Faced with serious internal problems of late, America’s famous BOEING AIRPLANE COMPANY, which has dominated the international airline industry since the end of World War II, it now, for the first time, faces a fledgling new potential Russian competitor.
In June of 2017, the MC-21 airliner, Russia’s potential new competitor to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, took to the skies on its maiden flight (see immediately below). There are two variants of the MC-21 in testing now, the -300 and a shorter -200. The -300 is to seat 211 passengers in a single-class configuration and will have 3240 nautical miles of range (6000 kilometers). The -200 can seat 165 maximum and can fly further: 3500 nautical miles.
The MC-21 is designed and built by the Irkut Corporation, which is part of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). In the early 2000s, Russia combined many of its aerospace companies into one large company: UAC. Irkut was part of this big reorganization alongside other better known Russian aerospace names like Ilyushin and Sukhoi.
Irkut was designated as the division that would oversee commercial airliner production, and for that reason it also now manages the Sukhoi Superjet project. Russia has previously not been recognized as a serious airliner contributor, however, they have an excellent record for producing high-quality and top-performance military aircraft.
The MC-21-300 on its maiden flight.
Thanks for the “SCIENCE” Channel, we can see the story in their video, which is only about 23:30 in length. You can watch this video right here (below). Remember to open it to full-screen in order to see it in its full resolution.
For those of you who are not familiar with International Aviation, you might wonder why the video shows the cockpit instrument panel displaying all of its information in English. That is because, since WWII, English was agreed to be the official language for all aviation. No matter what the country in which you might fly, the air traffic controllers must all speak – and understand – spoken English.