Chinese may save An-70 programme

Published: 6/28/2000

It seems that reports of statements from Germany's Defence Minister that the An-70 will not become the new German military transport are being accepted even within the Antonov bureau. However, Andrey Sovenko, Antonov's Deputy Head of Marketing, has been quoted as saying that the yet to be built A400M, although chosen, may still have problems and the western partners will have to turn to the Ukrainians for help. Aviakor appear less happy to acknowledge that the aircraft now has no chance of succeeding despite the support of the German Airtruck consortium and the considerable offsets to the German aerospace industry. Although the participants are reluctant to discuss the details, it does appear that negotiations on the possibility of cooperation with China over production of the aircraft have been underway for over two years, according to comments from Antonov and statements from Igor Sergeyev, Ukrainian Defence Minister. Frequent contacts between the Ukrainians and the Chinese have taken place regarding the programme. The last of these visits was May 2000, when the Ukrainian Ministry of Transport visited China, following several visits by Dimitry Kiva, Antonov's Deputy Designer, to discuss the specific details of the programme. China has had an interest in acquiring substantial numbers of transport aircraft for some time and to that end was involved in the development of the Tu-330, the 30,000 kg payload twin turbofan transport. The Chinese government, up until May 1999, provided support for the PS-90 powered programme, but withdrew claiming that the aircraft lacked sufficient ruggedness to meet the Chinese military's requirements. However, according to Tupolev, they would consider the aircraft with a different power plant and four engines. To date, no Tu-330 has been built although KAPO were reported to be discussing the construction of a tanker version of the aircraft in March 1999. None of the parties involved would acknowledge whether the Chinese would undertake to provide the considerable funding for the programme, but suggested generally that they were optimistic about that prospect. One interesting footnote to the ill-fated An-70 campaign is the belief in the Ukraine that the bid could have succeeded if it had not been associated with the Russians. A relationship which Ukrainian analysts have been publicly blaming for the failure and emphasising that future programmes with the Russians in the military arena may suffer the same fate due to Russia's internal instability.

Article ID: 1883