Russia to start making bootleg parts for Boeing and Airbus aircraft.

[NutLoose]

Just let’s hope we do not find them appearing in the West, they will also make the fleets in Russia unable to be used outside their borders and will be a headache for those leasing companies hoping to regain their property in the future.

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/russia-to-start-making-bootlege-boeing-airbus-parts/

[jolihokistix]

Well, we found cheap Chinese replacement parts even in our military aircraft, I believe.

[zambonidriver]

Just let’s hope we do not find them appearing in the West, they will also make the fleets in Russia unable to be used outside their borders and will be a headache for those leasing companies hoping to regain their property in the future.

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/russia-to-start-making-bootlege-boeing-airbus-parts/

I don't see how any of those planes can re-enter any registry even if repossessed. That ship has sailed.

[Less Hair]

Didn't they do it with manufacturer unsupported An-124 spare parts and maintenance before? How did this work out?

[longer ron]

Nothing really new here - they have been doing similar since WW2 - they even copied entire aircraft - eg B29 and DC3 off the top of my head + pirate copies of RR Nene engine of course :rolleyes: .

[Liffy 1M]

Nothing really new here - they have been doing similar since WW2 - they even copied entire aircraft - eg B29 and DC3 off the top of my head + pirate copies of RR Nene engine of course :rolleyes: .
The Li-2 was a licence-built version of the DC-3, with changes to meet Soviet requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisunov_Li-2

[longer ron]

From an easily findable website :)

Russia has never paid Douglas a cent in license fees.

Although maybe they paid for the first few - but certainly not for the thousands that followed and also other derivatives.

[zerograv]

I don't see how any of those planes can re-enter any registry even if repossessed. That ship has sailed.

In reality the difficult problem is repossess the airframes. The rest, that is to say, re-enter a registry would be some work, but it is certainly doable.

Take as an exemple N1619A .
-The aircraft was some years at the Brasilian (flag) carrier that went out of business. Maintenance records disappered, maybe conveniently, because many maintenance actions that were done, were latter discovered to be dodgy to say the least ...
-'Sorry', but without those records we can not accept that airframe in our registry.
-Register the aircraft in Africa for a year. Do the maintenance schedule during that time, and provide records of it.
-The aircraft is then accepted at the State that initially, and understandably, had said no.

[Expatrick]

The Li-2 was a licence-built version of the DC-3, with changes to meet Soviet requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisunov_Li-2

And HA-LIX (as featured in the Wiki article) is still performing leisure flights out of Budaörs át weekends - can't get tickets though!

[zambonidriver]

In reality the difficult problem is repossess the airframes. The rest, that is to say, re-enter a registry would be some work, but it is certainly doable.

Take as an exemple N1619A .
-The aircraft was some years at the Brasilian (flag) carrier that went out of business. Maintenance records disappered, maybe conveniently, because many maintenance actions that were done, were latter discovered to be dodgy to say the least ...
-'Sorry', but without those records we can not accept that airframe in our registry.
-Register the aircraft in Africa for a year. Do the maintenance schedule during that time, and provide records of it.
-The aircraft is then accepted at the State that initially, and understandably, had said no.
Interresting. I would have thought that a missing trail in the history would be a complete non starter, short maybe of a C or D check.

One always learns :)

[ImbracableCrunk]

Nothing really new here - they have been doing similar since WW2 - they even copied entire aircraft - eg B29 and DC3 off the top of my head + pirate copies of RR Nene engine of course :rolleyes: .

Britain sold the USSR Nene engines with the promise that they wouldn't use them for military aircraft. Then sold them the blueprints.

Stalin: "What fool will sell us his secrets?"

And now we have Kim Jong Un and his nukes.

[DaveReidUK]

In reality the difficult problem is repossess the airframes. The rest, that is to say, re-enter a registry would be some work, but it is certainly doable.

Then (assuming the lessors have actually managed to repossess the aircraft) they just need to explain to the next potential lessee that the aircraft may have some counterfeit parts and components fitted, but it's probably OK to fly and anyway they'll be getting a good lease rate ...

[fdr]

that more or less will assure an AD coming out to ground those MSNs known to be in Russian control.
if the aircraft come back to the lessors at any time in the future, they will be evidence of criminality in bogus parts which is a felony in most states in the world. The civil torts would be fairly clear, would think exemplary damages would be on the table, so don't expect the return of the evidence to lessors anytime at all.

