Russian aerospace

Aircraft manufacturing is an important industrial sector in Russia, employing around 355,300 people. The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a deep crisis for the industry, especially for the civilian aircraft segment. The situation started improving during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s due to growth in air transportation and increasing demand. A consolidation programme launched in 2005 led to the creation of the United Aircraft Corporation holding company, which includes most of the industry's key companies.

The Russian aircraft industry offers a portfolio of internationally competitive military aircraft such as MiG-29 and Su-27, while new projects such as the Sukhoi Superjet 100 are hoped to revive the fortunes of the civilian aircraft segment. In 2009, companies belonging to the United Aircraft Corporation delivered 95 new fixed-wing aircraft to its customers, including 15 civilian models. In addition, the industry produced over 141 helicopters.

Russia had twenty-four aircraft manufacturers at the outbreak of war, but they did not have the materials or the capacity to replace the aircraft that were lost. In particular they were dependent on foreign engines. It produced 1893 aircraft and imported 883 from 1914 to 1916, but it only produced 920 engines in this period while importing 2326. Production declined sharply after the February Revolution and had virtually ceased when Russia left the war in 1918.

In the Soviet planned economic system, free market competition between companies was seen as wasteful, instead the Soviet system was a multi-tiered system the chief components of which were design bureaus, known as OKBs, and manufacturing complexes.

The OKBs did not possess the means to manufacture aircraft nor were they intended to, nor were the manufacturing complexes able to design aircraft or tied to individual OKBs instead they would produce whichever aircraft were assigned to them.

Operational requirements for proposed aircraft were created by the Soviet air forces to which individual OKBs would create a design informed by state research institutes, which would provide them with information on aerodynamics and available systems; because they were designed to similar requirements and research input, competing designs were very often very similar in appearance. These competing designs would then be evaluated against each other and a winner chosen. Ideally a single winning design would be chosen which would then be assigned to one or more manufacturing complexes. Most such complexes were within the Soviet Union, however some product lines were assigned to allies within the Warsaw Pact. Due in part to political considerations the assignment of production was widely dispersed, creating supply chains in which the role of state planning was paramount.

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