Aircraft Maintenance Technology - 31

Let's start with some history. Romania's
biggest aerospace company, was founded
in 1953, and changed names several times
before becoming Aerostar. It has been
a subsidiary of the Ministry of Armed
Forces and provided repair and maintenance services for all aircraft types used
by the Romanian military. The company
developed the IAR-93 twin-engine, tactical ground-attack and reconnaissance
aircraft, carried upgrade programs for
the MiG-21/29, which were developed
by Aerostar in cooperation with Israeli
Elbit Systems. Aerostar performed 110
upgrades to the Russian fighter for the
Romanian Air Force between 1995 and
2003. The project ended 15 years ago, but
25 MiG-21s are still in active service in
Romania and five of them require extensive overhaul every year. The support of
the Romanian MiG-21 and of those operated by other nations is still an important
part of Aerostar's business mix. Besides
this, Aerostar has produced three versions, over 1,800, of Yak-52 radial piston-engine-powered aircraft and has also
manufactured a sport aviation aircraft
called Festival.
Aerostar was privatized in February
2000. Aerostar PAS IAROM owns 71.09
percent of shares, the S.I.F Moldova (financial investment company) owns 11.13 percent, and others, 17.77 percent.
Aerostar has successfully shaken off the
dust of past times, and reinvented itself in
the past 20 years to be a reliable second
tier of the aerospace supply chain with
customers like GKN Aerospace and Airbus
unit Premium Aerotec.

DEFENSE ACTIVITIES
Aerostar's defense activity was strong during the country's political and economic
transition and is considerable today; actually, Aerostar plans to increase its defense
business. Currently, defense accounts for
between 17 to 20 percent of Aerostar's
business, and according to Grigore Filip,
president and general director, the aim is
to get to around 25 percent.
The MiG Lancer program was launched
in 1990, and at the time, it had a lifetime

integrated logistics support so that the
Romanian Air Force pilots were able to
perform their missions.
Currently, Aerostar's defense business
includes mainly military MRO, which

expectancy of 10 years - but next year
it will be 25 years in service since the
prototype flew. Aerostar is proud that
during this time period it succeeded
in providing MRO and all services and

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Aircraft Maintenance Technology

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