MOSCOW: The brand new Mil Mi-171A2 convertible helicopter has been secured by UTair Aviation and an unspecified foreign company.
This comes within a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the MAKS 2019 aviation and space exhibition at the Zhukovsky International Airport.
Revealing this, Russian Helicopters director-general Andrei Boginsky said a model of each of the rotorcraft was snapped up by the companies following conclusion of deals at the five-day exhibition that ends on Sunday.
He said the helicopter could be used either as a cargo carrier, including five tonnes of undersling load, or converted within an hour to ferry a maximum of 20 passengers.
“This is the first certified rotorcraft of the Mi-8/171 family in a convertible version that has features to perform a wide range of tasks.
“These include cargo and passenger transportation, search and rescue missions, medical evacuation, and others,” he said.
Boginsky added that the scope of the helicopter’s use might be further extended by installing a set of search and rescue equipment such as windlass, searchlights, external sling and medical evacuation equipment.
Russian Helicopters successfully tested commercial flights of the Mi-171A2 last February, leading to full certification for export.
The Mi-171A2 helicopter is equipped with the KBO-17 ‘glass cockpit’ integrated on board digital flight and navigation system.
“This allows the pilots to operate the helicopter without an engineer on board, thereby reducing its crew to two people,” said Boginsky, adding the all-weather rotorcraft could fly at temperatures from -50°C to + 50°C, at high altitudes, in a desert, in tropical climate and in high humidity conditions.
The installation of more powerful VK-2500-PS-03 engines, featuring a digital control system, allowed it to improve the cruising and maximum speeds of the Mi-171A2 by 10 per cent and increased its payload by 25 per cent, as compared with the Mi-8/17-type.
The Mi-171A2 is manufactured at the Russian Helicopter’s Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant in the Republic of Buryatia.
Over the course of 80 years in operation, more than 8,000 aircraft have been built at the plant, including the Mi-8AMT (Mi-171E), Mi-171 and Mi-8AMTSh (Mi-171Sh) helicopters.
Russian Helicopters is part of the Rostec State Corporation, that operates five assembly plants, two design bureaus, component production and maintenance enterprises, aircraft repair plants and one after-sales support facility.
Rostec is one of the largest industrial companies in Russia, uniting more than 800 scientific and industrial organisations in 60 regions of the country.
Its key areas of activity are transport, engineering, electronics, medical technology, chemistry, weapons and innovative materials.