Antonov An-2 Colt utility aircraft and the Mil Mi-8 helicopter, for instance, each had five or six plants because of the huge number of these short-range types in the Aeroflot fleet. A similar system was established for aircraft engines, sometimes attached to an airframe overhaul workshop.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, each overhaul centre expected to retain its customers and make adequate profits. But few of their expectations were realised. The first problem was falling passenger numbers. The 90 million carried by Aeroflot's Russian sections dropped year after year until 1999, to a low of 21 million. As business fell for the airlines, so did the number of aircraft they sent for maintenance. At first, they reduced the number of active aircraft, holding many back until those in daily service became time-expired, and then bringing their stored aircraft into service. Many aircraft were cannibalised for spare parts in the first post-Soviet years.
The already bad situation facing the overhaul factories was compounded by the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) turning to maintenance and repair work to boost their own sagging turnover as the realities of the new economy hit home. The aircraft manufacturing factories also found their businesses falling. The Aviakor factory, for example, had been delivering about 60 Tupolev Tu-154s per year, a figure that fell to just one or two by the late 1990s. The Saratov aviation factory's previous annual production fell from up to 12 Yakovlev Yak-42s a year to one. TAPO Tashkent's 60 or more Ilyushin Il-76s dropped almost to zero, and VASO Voronezh's four to six Ilyushin widebodies fell to one every two or three years. The industry looked for ways to survive, and overhaul seemed a very good way to generate cash. The skills were there: each factory had a core of technical staff with detailed knowledge of the aircraft built by the factory, and had the ability to manufacture any parts needed and source components.
Another problem came as the military repair factories found their budgets falling, and several - particularly when they were working on aircraft in both civil and military service such as the Tupolev Tu-134, Il-18 and Ilyushin Il-76 - began to look for civil aircraft work.
In the first few years, all repair factories that had been working in the old Soviet system were accepted for this work. By the mid-1990s, a new requirement for certification was being enforced, and factories needed to be audited and approved before being allowed to overhaul civil airliners or their equipment. The audit involves a check of over 2,000 procedures for an airframe and only slightly fewer for an engine, ensuring that work is of a high quality. The inspections were intensified after one aircraft crash was initially blamed on the overhauler allegedly mounting a wing incorrectly, an allegation subsequently proved false. A 1996 accident involving a SAAK Stravropol Joint Stock Airline Antonov An-24 was found to have been caused by corrosion under a rear toilet, where the airline had refused to pay the price asked to have the inaccessible area surveyed. The corrosion caused the rear fuselage to crack, and the tail fell off.
With a falling market and greater competition, each overhaul provider had to find its own answers. Some OEMs simply decided either to raise the price of spares to an impossible level, or to refuse to provide them to the overhaul industry. Two manufacturers said to have taken this stance were the Saratov factory, producer of the Yak-42, and Rybinsk Motors, manufacturer of the D-30K engines that power the Il-62M, the Il-76M/T versions and the Tu-154M. Saratov, which is determined to develop its overhaul workbase, refuses to comment. Rybinsk Motors says it has changed its practices over the last two years, a comment with which industry sources concur.
What have the overhaulers done to retain their work? First, they have broadened their base. For example, Bykovo Aviation Services (BASCO) has built up a partnership that includes several metal factories, two airlines and a bank under the title AT Alliance. Where it has had spare capacity, it has bought Yak-42 andIl-76 aircraft requiring overhaul, leasing these out in Russia and Moldova as customers present themselves.
BASCO has gone to the respective design bureaux when it has had problems obtaining spares. Under the old Soviet airworthiness code, which still applies to aircraft certificated under these norms, the design bureau is the authority responsible for ensuring that aircraft are up to standard.
BASCO has secured from Yakovlev approval to manufacture some parts for the Yak-42, as it has the staff qualified for the work, and has bought whatever machinery it needed. The parts are manufactured under inspection both of the aviation register of the interstate aviation commission (ARMAK), and the design bureau. For some items, it has found new suppliers from the aviation industry factories, particularly VASO, the Il-96-300 manufacturer and Aviastar.
BASCO has had few problems with Tashkent-based TAPO, which manufactures the Il-76 and is eager for business, or from Perm Motors, the manufacturer of the D30 engines it overhauls for the Tu-134.
VARZ400, the Vnukovo-based overhauler of the Tu-154 and theD-30K engine, has also developed a manufacturing operation for parts it has found difficult to obtain. Some engine hot sections have also proveddifficult to source, and VARZ400 has had to find other engine manufacturers to supply specially-made parts. It also has been looking for Western hot section repair facilities. Several Western companies have taken worn parts to repair and price, but sources say they have failed to send them back for the quality of work to be judged.
A problem of another kind faced the overhaul factory responsible for the Il-62. Factory 243 is located in Uzbekistan, and the Russian authorities would not allow aircraft on the Russian register to be repaired there.
The factory decided to concentrate on Uzbekistan's needs, and was incorporated into Uzbekistan Havo Yullari (UHY), the national airline. It has now secured European approval to maintain UHY's fleet of Airbus A310s, Boeing 767-300ERs, Boeing 757s and BAE Systems Avro RJ85s, and is also authorised to take on third-party work. As a result, Kazan Aircraft Production Association (KAPO), theIl-62 manufacturer, has been providing heavy maintenance services for the type since 1998.
The Il-86 was in a different situation. No heavy maintenance facility had been allocated the type for overhaul by the time the Soviet era ended. Since then, some have been overhauled by both VARZ400 and Factory 243 in Tashkent. So its production factory, VASO in Voronezh, began to carry out the work.
For the past few years, and particularly for cargo aircraft, airlines short of money have tended to "adjust" the documentation for time-expired components, including engines, to indicate they still had operational life available. These situations usually come to light following an operational audit or an accident. For example, one of the engines on the Rus Air airlines Il-76 that crashed near Moscow on 14 July was found to be out of time and its papers falsified.
In any rapidly changing business environment, such problems are common, and strong regulatory inspection is needed. In the last decade Russia's aviation authority has changed name and leadership five or six times. This has created extra difficulties in monitoring every aspect of aviation safety. Maintenance is one element of the industry in which the service providers have had to find their own answers before the regulators caught up.
Source: Flight International
