No Longer Secret: Russian Aerospace Technology For Sale

ZHUKOVSKY, Russia - For more than 50 years, foreigners were not allowed to see the technology that flourished in this city of Soviet aerospace research. Today Victor Tyurin wants to sell it to them.

This is the home of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, known as Tsagi, where the Soviets developed and tested aircraft technology from the early designs of aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky to the Buran space shuttle.

Tsagi was always at the center of the Soviet defense effort - in both the arms race and the space race - and became accustomed to 100 percent financing by the government. Today it is at the center of the post-Cold War weaning of the Russian economy from its dependence on the military-industrial complex.

Since so much of Russia's industrial production has been dedicated to the military, the success of the conversion is crucial to the painful economic reforms being carried out by Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Self-sufficiency presents an especially difficult challenge for the 2,000 scientists who work at Tsagi, an enterprise dedicated primarily to research and development. Aside from testing aircraft, what can be done with one of the world's biggest collections of sophisticated wind tunnels and aerospace test facilities?

"We face enormous problems with cutbacks in the military," said Tyurin, the commercial director of Tsagi. The institute has avoided layoffs so far, but roughly 20 percent of its work force has left.

Tsagi has a long and proud history dating from 1926, when its first wind tunnel was built in the institute's original facility in Moscow - still in use in an old industrial corner of the city.

Tsagi has been involved in virtually all of the Soviet Union's aeronautical advances, including the highly maneuverable MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter planes, the Ilyushin-96-300 passenger plane and the Buran space shuttle.

A museum on the premises recounts the history of Soviet aviation, dating back to the first biplanes invented by Sikorsky - who later emigrated to the United States .

Zhukovsky, named after N.Y. Zhukovsky, the Russian aerospace engineer who founded it, is a scientific city nestled in rolling meadows 15 miles south of Moscow. About a third of its families have members employed by Tsagi, whose 10,000 workers make an average of 3,000 to 4,000 rubles a month, roughly twice the average Russian salary.

In a society where so much seems to be falling apart, the aerodynamic beauty of the vast wind tunnels is a testament to the extent to which the Soviets poured money into military resources at the expense of virtually everything civilian - consumer goods, infrastructure, environmental protection.

Tsagi wants to use its technology for civilian purposes, selling time in its tunnels to aerospace companies - especially those paying in hard currency - that can use them more cheaply than they can similar facilities in the United States or Europe.

The Boeing Co. has already signed a contract to conduct aircraft tests in Tsagi's sophisticated transonic wind tunnel - unique in the world because its walls can be adapted for different-sized aircraft.

More clients are needed, however, and despite the uniqueness of some of its facilities, Tsagi faces a great challenge in seeking business abroad.

"Tsagi's problem is that with the military build-down, there is a glut on worldwide testing capability," said Dennis Bushnell, a wind-tunnels expert who is associate chief of the fluid mechanics division of NASA in Langley, Va. "Everybody is trying to do what Tsagi is trying to do - get civilian work in devices built for military purposes."

"Russia has a plus on its side because the labor rates are so low, but a minus on its side, because the mating dance of getting to know them and trust them is slow," he said. "But I'd like to see them successful. They're excellent scientists who have done excellent work."

Until enough aviation business is generated for it to be self-sufficient, Tsagi has had to be creative to keep its work force productive - and some of its ideas are not so popular with world-class aerospace scientists.

A furnace specially designed for testing parts of the Buran shuttle for heat resistance has been sold to furniture makers for drying wood. Tsagi purchased Italian shoe-making equipment to set up a shoe factory nearby. Some divisions are manufacturing computers and wall covering. The concern has also signed agreements with local collective farms for some of its workers to do food processing while the aviation business is slow.

"We tell them their old work places are reserved for them," Tyurin said. "This is not guaranteed, but they are somewhat socially protected. They still feel like they will work for aviation."

Tsagi officials are not particularly proud of having aerospace engineers working on wall covering, but it has helped avoid layoffs and is seen only as a stopgap. "We want to have the conversion in our sphere - aviation science," Tyurin said.