Boeing Plans to Open Moscow Research Center : Aerospace: The firm wants to tap the expertise of Russian engineers and scientists, who are recognized for their technical capabilities.

Boeing Co. has decided to get the edge on its competitors by hiring Russian scientists and engineers to work at a new research center it plans to open in Moscow, Boeing officials said Thursday.

“Douglas (Aircraft Co.) has really taken a beating from Airbus (Industries),” said Benjamin A. Cosgrove, senior vice president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group in Seattle. “I do not want for Boeing to become the GM of the ‘90s, so we’ve got to make our airplanes better and better. And (Russian scientists) have technology that could make our airplanes better.”

Airbus, a European consortium, has made substantial inroads into the world jetliner market during the last decade, severely eroding the market share held by McDonnell Douglas and forcing its Douglas Aircraft division in Long Beach to seek foreign investors.

Company officials did not provide specifics but generally praised Russian materials and technological research. The Russians, who were part of a once-huge secretive Soviet aerospace industry, are recognized for their technical capabilities in aerodynamics and materials, though they are significantly behind the United States and Europe in cockpit electronic systems.

Cosgrove and Anatoly G. Bratukhin, director general of the aviation department of the Russian Ministry of Industry, signed an agreement Thursday on the “establishment of a Boeing Research Center in the Moscow area.” If all goes as planned, Cosgrove said, the center will be operating by early next year.

Cooperation with the U.S. aviation industry is also key to Russia’s aerospace industry, because it, like most industries here, is suffering as the country makes the tough transition from a centrally planned economy to one based on market forces of supply and demand.

Despite a long history of technology secrecy, one reason Russian officials are now willing to cooperate with Boeing is because they are eager to slow the “brain drain” of their country’s best scientists to the West. “This will strengthen our engineers and keep them in Russia,” Bratukhin said at a news conference.

Boeing decided to launch the project after the Russian-American summit in June. There, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin challenged American companies to start ventures in Russia to help support the country’s fledgling democracy, Cosgrove said.

Although there are risks in opening such a center, Boeing expects to profit from the expertise of the Russian engineers and scientists, Cosgrove said, adding: “We do not believe that the Russians were behind the barn doors when brains were passed out. Russians have great expertise in aerospace engineering. We are especially impressed by their mathematics.”

He declined to say how much money Boeing plans to invest or how many Russians will be hired. He said the center will be sizable, and its mission will be to study how to use Russian technology to improve Boeing jets.

One project the center may study is how lighter metals can be used in Boeing airliners to make them more fuel efficient. Russian engineers, for example, have used titanium instead of aluminum for landing gear, which cuts the weight by two-thirds, Cosgrove said.

Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian contributed to this report.