Published: 20 February, 2008, 16:01
Edited: 20 February, 2008, 16:01
President Vladimir Putin plans to give Russia's aviation industry a boost. He has unveiled plans to create a national aviation centre during a visit to the country's main design facility in the city of Zhukovsky.
Putin was accompanied on the visit by presidential candidate, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
It's planned that the centre will integrate management and design with production and testing.
It's hoped it will make Russian planes more competitive and win 15 % of the world market, which would mean building almost 6,000 new civil and military planes by 2025.
Both Putin and Medvedev inspected latest state-of-the-art planes such as the new Sukhoi jet fighter, the SU-35, and a Tupolev airliner.
And, lo and behold, Putin was in the pilot's seat with Medvedev as co-pilot – for now.