[unmanned_droid]

Have things like subscription services for engineering documents been cancelled too? If so, I can't see how safe operation can ever be carried out now. Those MSNs will never be trusted by any competent authority ever again.

[fdr]

The contract jurisdiction is going to be interesting, it's been commented that the UK is the contractually agreed jurisdiction for some or all of these leases, so the reach that the jurisdiction has to the sovereign funds of the Russians as they are facilitating the breaches would make for some good viewing time from the bleachers. There is capital asset value in the region of 25-45 B USD, and that could optimistic. In the big scheme of things, the aviation lessor losses don't compare with the damage that Russia has caused to Ukraine, and to all of the rest of the world as well. Single handedly Putin has exacerbated the risk of impending famine for a considerable part of the world, and set up the conditions for a deep recession or global depression, the latter having quite a track record to leading to other conflicts as well. The argument that the west actally is causing the economic and energy crisis is vacuous; Mrs Putins little son Vlad decided all by his own self to invade a sovereign state and to conduct a criminal undeclared war of aggression, the response to that by the west being forseeaable even though it was extremely unlikely, but it still came about due to the decision of Putin, and the facilitation by big Al Grigoryevich Lukashenko, the lapdog in Belarus, continuing to deepen damage through the self interest of a number of countries that will unfortunately for them are most likely to be voted most likely to most likely get swamped by the economic, famine and energy supply waves starting to build up not he not so far horizon. Most likely. Maybe. At least China is sound. Ooops Evergrande is at least good news for former Enron managers who are free from behind bars, they need the same creativity, as do nearly half of Chinese property developers. Big surprise there.... In 1996, while half of the worlds high rise construction cranes were within 25km of Pudong, the existing occupancy rate for the completed structures was around 3%.... and the buildings keep on coming. In 2020, Forest City in Johor had around 100B in construction happening, funded primarily by... PRC, and the city's buildings that had been completed had occupancy around the barely registerable range... the accounting system that makes that viable seems to defy gravity. The PRC govt's evidence concern with their own economy resulted in forex limitations on the fine people of China, limiting annual payments while many of their population who the developments were targeted to had made deposits by credit card, Alipay etc, and now have a bit of an issue paying for the properties to Country Garden Holdings, Greenland Holdings Corp Ltd, etc. China alone was going to make 2022 interesting, and then along came Mrs Putins little boy Vlad. Pity.

[Economics101]

This is part of a wider-ranging exercise in patent violation and Intellectual Property theft which has now been sanctioned by Russian Law. See this week's Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2022/06/02/has-russia-legalised-intellectual-property-theft

[CargoOne]

Most of the lessors have already claimed it as a hull loss under a war risk insurance. However if the situation will be resolved within next weeks/months, it is not overcomplicated as people tend to think, there have been a number of unfriendly repossessions from Africa and India in the past with a lack of paperwork, doubtful components etc - all doable but there is a price of doing this for sure.

[NutLoose]

Britain sold the USSR Nene engines with the promise that they wouldn't use them for military aircraft. Then sold them the blueprints.

Stalin: "What fool will sell us his secrets?"

And now we have Kim Jong Un and his nukes.

They also gave the Russians a guided tour of the Rolls Royce production facilities and the with the instructions to walk through the metal swarf to collect samples to be analysed later enabling Russia to learn the material recipes.

This history is correct but omits an important item. The British did indeed sell Rolls-Royce Nene engines to the Soviets in 1947, around which the USSR built the very successful Mig15 and -17. It is also true that the Soviet Union switched to their own version of the RR Nene engine in 1950. How they did it is not disclosed in this report.

They stole it. Although the British were willing to sell RR jet engines, the most advanced in the world at that time, they did not want to lose control over the technology to Russia by licensing the manufacture to them. So Stalin sent technicians to tour the RR factory at the invitation of the British.
The key to the engine, in addition to the design (which the Soviets could, as they so often did, disassemble items from the west and copy each part exactly), was the specification of the metal in the stator, rotor blades, case, etc. These were critical so that the engine did not destroy itself from the heat and extreme temperature it generated.

