The exhibition will be displayed on an area of 150,000 square meters. The open areas having the size of 93,000 square meters will feature the most modern types of passenger and cargo aircraft, including the A380 and A400M wide-bodied airbuses, various models of helicopters and fighters, armaments and ammunition.
The air show's pavilions and demonstration stands will acquaint aircraft specialists and ordinary visitors with new engines, unmanned space vehicles, unique technologies and materials used in aircraft-making, aerodrome and on-board radio-electronic equipment, and also with the promising directions of making air travel and space tourism more comfortable.
Russia will be represented by such renowned companies as the Sukhoi aircraft-making holding company, Rosoboronexport state arms selling company (Russia's monopoly in the field of armaments and combat hardware exports), the Khrunichev state space research and production center, the Rostov helicopter concern (Rosvertol), the Kazan helicopter enterprise (Tataria, the Volga Area), the Taganrog research and production complex named after Beriyev (Taganrog is the city on the coast of the Azov Sea), the Irkutsk-based Irkut aviation and industrial association (Siberia) and other companies.
However, the famous MiG aircraft-making company will not participate in the air show, although its presence at the ILA-2004 exhibition was initially planned.
As RIA Novosti has learnt, at the last moment the company's management decided to spend the funds planned for participation in the air show (over $600,00) on the purchase of components for MiG-29K combat aircraft, which the company had undertaken to deliver to India under the contract for the supply of ship-borne fighters for the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier purchased by India and currently under modernization at the Severodvinsk shipyard.
The famous multi-functional Su-30MKK, Su-30MKI and Su-27SK fighters, the Su-24MK and Su-25M attack aircraft manufactured by the Sukhoi company will not fly to the air show either. Only their models will be featured at the exhibition, although all the design bureaus and manufacturing enterprises integrated in the Sukhoi holding company will feature at the exhibition their current and promising products to include regional passenger jet aircraft produced by Sukhoi together with European firms.
The Be-103 amphibious planes, which the USA has purchased from Russia, will also be on display at the air show.
The Sukhoi company's representatives explained to RIA Novosti that the company's non-participation in the demonstration flights involving the most advantageous advertising show were due to tactical considerations.
The Berlin air show will mostly be devoted to united Europe and the celebration of the enlargement of Europe. So, the presence of Russian aircraft makers at the air show may thus be overshadowed.
The expenses on the flight to Schonefeld and the lease of exhibition areas may not be recouped.
At the same time, the air show at Farnborough, near London, which is opening in June, actually a month after the ILA-2004 exhibition, is quite a different thing. The Farnborough exhibition will be attended, apart from European and US experts, by specialists from the Middle East, North Africa, South and South-East Asia, South America and those regions, to which the Sukhoi and MiG aircraft corporations give preference today. Russian multi-functional fighters will necessarily participate in the demonstration flights at Farnborough, as well as in Zhukovsky (Moscow Region) in August, at an international festival of pilot groups devoted to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov.
Both in Farnborough and in Zhukovsky Russian pilots will try to demonstrate once again that their planes are the best in the world and that the piloting skills of the successors of the legendary pilot Chkalov are also the world's best.
