"Conceptual Design" Of Iranian Aircraft Complete By Next Year

Mehr News quoted Dr. Alireza Jahangirian speaking during the Conference on National Grand Scheme of Key Technologies for 150-seat Aircraft Development. "The aircraft to be developed would have a takeoff weight of 76.7 tons and landing weight of 68 tons, with 3850Km flying range," he added.

He also added that the project was in line with the 20-Year Development Perspective. "Establishment of a permanent structure provided with the key technology for design and manufacturing of passenger jet in international levels is among the perspectives of the plan," Jahangirian said.

Conceptual design, basic design, purchase of facilities, manufacture and mounting, ground and in-flight testing were among the phases of the project, he was quoted saying.

"currently, work on the conceptual plan is underway and we predict that to end by the early next year (beginning March 2014) and to begin the basic design phase," he said, and that "the Grand Scheme for 150-seat plane has been defined in 8 major steps.

"Building structures, attaining technology, evaluation of key technology, orientation, developing infrastructures, documentation, achieving international standards, university-industry relation-building and international cooperation are these 8 major steps," the project manager said.

"About 6 million parts should be manufactured, "he said, adding that "each such plane will worth US $ 90m in commercial production, with costs of design and manufacturing amounting to $ 2b for 2 planes, a figure usually demanded by countries manufacturing the plane."

Jahangirian pointed to the number of special industry documentation for plane design as being 245. "34 PhD, MSc, and BSc dissertations have been dedicated to the project," he added.