Russian airframer Aviastar has completed assembly of the first major fuselage section for the Irkut MS-21 medium-range twinjet. The aft fuselage segment has been built for the static-test programme and will be sent to Latvian capital Riga to undergo pressurisation testing on a local rig.

These tests will involve 300,000 test cycles, each lasting about 5min, whereby the fuselage section is pressurised and vented to validate its design service life of 60,000 flights, says Irkut director Sergei Milyukov.

Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar is responsible for the manufacture of about 1,300 items for MS-21 airframes and it has produced test examples of some 900 primary parts.

MS-21 airframe designer Sergei Savin says a portion of these has been handed to the Central Aero hydrodynamics Institute for structural testing. "Other parts are being checked for lightning and static electricity protection at the Gromov Flight Test Institute," he adds.

Aviastar intends to build the first MS-21 carbon fibre tail assembly this year using materials and moulds supplied by composite specialist Tekhnologia.