Russia innovates the airline industry with its new MC-21-300 passenger plane and aims to compete with Boeing 737 aircraft
The United Aircraft Corporation owned company, Irkut Corporation, tested their new passenger plane for 30 minutes at a height of 1000 metres and a speed of 300 kilometers per hour.
“The flight mission is accomplished. The flight went in the normal mode. There are no obstacles revealed preventing the tests continuation,” said the lead test pilot, Oleg Kononenko
The plane has a capacity of somewhere between 163 and 211 passengers. Moreover, it has a maximum flight range of 6,000 kilometers and aims to compete with Boeing 737 aircraft.
The company also mentioned that the airline industry has a global demand in this specific area of aviation, which should translate to 15,000 new aircraft worldwide in the next 20 years.
In addition to this, the company said that the new plane is superior to its already existing rivals, putting a lot of accent on its extensive use of polymer composite materials. Moreover, it consumes less fuel, emits lower noise and pumps out less hazardous emissions.
“The calculated reduction of direct operational costs for MC-21 is 12-15% lower than for counterparts,” they added. 4
The manufacturing of the plane raised costs of $4.6 billion in 2014. However, delivery dates have slipped since then.
Irkut Corporation mentioned that it has an initial portfolio of 175 orders, which will keep the production going for the following years.
