Russian Helicopters Holding Company (a part of Rostec State Corporation) has established a specialized centre for production of organic glass parts for glazing at the premises of Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant. In the future, the entire range of glazing parts for the country's aviation industry will potentially be manufactured there.

The decision to create this centre of competence was made as part of development strategy for the integrated structure of Russian helicopter engineering for the period until 2025.

"We are creating a unique centre for the production of aircraft glazing parts at the premises of Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant. To ensure reliable strength characteristics and high quality of our products we are going to use new materials and modern technologies. It is planned that the centre will reach its full production capacity in 2021," reported Aviation Cluster of Rostec.

To reduce brittleness and likelihood of cracking, the glass produced at U-UAP undergoes stretching in the heated state and then cooling under load. This process is called "orientation". The stretched organic glass is afterwards used for production of parts by combined molding (for blisters and windows) or by cold molding (80% of helicopter glass components and 100% of aircraft glass components).

The next stage of the project assumes installation of new equipment for forming organic glass parts, cutting thin glass sheets into blanks and manufacturing double glazing frames for the Ansat helicopter, which will make it possible to develop plastic molding methods.

"The cockpit glazing parts form the eye of the helicopter The quality of cockpit glass and its optical properties determine how well the pilot will be able to see the surroundings. This specialized centre shall concentrate on solving that task in the most optimal way", says Leonid Belykh, Managing Director of JSC U-UAP. "The centre will be able to provide glass components to companies not only within the holding but also in United Engine Corporation."

An agreement has already been signed with the Kazan Aircraft Production Association, a branch of PJSC Tupolev, for manufacture of an experimental batch of windows for civil aviation during the fourth quarter of 2019, as well as an agreement with JSC Aviastar-SP. The organic glass product range was also worked out for PJSC Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (VASO) and JSC RAC MiG.

In April 2019 United Aircraft Corporation underwent a technological audit. It evaluated the technological capabilities of the plant, procurement management and warehousing, organization of production sites and workplaces, staff training levels, as well as the process of organizing and performing technological preparation. A lot of attention was paid to production planning and the quality management system (QMS).

The audit results revealed a high degree of readiness of JSC "U-UAP" for implementing production of glazing parts for enterprises of PJSC UAC. It is planned to include JSC "U-UAP" into the list of suppliers of organic glass parts to UAC companies in the near future.