First Kazakhstan aircraft plant to sell planes to Russia

First Kazakhstan aircraft plant Sunkar built in Karaganda oblast is going to produce aircrafts for Russia in future, Director of KazAviaSpektr Aleksander Vaschenko told Tengrinews.kz. According to him, agricultural planes are almost fully worn out in the post-Soviet space. That's why Kazakhstan plant has plans to enter the CIS and Russian market in the framework of the Customs Union. This is apart from meeting the Kazakhstan's market demands. “Kazakhstan requires a minimum of 400 specialized agricultural planes. Buying them abroad would be very costly for us in terms of maintenance and training of pilots. 6 million hectares of agricultural lands annually undergo aviation treatment. Right now we are using Soviet-made AN-2s; 50-60 of them break down every year,” Vaschenko said. Head of the new company said that the aircraft has two kinds of service life: motor operating time and calendar life span. A plane may be suspended for a year, but it will still use its up its life span and require technical maintenance and repair. “The further abroad we buy the plane from, the more expensive its maintenance turns out to be, because planes are serviced only in certified centers. The plane will have to be transported to the country where the center is located and in the end it is not profitable at all. We will have our one maintenance facility at our plant,” Vaschenko said. The first stage of the plant';s construction has already been completed: serial agricultural aircrafts assembling unit. Several construction stages are planned. “In future we are planning to construct an airport for business aviation. The total area of allocated lands is 138 hectares,” the speaker said adding that the plant had been built in 1 year. “We started construction on November 20, 2010 and met the President for opening on November 22, 2011.” Besides, production engineers and constructors of the plan will be trained and re-trained in Kazan, Russia. The plant has already got its first orders for 2-3 years, 50-100 aircrafts each year. Negotiations are currently in process with Kazakhstan Transport Leasing Company and KazAgroFinance. The cost of Farmer-2 plane will make around $145 thousand, Farmer-500 costs about $200 thousand. “We will stay within the competitive price range. The facility will move to production of Sunkar four-seater multi-purpose aircraft for private aviation at the next stage. It is under development right now, but we hope that it will start flying next summer,” the plant Director said. By Vladimir Prokopenko