MAKS: UTair to get two Mil Mi-171A2s

The two aircraft are to be delivered in 2017 (Russian Helicopters)

Russian Helicopters and UTair Aviation agreed at MAKS that the carrier will receive twp Mil Mi-171A2 medium-lift multirole helicopters for operational testing. The agreement was signed on July 19 by the manufacturing holding company’s CEO Andrey Boginsky and UTair CEO Andrey Martirosov.

The parties agreed to join efforts in bringing the rotorcraft into service and promoting it on the domestic market. Russian Helicopters says it will assist UTair in the initial phase of operations.

The airline is planning to begin testing the new helicopters in operation before year-end. “Preliminary, it will be in November,” Boginsky says. “We expect the certification procedure to be accomplished by late August. At the moment, assembly of four production Mi-171A2s has begun at Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant”, says Boginsky.

The Mi-171A2 is the most advanced version of the Mil Mi-8/17 family featuring the IBKO-38 glass-cockpit avionics suite, which brings down the crew count to two (bar the flight engineer).

By Ivan Volodin