The Soviet guests wore soft rubber soled shoes when they toured the factory, and showed special interest in each workstation that made the critical parts, allowing the machinist's metal shavings to become embedded in their soft sole shoes. Each 'guest' collected samples from each workstation related to a specific part, and no others, so when they returned to their hotel, they collected the samples for analysis of the metal in Russia.
That is how they were able to replace the British engine with a 'Soviet developed model of the RR engine'. The UK would never had continued to sell Russia engines or parts if they ever became engaged in battle with the US, France or a former close ally.
This is only one of hundreds of stories of how Soviet industrial espionage keep them (nearly) up with the West...but in the end they could not sustain it. Star Wars overwhelmed them before it even got to the early development stages. God bless Ronald Reagan.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/mig-15.php


.. (http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/mig-15.php)

[Chu Chu]

They also gave the Russians a guided tour of the Rolls Royce production facilities and the with the instructions to walk through the metal dwarfed to collect samples to be analysed later enabling Russia to learn the material recipes.

Great story. But if they had whole engines already, wouldn't sampling one of those beat walking through swarf?

[Deaf]

Great story. But if they had whole engines already, wouldn't sampling one of those beat walking through swarf?

Double check incase of being sent "special engines"

[NutLoose]

The samples were collected before we actually sent them an engine I seem to remember

[India Four Two]

In Stanley Hooker's wonderful book, "Not much of an Engineer", he describes a visit to China in the 70s, where he was shown a Chinese copy of the Russian copy of the Nene. He observed to his hosts that even RR's mistakes had been faithfully copied!

[Less Hair]

The Tu-4 bomber, a high priority carbon copy of the B-29 in metric dimensions and the first nuke capable bomber the Soviet Union had, even copied the battle damage repairs of the original US aircraft that had emergency landed in the far east.

[fdr]

This is part of a wider-ranging exercise in patent violation and Intellectual Property theft which has now been sanctioned by Russian Law. See this week's Economist: https://www.economist.com/business/2022/06/02/has-russia-legalised-intellectual-property-theft

gotta say that the Russian IP office is a lot less irritating to push standard patents through than the USPTO... The plaque from the US is nicer though. :}

[302szd55]

Not just the Russians/Chinese. I vividly remember touring the Trident factory at Hatfield in the mid seventies and being told that a left had thread on a fitting of the Trident wing had been slavishly (and pointlessly) copied by Boeing on their 727.

[NutLoose]

That was because Boeing were unable to figure out the S ducting design for the upper engine and were struggling until the U.K. shared their designs for the Trident with the US on a like for like basis, this they did giving Boeing the edge, who refused to return the favour with their own technology

Meanwhile, a rival airliner emerged, this time from Boeing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing) in the United States, in the form of the 727 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_727), which also had a trijet configuration.[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#cite_note-wood_104-17)Boeing had begun its studies into this sector of the market in 1956, and elected to launch its own trijet programme in 1959. Airco executives, who were at the time intensely exploring various alternatives and further partnerships with other aircraft companies, considered the possibility that Boeing might choose to drop the 727 project and instead co-manufacture the DH.121 in the USA; Lord Douglas was one of the proponents of this initiative.[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#cite_note-wood_104-17) As a result, Airco invited a team of Boeing engineers and executives to Hatfield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_Aerodrome); (Boeing later permitted a return visit by de Havilland representatives to Seattle); however, Boeing revealed few details of their plans for the 727, while virtually all information on the DH.121 had been shared with Boeing, an openness that had allegedly "amazed" them.[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#cite_note-wood_104-17) British commentators have tended to interpret this episode as involving the acquisition of sensitive proprietary data on the DH.121 by a direct competitor.[17] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#cite_note-18) Woods remarked that "de Havilland solemnly handed all its research over to its rivals...the crowning piece of stupidity".[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#cite_note-wood_104-17)



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident

[WideScreen]

The samples were collected before we actually sent them an engine I seem to remember
So, enhancements could be requested, upfront the manufacturing/delivery ?

[PAXboy]

I recall reading, about 20 years ago, of the Chinese copying a British innovative refuse collection truck. It could load more quickly and carry more trash. The British inventor got nothing nor, no support in seeking redress.

[Semreh]

The Tu-4 bomber, a high priority carbon copy of the B-29 in metric dimensions and the first nuke capable bomber the Soviet Union had, even copied the battle damage repairs of the original US aircraft that had emergency landed in the far east.

There's a story behind that. Essentially it boils down to the engineers tasked with copying the B-29 being (a) afraid for their lives if they got it wrong and did not deliver; and (b) interpreting Stalin's instructions, who said he wanted an exact copy. If the battle damage repair were not replicated exactly, the question would arise why Stalin's instructions for an exact copy were disobeyed. Not following Stalin's instructions tended to be bad for one's health, possible your family's health, and even the health of co-workers.

