Alt Russia post 1991

[uk 75]

Most of our alternative history threads focus on the West. There is already a thread for projects if the Cold War had not ended in 1990 and the Soviet Union had carried on.
This thread is intended to look at different scenarios in Russia since 1991. Examples could be:
-different Soviet weapons are available for this timeline such as the nuclear carrier that was not completed in ours.
-Russia receives a different level of Western support and becomes a different place from today. This could include closer cooperation with the West on military programmes and alliances.
-Closer and earlier ties with China. Russia sees a strong political party dominate similar to China's Communist party rather than a Yeltsin/Putin one man rule.

Most of all different evolution of all those lovely Russian designs we see in other threads.

 

[Apophenia]

...
-Russia receives a different level of Western support and becomes a different place from today. This could include closer cooperation with the West on military programmes and alliances...

I'm guessing that, in achieving a Russia different from today, closer cooperation with the West on civilian programmes would have been more important. All that was really required on the military/alliance front was to limit Western - especially American - triumphalism and restrict the eastward expansion of NATO.

 

[uk 75]

...
-Russia receives a different level of Western support and becomes a different place from today. This could include closer cooperation with the West on military programmes and alliances...

I'm guessing that, in achieving a Russia different from today, closer cooperation with the West on civilian programmes would have been more important. All that was really required on the military/alliance front was to limit Western - especially American - triumphalism and restrict the eastward expansion of NATO

I expressed myself badly. I was trying to avoid getting too involved in the politics and get to possible projects. The Yak 141 vstol fighter and various missile systems come to mind.
I would like to have seen the West engage more constructively in helping Russia.
NATO expansion was at the request of ex Warsaw Pact nations more than any real enthusiasm to expand NATO at least in W. Europe. I agree it was not well handled but events in the former Yugoslavia did not help.
Civil cooperation was not helped by the emergence of Boeing and Airbus as the only major airliner designers and builders. Neither Russia nor China have made much of a dent on them.

 

[Apophenia]

Good point about the effects of the former Yugoslavia. And agreed on the West being in a position to be more constructively engaged in establishing a modern Russia.

Too true as well on the Boeing-Airbus scorpion dance. That has reminded me of a scenario I put up on Beyond the Sprues waaay back in Jan 2013 - Airbus Rus.

In that scenario, an Airbus Rus consortium began by refurbishing traded-in A300s and A310s for the new Russian market. These airframes were refitted with Lotarev/Ivchenko-Progress D-18T engines - resulting in 'new' A300R and A310R models. The removed CF6s and JT9Ds were then mounted on Russian-built aircraft for export to the West (or other parts of the world rich enough to be leery of Russian-made engines).

From there, the scenario spun off into what I called the the Airbus Rus AR760 series airlifters - which made use of those CF6s for the export market and D-18Ts for the RuAF. The first were rebuilt Soviet IL-76s airframes, then came the AR765 Atlas - effectively a Westernized 'Candid' with the Airbus A310's FBW cockpit grafted on. Improbable, yes. But a fun fantasy

 

[uk 75]

I like the idea. Sadly the reality has been Russia swamped with Western products and a challenging environment looking after them.

INSIGHT: The Russian MRO industry is suffering from a shortage of what is required to successfully maintain western aircraft

The head of Ural Airlines Technics : Russian MRO industry is suffering an increasing shortage of capabilities for western aircraft maintenance

www.rusaviainsider.com

 

[uk 75]

I mentioned the Yak 141...

Redirect Notice

Imagine if instead of the Carpetbagger relationship imposed on Russia in our reality there had been real partnerships in developing both civil and military aircraft.

 

[Hood]

Post-1991 the ex-Soviet manufacturers (a complicated minefield of OKBs with design rights, aircraft plants that actually built the aircraft, pop-up Joint Stock Companies and new entrants to deal with) attempted to stick in Western avionics and engines into most civil aircraft, indeed 1990-95 saw an explosion of designs and ideas but the lack of internal money to meet demand and the lack of Western product exposure and supply chain backup (a big problem even today for customers of Russian kit) allied with a conception of poor reliability and high operating costs crippled all these attempts.

The whole shift to a capitalist economy was a sudden jerk and built on top of late-Communist era economic meltdown the results would never be good.

Yak did assist LM I believe in some early aspects of JSF, I think the OKBs at least tried to export their knowledge and experience to the West as marketable assets. But really beyond a few projects and niche areas (LPG-fuelled aircraft) they probably couldn't bring much to the table ,their R&D resources and capabilities were still behind the West (computing power etc.) and they had different design doctrines and practices (e.g. airliners designed for rough fields and little airport facilities).
They had some interesting aero-engine proposals too, especially UHB and propfans but sadly no success materialised in the face of P&W, GE, RR, Snecma dominance in that period.

 

[royabulgaf]

This is somewhat OT, but I a really concerned with the Boeing/Airbus duopoly. It seems that Bombardier was trying to with agreements with COMAC, but then they were bought out by Airbus as EMBRAER was nearly bought out by Boeing. Both companies were moving into the lower end of Boeing 737/Airbus 321 territory.

 

[riggerrob]

I like the idea. Sadly the reality has been Russia swamped with Western products and a challenging environment looking after them.

INSIGHT: The Russian MRO industry is suffering from a shortage of what is required to successfully maintain western aircraft

The head of Ural Airlines Technics : Russian MRO industry is suffering an increasing shortage of capabilities for western aircraft maintenance

www.rusaviainsider.com

Shortages of spare parts is nothing new in North America. Airliners as young as 8 years old are being parted-out to provide replacement parts for their siblings. This practice is most common among airplanes that were only built in small numbers.
Ural Airlines wants to get into component overhaul so that they only need to buy O-rings, springs, etc. instead of scrounging for rare parts.