The Deputy Chairman of the Government of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, tweeted that Ilyushin design bureau is ready to resume the production of Il-114 regional aircraft.

«The Government meeting has once again returned to the issue of manufacturing Il-114 turboprop. ILYUSHIN Design Bureau is ready to start this work», - Rogozin tweeted. He also noted that this refers to re-design of the aircraft and its vast upgrade. «The Ministry of Industry and Trade will present a roadmap in two weeks», - Dmitry Rogozin added.

We remind you that on September 9th 2014 the Deputy Chairman of the Government of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, held a meeting with the participation of representatives of Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Transport, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Rostec State Corporation, Russian Machines Corporation (owns Samara-based Aviacor plant) and Russia’s leading aviation plants. The meeting was dedicated to resuming the mass production of Il-114 aircraft.

According to the acting governor of Samara Region, Nikolay Merkushin, in case of competition between regions, Samara will be ready to invest 1-1,5 billion rubles in upgrading Aviacor in order to start the turboprop’s production in Samara.

It was reported earlier that for Il-114 to be in demand its performance must match the level demonstrated by state-of-the-art analogues; according to experts, this project will take around five years and require from 8 to 12 billion rubles.

It is possible that a third-party investor may invest in the project in case Aviacor is chosen as the main contractor; most likely Russian Machines Corporation will act as the investor.

We remind you that in August 2014 President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, instructed the government to estimate the cost of a project for launching mass production of Il-114 aircraft (in particular, the possibility of launching Il-114 mass production at Aviacor was considered). Later Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a report saying that the mass production of Il-114 (civil version) makes no economic sense due to small number of orders and necessity of upgrading the airliner and changing the design of its airframe.

President of Motor Sich, Vyacheslav Boguslaev, said at Gidroaviasalon-2014 held in Gelendzhik that the enterprise is ready to start deliveries of engines for Il-114 aircraft. "At present we are testing SBM-1 version of the engine. It was designed for An-140 aircraft. If Russia is interested in production of Il-114, we can adapt the engine", — Boguslaev said.

Il-114 is the family of regional turboprops seating 64 passengers. The aircraft’s range is 1500 km. The liner performed its maiden flight in 1990. It was manufactured by Tashkent Aviation Production Association named after V.P. Chkalov (TAPOiCh) until 2012. About 20 aircraft have been manufactured. Its list price was $16 million in 2012. The aircraft was powered by TV7-117 engines manufactured by Klimov Company; some versions of the airliner were powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127H engines instead.