Mobile aircraft repair facility
Beriev Aircraft Company
"We’ve already tested part of equipment and some workplaces in field conditions and obtained good results. The trials go on. Along with that, we’re updating configuration and ergonomics. We want all elements to work as a whole", said BAC’s program coordination director Sergey Ryletsky.In fact, the system represents a midget aircraft repair factory. It includes four platforms: workshops and laboratories, pneumo-framed hangar with workshops and a set of equipment for life support systems. In travel position, all components fit in six container units. Full deployment time is six hours. In specific cases, when not all functions are required, example, for airframe repairs, the engineers need only an hour to start working.
Workshop in mobile aircraft repair facility
Beriev Aircraft Company
Each of the container units weighs about 1.2 tons, enabling delivery of the facility by one cargo plane. This mission is suitable for such aircraft as Il-76, An-22 or An-124. Delivery of separate containers is performable to An-12, An-26, An-72, Il-112V (when commissioned), Be-200 or Mi-26 helicopter. For land transportation, the company designed a special wheeled platform that can be towed even by a civil van like Gazel.
"We tried to create a maximally harmonized and maximally mobile repair system. This concerns not only delivery to an airfield. You can bring particular modules from one plane to another right on the runway and perform repairs in any conditions", added Sergey Ryletsky.The pneumo-framed hangar allows for aircraft repairs in a variety of weather and climatic conditions: at high or low humidity, in blizzards or sandstorms. The temperature range varies from minus 50 to plus 50 degrees (C), the structure withstands wind gusts of up to 20 mps.
Beriev Aircraft Company is designing the repair facility proactively, by arrangement with the Russian defense ministry. Completion of the project will take about a year, and then the military will obtain the mobile workshop for trials. Fielding of the system is supposed to start in 2021.
"We really see the need for our project. Similar repair labs designed back in Soviet era are not just obsolete, you can hardly find them in the field at all", confessed Ryletsky". "Mainly, the system is intended to serve frontline aircraft. Our mobile workshop will rapidly improve the operability of the planes deployed in remote areas".In addition, the air force demonstration cluster at Kubinka Airbase includes vast static display of already commissioned airplanes and helicopters. The Air Force Aero Club's exhibit is of a special interest as it includes historical line of training planes, from Yak-18 to prototype Yak-152. At the separate exhibit Khmeimim, there is a range of equipment and weapons used in the Syrian campaign.
The Fifth International Military & Technical Forum Army-2019 takes place in June 25-30 at Patriot Congress & Expo Center, at Alabino Range and Kubinka Airbase. The forum is open for experts in June 26-27, and for mass visitors in June 28-30.
As a priority partner of the exhibition, Mil.Press publishes overviews of the novelties and business events in the section Army Forum.
