“OAK-Servis” Initial Corporate Structure (photo: Kommersant)
Kommersant’s Ivan Safronov and Yelena Kiseleva wrote Monday (28 October) on the status of devolving Oboronservis’ Aviaremont into a subsidiary of the United Aircraft Corporation (OAK). In the process, they indicated less than half of Russia’s combat airplanes are serviceable.
Aviaremont enterprises will become OAK-Servis subholdings. The factories will repair aircraft for the Defense Ministry, and for other power ministries and agencies. OAK and the MOD already have an 84-billion-ruble contract for repairs in place. Meanwhile, Aviaremont owes the MOD 115 billion, which OAK has promised to make good.
OAK-Servis is supposed to provide life-cycle support for MOD (mainly VVS) airplanes. And it will “correct an unfavorable situation in the condition of the current inventory of the Air Forces, which still aren’t guaranteeing the necessary level of technical combat readiness,” Kommersant writes.
OAK-Servis will establish service centers and 24-7 mobile repair teams, then, in 2015-2018, modernize capital equipment in its repair plants. It will also grapple with a problem it can’t solve in the short-term, “the cessation of industrial output of components and systems used in the repair of old aircraft models and the rising price of spares and parts.”
But OAK believes it can ensure a profit for plants that once belonged to Aviaremont. Ruslan Pukhov tells Kommersant less money in the next GPV means less procurement and more repairs and modernization after 2020.
Now for the interesting part . . .
In a sidebar, the authors describe the parlous state of technical readiness in the Air Forces.
All VVS units are supposed to be in “permanent readiness,” with not less than 80 percent of the airplanes in their established composition in a serviceable state.
But Safronov and Kiseleva report only 42 percent of VVS airplanes overall, and 49 percent of its combat airplanes, are serviceable.
The most serious situation with fitness for flying is found in Tu-160 and Tu-22 [Tu-22M3] bombers, the MiG-29 and MiG-25, An-22 transports, L-39 trainers, and others for which serviceability hovers around 20-25 percent.
In 2013, the VVS had 696 airplanes in need of repair, but as (or if) new ones reach the inventory toward 2020, the number in need of repair will reportedly decline to just 49.
The sidebar says, along with repairing MVD, FSB, and MChS platforms, OAK repair plants will also have to maintain and overhaul exported airplanes.
Recall for a moment the MOD’s Action Plan to 2020 . . . the section on equipping the armed forces indicated year-end VVS aircraft serviceability rates will be 55 percent in 2013, 75 percent in 2014, and 80 percent in 2015.
These numbers require pretty fast improvement.
Russian Defense Policy 