Russia Proposes Setting Up Il-114-300 Airliner Production in India

Russian Deputy Trade Minister Alexander Potapov said that Russia offered India to launch production of Ilyushin Il-114-300 regional airliners at India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facilities.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — Russia has made an offer on setting up the production of Ilyushin Il-114-300 regional airliners at India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facilities, Russian Deputy Trade Minister Alexander Potapov said Tuesday.

Earlier, the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that Russia agreed to take part in the Make in India program during a meeting of the Russian-Indian working group on industrial cooperation.

"We have always talked about the feasibility and readiness to expand cooperation. This also applies to civil aviation. One such project could be the creation of an Indian regional aircraft. In accordance with a request from the Indian side, we sent our proposals on organizing the production of Il-114-300 aircraft at HAL facilities," Potapov said.

Russia's RT-Chemical technologies and composite materials company (JSC RT-Chemcomposite), part of the Rostec state corporation, is also looking into projects on setting up the production of aircraft glazing as well as polymer composite materials for civil aviation in India, he added.

Il-114-300 is a variant of the Ilyushin Il-114 regional airliner fitted with a Klimov TV7-117SM turboprop engine. The Il-114 was developed by Ilyushin Design Bureau in the late 1980s for short-haul flights within the Soviet Union. Since then, 20 planes of this type have been manufactured. Mass production of the plane is expected to start in Russia in 2019.