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Editor | L.Y.
Preliminary
On September 18, an unusual picture took place in Russia: Putin personally appeared at the Joint Engine Company factory to oversee the development of the PD-26 engine.
Just half a month ago, Deputy Prime Minister Manturov also actively expressed to the media that the Russian side was ready and willing to provide core technologies such as PD-26 heavy engines and composite material wings to China's new generation wide-body passenger aircraft project.
When the Russian side finally put down its posture and took the initiative to show goodwill, they may not have thought that China had already embarked on a completely different path.
The factory war.
In the workshop of the joint engine company, Putin’s inspection details were very targeted. Before the assembly of the PD-26 engine, he stopped and listened to the technical director’s report on the engine compressor leaves. When he learned that leaf materials were still dependent on imports, Putin shrugged his forehead, turning to the factory general manager Andrey Marchuk: “Materials must be nationalized by 2026, otherwise the stability requirements of cooperation with China cannot be met.”
Beside the PD-26 samples on display, the technical panel marks key performance: the ratio of 11: 1, the push range of 35-40 thousand oxen, planned for the use of the Il-96-400M wide-body passenger aircraft and the next generation of military transport aircraft, which has been developed for more than 8 years due to the technical bottleneck.
This supervision of the war is no accident. Documents from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation show that the PD-26 engine is listed as a "priority project of Sino-Russian aviation cooperation". Russia plans to jointly produce this engine with COMAC through technical authorization for CR929 wide-body passenger aircraft. Alternative power scheme. At the interim meeting held at the factory, Putin made it clear that “the progress of PD-26 is directly related to the depth of our aviation cooperation with China, and all departments must work together.”
He approved an additional 15 billion rubles of R&D funding for the improvement of the engine’s high-voltage turbine system, requiring the pre-turbine temperature to be raised from 1800K to 1950K to narrow the gap with international advanced levels.
Russia's urgency is due to double pressure.On the one hand, Western sanctions led to the joint engine company's import parts confession, PD-26 was originally planned to use German Siemens high-voltage turbine bearings can not be obtained, can only be replaced by domestic replacement, development progress delayed for two years; on the other hand, China's CR929 passenger plane power program has launched a global tender, U.S. General Electric and Roosevelt Rois submitted a proposal, if Russia can not advance the maturity of PD-26 as soon as possible, will miss the opportunity to cooperate. Factory technicians revealed that after Putin's war, the workshop carried out a 24-hour three-day downturn, striving to complete the test of the first sample of the aircraft in the first quarter of 2026.
Advantages of PD-26 with China's autonomous replacement
The core advantage of the PD-26 engine lies in its adaptability to large-body passenger aircraft, which can reduce fuel consumption by 18% compared to the current Russian PS-90A engine, and the noise level also meets the latest standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Russia plans to divide the technical authorization of the PD-26 into three phases: the first phase provides assembly drawings, the second phase transfers the core parts manufacturing process, and the third phase shares the code of the fault diagnosis system. Alexander Ponomarev, marketing manager of United Engine Company, said: "This is the first time that Russia has transferred such a high-standard aero-engine technology to foreign countries, which fully reflects the importance it attaches to the Chinese market."
But China’s autonomous breakthrough in the field of engines has formed alternative capabilities.The CJ-1000A engine developed by China Naval Group has completed the preliminary suitability test of the CR929 passenger aircraft, with a ratio of 12:1, a push of 42 thousand oxen, and a fuel consumption of 3% lower than PD-26. Test data from Chinese shipping companies show that the high-voltage turbine of the CJ-1000A uses domestic second-generation monocrystalline high-temperature alloy, pre-turbine temperature of up to 2050K, life of up to 30,000 hours, far beyond the design indicators of PD-26.In August 2025, the CJ-1000A has completed 100 hours of continuous test run on the Boeing 747 test platform. All performance indicators are stable and it is planned to be put into mass production in 2027.
More importantly, China has built a complete engine industry chain. With more than 50 engine support companies gathering in Shanghai’s Aerospace Industrial Park, more than 98% of CJ-1000A’s components can be nationalized, including the independently developed FADEC (full power digital electronic control system).
