14-05-2025
Russia halts ambitious Baikal aircraft project
Development of the Russian aircraft Baikal, intended to replace the Soviet-era An-2 (Kukuruznik), has ground to a halt, with mass production no longer planned.
Source: Yuri Trutnev, Russian Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, cited by The Moscow Times
Quote: "We were working on the development of a small Baikal aircraft. It has come to a standstill. The Baikal plane is not expected here," Trutnev said at an expanded meeting of the State Duma Committee on the Far East and the Arctic. [State Duma is the lower chamber of the Russian parliament – ed.]
Details: Trutnev highlighted the near absence of small aviation in Russia, noting that remotorising An-2 aircraft is now the fallback solution. Since 2019, Baikal has been developed by Baikal Engineering, a subsidiary of the Ural Civil Aviation Plant. Officials had anticipated mass production would begin in 2024, but this was deferred to 2025. A source close to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade told Kommersant that Baikal's designers made "dramatic mistakes", requiring the aircraft to be "almost entirely redesigned".
According to Russia's Comprehensive Programme for the Development of the Aviation Industry, 139 Baikal aircraft were planned for production by 2030, designed to carry up to nine passengers or two tonnes of cargo.
The An-2, known as the Kukuruznik, was developed in the late 1940s by Ukraine's Antonov Design Bureau, with production ceasing in the 1980s.
Background: Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, the Russian aviation industry has been able to produce only seven SuperJet100 aircraft suitable for civil aviation, despite plans to manufacture 108 airliners.
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