‘Complex geometry of the wing did not work on domestic IT products’

Photo: Михаил Захаров

How digital will be reduced to a single denominator

Digital consolidation awaits the United Aircraft Corporation, Russian Helicopters, United Engine Corporation, Technodinamika and all those involved in the creation of Russian aircraft. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation proposed to create an inter-corporate architectural committee, which is designed to facilitate the transition of aircraft manufacturers to a single IT protocol. Due to the difference in platform solutions, production cooperation between corporations is difficult, which affects the construction time of aircraft.

“I strongly support this idea," said Ivan Golubushin, the director of digital transformation and information technology at UAC PJSC, at the plenary session of the Aviatifra 2025 conference. “A working group is currently being formed under the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. Minister of Industry Anton Alikhanov is considering the implementation of an integrated solution.

Currently, the architectural committee under the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation has gathered highly qualified IT specialists who have been designing with foreign software for several years and understand what they need to have in order to achieve results. It also includes representatives of scientific research institutes, Bauman Moscow State Technical University. According to Golubushin, they have been tasked with working out the conceptual requirements for the aviation IT framework. In addition, developers who have their own software products have been included. However, the members of the architectural committee work free of charge, so it is not necessary to expect quick and productive results.

“There is such a triangle: time — quality — money. Since the architectural committee is a free story, it will take quite a long time. But I would like to really benefit from this quickly and in a reasonable time," Ivan Golubushin pointed out the need for co-financing.

Who inspired the digital transformation in the aviation industry

Where did the idea of the architectural committee suddenly come from? It turned out that Vyacheslav Khristolyubov, the director of digital transformation at the UEC, became the trailblaser. At one of the meetings at the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, he complained about the lack of methodological documents that teach how to plan production correctly. Official documents based on the practice of the 1980s are now in force, and since then each holding company has been guided by the company's internal policy.

“There is no question of any uniform rules that are clear and the same to everyone right now. It is clear that there are regulatory documents in the bowels of every corporation. But they are applicable only internally and are blocking for cooperative processes," Ivan Golubushin, the director of digital transformation and information technology at UAC PJSC, later emphasised in a conversation with reporters.

Who will give money for digitalisation

The transition to unified digital standards in the aviation industry was supported by the Russian Information Technology Development Fund, which is a part of VEB.RF. Russian Information Technology Development Fund CEO Alexander Pavlov said that the UAC had received funding of 2.4 billion rubles for this purpose. This is a project aimed at creating domestic software in terms of designing and developing standards for operating systems.

“We have analysed the functionality of domestic software products for the aviation industry in 2022 (that is, after the imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation — ed.). It turned out that it is impossible to design a complex wing geometry based on them, they needed to be refined and functionally saturated," Ivan Golubushin later shared with Realnoe Vremya.

UAC has formulated a list of requirements that you need to have in order to continue developing and maintaining products. It was impossible to continue designing without this basic tool. New products are currently being designed based on this program, Golubushin assured.

What investments in digitalisation do the aviation industry expect in the future?

“A year ago, the head of the UAC, YurySlyusar, said at the CIPR 2024 forum that there was only enough money for 2% of the co-financing. Therefore, he proposed that the state co-finance the projects by 98%. Nothing has changed much today," said Ivan Golubushin.

But there is hope for the help of the Russian government. “We know that [Russian Prime Minister Mikhail] Mishustin instructed us to consider the proportion of 90 to 10. We hope to move forward with the projects that will be included in the second wave. We have a lot of hardware projects, we need to preserve the landscape from previous programs, and we need to comply with import substitution requirements," he explained.

Artificial Intelligence arms race: who's ahead

Alexander Krasnov, the information technology director at Yakovlev PJSC, said that the use of artificial intelligence remains an “expensive tool”.

“But we're starting to take a closer look at it. So far, we are using it to simplify the work with regulatory documents in the work of engineers," he said.

Subsequently, they want to integrate it into various engineering solutions that will really help, simplify, and speed up the work of engineers during design.

Meanwhile, the global cost of implementing artificial intelligence amounted to $420 billion, plus $300 billion allocated by the United States this year. “The start of the artificial intelligence arms race has actually been announced," said the head of the Information Systems and IT Infrastructure Department at Russian Helicopters, Alexander Pogonyshev. At the same time, Russia's contribution is estimated at 12 trillion rubles until 2030. According to him, Russian Helicopters Holding Company has brought its software products to a high level of maturity.

Another topic is smart standards.

“Here we could change the approach itself. Not to buy a supercomputer, to move away from purchasing expensive engineering software on an ongoing basis, but to change the approach itself, paying for the result, the calculation that the engineer receives. The cost of this calculation will already include the necessary computing power and certain intangible assets — licenses that are involved in one type of calculation or another. This, on the one hand, will significantly reduce the cost of the field, and on the other hand, it will make the field of modeling and analysis more affordable," said Alexander Krasnov, Information Technology Director at Yakovlev PJSC.

Speaking about industrial cooperation, he noted that it is necessary to introduce the Internet of Things. This will make it possible to track and control the entire chain of movement of production equipment, he believes. But most of all, he would like to see a unified digital environment with aviation equipment operators. “Otherwise, we will all have to compete with each other. This will definitely not lead to that we will save our resources," he concluded.