https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190 ... -aircraft/
Ukraine suspends joint venture with Saudi Arabia to build An-132 aircraft
April 29, 2019 at 10:52 am
Ukraine has suspended a joint venture with Saudi Arabia to produce the An-132 military transport aircraft.
President of Ukraine Antonov State Company, Alexander Donets, which manufactures the aircraft,
announced on Friday that the company will continue to build the vehicles but with a new partner.
“In the framework of this project, an An-32D was built and tests began,
but for reasons not related to the Antonov company, this process has stopped.
There have been changes in the project partners in Saudi Arabia,” Donets said.
In February 2016, Saudi Arabia signed agreements with a number of companies
including Ukraine’s Antonov to establish five organisation specialised
in the transfer and localisation of advanced technologies in the fields of military and civilian aircrafts, satellites, radars and clean energy.
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the Antonov company
planned a joint venture to build a total of 80 aircrafts,
some of them in Ukraine, and the others in Saudi Arabia.
The Antonov An-132 is an advanced version of the An-32 cargo plane.
In December 2016, the first model of An-132 flew over Ukraine
in the presence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Saudi representatives.
Observers believe the suspension of the joint venture
is a result of the Kingdom’s rapprochement with Russia.
http://www.rusaviainsider.com/ukraine-a ... velopment/
The An-132D uses western-made components,
including PW150 turboprop engines, R408 Dowty propellers, Honeywell’s Primus Epic integrated avionics systems, Ipeco’s crew seats,
Liebherr’s life support systems, Hamilton Sundstrand-supplied APUs,
Zodiac integrated oxygen systems and Crouzet cabin management systems
The suspension of the An-132D multi-purpose transport project,
one of the most promising enterprises of Antonov, Ukraine’s only aircraft manufacturer,
has been confirmed by Aleksandr Donets, the president of the company,
in an interview with a local news wire UNIAN.
The twin-engined turboprop is a new-generation version of the original 1976 Soviet/Ukrainian An-32 aircraft,
but with no Russian-made components.
The initiative was to be implemented by Antonov, in collaboration with Saudi Arabia.
“For reasons not related to the Antonov state enterprise,
a change of the programme partner occurred in Saudi Arabia and
the process has been halted,” Donets admitted.
With the installation of Pratt & Whitney Canada’s PW150A engines,
the revitalised aircraft’s payload increased to 9.2 from the seven tonnes of the original An-32.
It was assumed that the aircraft would be used by both military and commercial businesses.
The first 20-ship batch was supposed to have been assembled at the Antonov factory in Ukraine,
with series manufacturing then transitioning to a dedicated, bespoke plant in Saudi Arabia,
with the involvement of Taqnia Aeronautics and KACST.
The beginning of mass production was scheduled for the end of 2021.
Donets explained that the Saudi military services were expected to become the launch customer for the An-132D,
but have now decided that they need a slightly different airplane.
The head of Antonov nevertheless insisted that the project is not being scrapped
and the company is instead looking for a new customer.
“We are looking for both a customer and a partner,” he said.
Earlier this year, Oleg Gladkovsky, the first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine,
was reportedly entertaining discussions at the international aviation exhibition AeroIndia-2019,
about the An-132’s opportunities with representatives from the Indian Defense Ministry.
http://www.rusaviainsider.com/ukraine-a ... velopment/
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