Farmer 2, MVEN

The tenth anniversary air show, which traditionally takes place at the Ramenskoe airport, brought together 800 companies from 40 countries, which deployed their equipment over 36,000m². This year, the event’s organisers have focused on the business programme. According to preliminary estimations from experts, the total amount of contracts to be signed at the anniversary air show will be about US$10 billion.

Vladimir Borissov, General Director, Aviasalon JSC said:

Over the past six years, we have been carrying out large work on preparing MAKS, which is now among the world’s top aviation exhibitions, to regain its status of grounds for business activity.

Kazakhstan’s project of agricultural aircraft production attracted experts in the segment of ultra-light aviation. This is the Farmer 2 and its modification called Farmer 500 which is more powerful and has larger lifting capacity. The first Kazakh aircraft will come off the production line in November this year at the Kazaviaspektr Company based in Karaganda. The enterprise plans to produce 36 aircraft per year and has already a backlog of three years. The Kazakhstan market alone needs 350 of these types of aircrafts. In addition, Ukraine and Russia are already interested in the agricultural aircraft made in Kazakhstan.

Within five years, the company plans to begin the production of multi-purpose light aircraft including a four-seater Sunkar and a ten-seater Expedition. According to the designers, such aircrafts will be in high demand in Kazakhstan. Therefore, the next MAKS aviasalon may already see some production models of the Kazakh aircraft.

As Viktor Yermolenko, General Director of FIRMA MVEN, pointed out:

Kazakhstan is a big country. If you’re in Astana, you need to fly around one thousand kilometres to any part of the republic. It will take you two or three hours to make it on our plane. It is convenient to fly on it. It is going to consume around 10 litres per 100 kilometres, just like a car.

The new facility plant, costing 3.75 billion tenge ($25 million), will be in Novouzenka in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region and will be the product of a partnership between KazAviaSpektr and Russia’s MVEN, a Kazan-based manufacturer that produces composite-structure light aircraft, including the Farmer 2 crop-duster, and parachute-rescue systems for light aircraft.

Workers for the Kazakh plant will be trained at MVEN’s Kazan facility. The Kazakh transport ministry stresses that the plant will handle what it describes as full-cycle production, not merely assembly work. Series production is planned to begin in 2011, and the firm hopes to build 50 Farmer 2s and Farmer 500s in the first year. The Farmer aircraft will be built of composite materials that are more resistant to corrosive liquids such as pesticides.

The Farmer 2 is a single-seat, single-engined aircraft powered by a Lycoming IO-360 piston engine, similar in configuration to the Air Tractor, with a wing span of 10.4m, maximum take-off weight of 1,100kg, payload of 295kg of chemicals and fuel consumption of 32-40 l/h. The Sunkar will have an MTOW of 1,500kg, payload of 500kg, be powered by a 250hp (185kW) engine and have a range of 540nm (1,000km).

The Kazakh national agricultural holding KazAgro will set up a leasing scheme to enable Kazakh farmers to buy the aircraft.