The Sukhoi Superjet 100, tail number 95006, was transported to the Siberian Research Institute for tests in order to confirm the service life of the airframe – 70,000 flight hours – and to perform a Technical Inspection Program to demonstrate the conformance of the aircraft’s structural components in all flight conditions.
The fuselage was loaded using the AN-124-100’s special onboard loading equipment. The aircraft was partially disassembled to fi t the freighter’s cargo hold. The aircraft body, wings and tail will be assembled in Novosibirsk at the Siberian Research Institute’s facilities.
The Snecma/NPO Saturn engine joint venture is poised to launch a series of on-wing trials of the PowerJet SaM146 in France once they are completed in Russia.
Sukhoi is bent on gaining Russian certification for the Superjet by mid-2009 and starting delivery to launch customer Aeroflot toward the end of next year.