Aerospace/New Russian aircraft

The first flight of the new Russian aircraft MS-21 will be held no earlier than April 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"In order to decrease the aircraft weight, we are using certain new composite materials, alloys, and we expect that the MS-21 would be about 13-15% more competitive than the Airbus and Boeing,” Rogozin said.

"I want to let you know that just two days ago we put together the first section of the MS-21 fuselage, meant for 180 passengers. We plan to get that plane up in the air next year and from 2018 on, we plan to release a whole series of them," Rogozin said.

"We are planning for the first flight to take place starting April 2016, within the first half of the calendar year," Rogozin added.

 First flight of Russia's MS-21 aircraft to take place in April 2016 — Deputy PM Rogozin