In contrast to PD-26, its high-voltage compressor sheets still need to be purchased from Kazakhstan, and the control system's chips rely on supply in Taiwan, China, and the integrity of the industrial chain is far less than China.The relevant person in charge of COMAC said in an interview: "We will consider a variety of power options, but the progress and stability of domestic engines have become important considerations."
In the military field, China's alternative advantage is more obvious. The WS-20 engine developed by China Aviation Development Corporation has a thrust of 160 kN and has been successfully equipped with the Y-20 large transport aircraft. Its improved version is planned to be used in the next generation of strategic transport aircraft, and its performance comprehensively surpasses that of the military derivative model of the PD-26. Since 2025, Shipping-20 has completed multiple cross-continental shipping missions, the reliability of the WS-20 has been verified, while the military model of the PD-26 is still in the drawing phase and is expected to not be mass-produced by 2030.
Deep barriers to China's industrial chain
The breakthrough in material technology is the core support for China’s engine autonomy. The DD10 monocrystalline high-temperature alloy, developed by the Beijing Aviation Materials Institute, can withstand 2100K high temperatures, improve the performance of the VK25 alloy by 15% and reduce costs by 20% compared to the PD-26. This material has achieved scale production, with a production capacity of 500 tons by 2025 that not only meets the needs of the CJ-1000A, but also exports to Russia, Ukraine and other countries. In the process of improving the PD-26, the Russian side purchased samples of the DD10 alloy from China to test the performance of high-pressure turbine sheets.
Innovation in manufacturing processes further consolidates the strength. China Naval Group uses 3D printing technology to manufacture the CJ-1000A’s combustion chamber, reducing the number of parts from 120 to 35, reducing weight by 40%, and reducing the production cycle by 60%. The five-axis connective processing center developed by Shanghai Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing General Factory can one-off precision processing of engine leaves, size error control within 0.005 mm, and processing accuracy far exceeds the equipment level of the Russian Joint Engine Company.
Factory technicians revealed that the Russian side has visited China's engine production line and has shown strong interest in the 3D printing process and hopes to develop technical cooperation.
Late advancement and reality obstacles
Inadequate technical maturity of the Russian side delays the cooperation process.PD-26 engines currently only complete 30% of the R&D work, and the failure rate of high-voltage turbine systems is still up to 8%, far above the 0.1% standard required by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Internal reports of the joint engine company show that even after the acceleration of development after the Putin war, the PD-26 will take until 2028 to obtain the certification of airworthiness by the Russian Civil Aviation Administration, while China's CJ-1000A plans to complete airworthiness testing by 2027, the lack of time has left the Russian side passive. According to China Commercial Airways’ assessment report, PD-26 is at high risk of maturity, and if the engine is selected, the delivery time of the CR929 passenger aircraft may be delayed by 1-2 years.
Just two weeks after Putin’s administration, the Russian Treasury Ministry announced a reduction of R&D funding for PD-26 by 5 billion rubles due to increased military spending, which forced the high-voltage turbine improvement project to be suspended. Officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation said in private that the uncertainty in the government’s budget makes it difficult for companies to develop long-term R&D plans, “we can’t guarantee that we can move forward with technology transfers as promised.”This policy has repeatedly made Chinese companies more inclined to rely on autonomous technologies than to look forward to Russian cooperation.
According to the market forecasts of the joint venture, if PD-26 fails to a technological breakthrough by 2027, exports to China in the next five years could be less than $1 billion, far below the initial expectation of $5 billion.
conclusion
From the PD-26 prototype of the joint engine company, to China's CJ-1000A test car; from Putin's on-site control, to the independent layout of China's industrial chain; from the gap in technical parameters, to the shift of market demand, the Russian side at this time to promote PD-26's technological opening up to China, although sincerely has missed the best time. The wave of autonomy in the Chinese aviation engine industry has irreversibly re-shaped the pattern of China-Russia cooperation, this delayed technological move may eventually become another footprint of the two sides from "technological dependence" to "reciprocal cooperation".
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