It might also have been Stalin's way of assuring quality control, in much the same way as the well known story of David Lee Roth of Van Halen and the brown M&Ms (https://futureofsourcing.com/third-parties-contracts-and-brown-mms). So long as people don't know what you are going to check up on, they have to make sure everything (including the important bits) meets the specifications; and if something minor doesn't meet the specification, you know attention to detail has been lacking.

There's a lot more down the rabbit-hole hole of copying high technology. Sometimes seemingly nonsense or trivial design decision have underlying reasons that are important (such as the research needed to replicate the manufacture of Space Shuttle tiles, which hinged upon discovering an apparently unimportant impurity in one of the chemicals used in the process affected the outcome, so using purer raw materials failed in getting the correct end-product* & **), or deliberate bits of nonsense included to show that a copy is in fact a copy rather than an original design. Copies are sometimes made because the copier does not understand the underlying engineering sufficiently to make a functional replica from the ground-up, as opposed to an exact replica. And, even if you have the original, and even know the manufacturing process used to make it, you can still miss important elements if your product depends upon specific raw materials or undocumented practices executed by experienced technical personnel.

*It's alluded to on page 7a of this very old presentation: Producing the High Temperature Reusable Surface Insulation for the Thermal Protection System of the Space Shuttle (Kevin Forgsberg) (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19810003644/downloads/19810003644.pdf) - while some contaminants/impurities were definitely not needed, it turned out when moving from the lab to full production that certain others were.
**It turns out I mixed up two stories here. I'm leaving the Space Shuttle Tile Manufacture presentation in, as it is interesting, but what my memory mixed up was the FOGBANK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogbank) story: Nuclear Weapons Journal, issue 2, 2009 p20: Fogbank: Lost Knowledge Regained. (https://www.lanl.gov/orgs/padwp/pdfs/nwj2_09.pdf)

When investigating historical records with respect to impurity levels during the Fogbank purification process, personnel discovered that in some cases the current impurity levels were much lower than historical values. Typically, lower impurity levels lead to better product quality. For Fogbank, however, the presence of a specific impurity is essential.

[Sallyann1234]

I see the Russian press are now claiming that Boeing is having to reduce production of the 737 due to loss of Russian titanium.

[WideScreen]

I see the Russian press are now claiming that Boeing is having to reduce production of the 737 due to loss of Russian titanium.
Nowadays, Russia is no longer a major Titanium (ore) supplier. In the Cold-War age, Ukraine (Donbas ????) was important, though now, it has been overtaken by significant other resources, including Australia. So, yeah, this looks like a tit-for-tat propaganda.

Or. maybe, the US could scrap some SR-71 ? The CIA obtained the Titanium for those devices from the USSR, using a large scale, multi-country decoy operation to hide the final destination for the metal.

[blue up]

We've got piles of Titanium round the back of the workshop. Make me an offer!

[megan]

2020 figures for the top titanium producers, metric tons

1. China 110,000
2 Japan 50,000
3 Russia 33,000
4 Kazakhstan 15,000
5 Ukraine 6,000
6 India 250

Titanium dioxide production 2021

https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-titanium-minerals-worldwide-by-country/

USGS data

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/titanium-statistics-and-information

[WideScreen]

2020 figures for the top titanium producers, metric tons

1. China 110,000
2 Japan 50,000
3 Russia 33,000
4 Kazakhstan 15,000
5 Ukraine 6,000
6 India 250

Titanium dioxide production 2021

https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-titanium-minerals-worldwide-by-country/

USGS data

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/titanium-statistics-and-information
I checked the figures yesterday, and this showed up:

Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmenite)
Russia is not even in the list.

I think, the difference is "Production of Titanium" and "The most important ore of titanium", or so to say, the production of Titanium isn't the relevant item, though, where to find the Ore. Production can (in principle) be done everywhere, bla bla Technology, etc. Correct me, when I am wrong.

This link neither lists Russia: Titanium Minerals Worldwide by country (https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-titanium-minerals-worldwide-by-country/)

[First_Principal]

In Stanley Hooker's wonderful book, "Not much of an Engineer"...

Thanks for the reference, looked a worthwhile read so it's now on my list...

[jolihokistix]

As we see in the Olympics, if Russia plays by a different rule book they get excluded, thereby further increasing their sense of isolation and paranoia.

“It’s hatred (by the West) of all things Russian that discriminates against us. Please remove these unfair sanctions.”

DPRK (NK) still hasn’t figured out why the world places sanctions on them either. Russia looks to be following suit.