But Signs Of Wear And Tear May Be Too Hard To Fight

It was once the jewel of Soviet civil aviation. Now, the Voronezh aircraft factory in Central Russia is starting to fall apart. Rain pours through holes in the factory roof. Half-finished IL-96s litter the huge factory floor. The situation has become so dire that last year, the factory's director decided to start building small motorboats to make ends meet. The staff, which once numbered more than 19,000 people, is down to less than half of that now.

"It has been really hard," said engineer Yelena Sorokina, who has worked at the plant since 1983.

"We didn't get paid in the 1990s and many people left."

Last March, a leasing company jointly owned by Ilyushin and Russia pumped $300 million into the decaying factory, hoping for a resurgence of IL-96 orders. If nothing else, this first of two payments over two years is designed to get the eight half-finished IL-96s out the door. Production of that model has resumed after a four year hiatus.

But that could change, if Russian civil aviation proponents have their way. They want to gather the few civil aviation manufacturers that still survive in Russian, and form an Airbus-style consortium to compete with the European giant and with Boeing.

"No doubt we are in a crisis situation today," VASO's director, Vyacheslav Salikov said, quoted in the Moscow Times.

"But we can still consolidate our efforts from all plants in Russia and pool them in one fist ... so that we can continue to be proud of our aviation industry, as we once were."

FMI: www.bird.ch/Russians/Il96/IL96P01.html