AVIPRIBOR MANUFACTURED HONEYWELL'S AVIONICS

The Moscow Times

August 22, 1997

Air Show Attendees Hail Cooperation

BYLINE: By Sujata Rao

SECTION: No. 1277

LENGTH: 697 words

MT

Cooperation rather than competition is the mantra for the future of the international aerospace industry, representatives of Russian and international companies participating in the Moscow International Air Show said Thursday. "We are a state-owned institution but we are surviving on foreign orders," said Vladimir Lensky, a representative of Moscow's Khrunichev design bureau. Khrunichev has a partnership agreement with rocket maker Energiya and U.S.
-based Lockheed-Martin to sell the Proton rocket abroad. Orders worth nearly $ 3 billion have been procured, mostly from communications satellite launchers such as Motorola
and Immersat, Lensky said.

The representative of Russian avionics company Aviapribor was not quite as optimistic, given that domestic airlines are increasingly equipping their aircraft with Western engines and avionics.
The representative, who wished not to be identified, said Aviapribor, which supplied 80 percent of all avionics in Soviet times, is going through lean times. Russian-made airframes are perceived as being not only inexpensive, but also reliable and high-quality, as opposed to Russian-made avionics and engines. But he said Aviapribor signed an agreement in June to make components for Honeywell, the U.S. avionics-makers whose equipment is being used in the new Tupolev and Ilyushin jetliners. The 10 Tu-204 planes ordered by KrasAir on Wednesday use Honeywell and Allied Signal avionics.
"Naturally when Russian airlines choose Western-made avionics, it is rather hard on us," the representative said. "We were unable to finance research and modernization and when orders fell off the situation became worse."

Foreign companies are increasingly turning to Russia as a cheap and efficient manufacturing location as well as a source of raw materials. Russia's large pool of scientists also provides good joint research opportunities. At the air show two years ago, Aviapribor entered another joint venture, DAVIA, with Germany's Daimler-Benz Aerospace, or DASA, although production has not yet started.
"We want to improve relations with the aerospace industry in Russia," said Theodore Benien, spokesman for Daimler-Benz Aerospace. "We think our presence at (the air show) is a good platform to get closer contacts withPage 2474 Air Show Attendees Hail Cooperation The Moscow Times August 22, 1997 Russian companies." DASA has two other joint ventures with Russian companies: Eurockot Launch Services, a project with the Khrunichev design bureau to market Khrunichev's small rocket launcher, the Rockot-SS-19, and MAPS, a venture with MiG
manufacturer MAPO to service its aircraft in Germany.

In a clear sign that DASA is not pushing sales at the air show, it has decided not to display its fighter planes or combat helicopter in Moscow. "Our main purpose is cooperation rather than sales," Benien said, adding that his company is working with Tupolev to develop a plane powered with liquified hydrogen. He would not say, however, if DASA is advancing money to its Russian partners to commence production. Benien said Russia is particularly important to European aerospace companies as a counterbalance to the giant aerospace corporations in the United States. The European Union is actively promoting the creation of a European-Russian Aviation Center.

"In Western Europe we are looking very carefully at the restructuring process in the aerospace sector in Russia and CIS states," Benien said. "We hope in future Russia's contacts with Western Europe can be intensified instead of with the United States." Tickets to MAKS-97, which runs through Sunday, cost 25,000 rubles per person, with free admission for children younger than 8 years old. The bus ride into MAKS costs 10,000 rubles extra. Both tickets can be bought at the entrance. Zhukovsky is 60 kilometers east of Moscow and can be reached by car via the Volgogradsky and Ryazansky prospekts. A car pass, which costs 70,000 rubles, must be procured at the administrative complex, a 5-minute drive away from the entrance. Pedestrians are required to line up to board a bus into the exhibition complex. Another option is to take an express bus or marshrut-taxi from metro Vykhino.


LOAD-DATE: August 25, 1997
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUB-TYPE: PAPER
Copyright 1997 Independent Press