following the trend for wide-body airliners the soviet union at the height of the cold war attempted to imitate its western rivals by way of the illusion il-86 a machine which possessed many distinct qualities and even spawned a lineage of derivative airliners but ultimately failed to see any major use outside its native ussr due to a variety of construction and performance faults by the time development began on the il-86 back in the late 1960s the concept of wide-body airliners wasn't a new one having first seen mutterings as early as 1946 with the innovative but unsuccessful bristol brabazon before seeing major investment during the following two decades amid the rise of the jet age with aircraft manufacturers on both sides of the iron curtain pouring significant amounts of capital into their respective projects while america and europe busied themselves with the upcoming boeing 747 douglas dc-10 lockheed tristar and airbus a300 the soviet union considered a more cost-effective method through okb 153 a design bureau led by oleg antonov which would answer the call of the soviet union's demand for a wide body airliner as specified by the pollock bureau to the ministry of civil aviation which would be delivered under a project called aerobus possessing 350 seats and a range of 1900 nautical miles with a 40 ton payload or 3100 nautical miles with seats taken but no freight the prospective model also been capable of landing at an airport with an 8 500 foot runway and poor infrastructural conditions designated class b airfields antonov's proposal under okb 153 was to reuse the airframe of the antonov an-22 military transport the largest turboprop aircraft ever built the intention being for this civilian variant to carry 724 passengers across two internal decks although this scheme was ultimately abandoned in 1969 as the turboprop design was considered old-fashioned when compared to the prevailing trend for jets as was demonstrated through the release of the boeing 747 during the same year a double-deck airliner that immediately took the aviation world by storm and introduced air travel to the mass market followed in 1971 by the douglas dc-10 tri-jet the lockheed l-1011 in 1972 and the airbus a300 twin jet of 1974 each of which rewrote the layout of global transport patterns with the failure of the antonov an22 based project an alternative was sought under bureau okb 240 which was spearheaded by the aircraft manufacturer ilyushin who after losing much of their market strength to rivals chipotle antonov during the 1960s was granted the aero bus project on september 8 1969 by aeroflot followed by specific operational requirements for the upcoming airliner on february 22nd 1970. the illusion model was initially to be based on the existing il-62 and would have comprised a 30-ton payload 259 seats and a 22 foot long fuselage essentially taking pointers from the douglas dc-8 super 60 series which enlarged the overall design of that model in order to improve capacity while other proposed il-62 modifications included a double-deck design and even the possibility of having two fuselages side by side though none of these ideas left the drawing board amidst considerations as to a possible civilian variant of the il-76 military transport aircraft in march 1970 it was decided by the okb 240 bureau that the new il-86 would be based on a completely bespoke platform replacing the appropriate technology approach of the il-62 with innovative powered controls complex high lift devices and advanced automation which would reduce the number of flight deck crew with an early avant project scale model being shown at an exhibition in moscow on may 17 1971 one of the major hurdles for the il-86 to overcome was the requirement to serve class b airfields where aside from an endemic need for a strong landing gear and airframe in order to operate onto rough largely unpaved or improvised runways and taxiways the aircraft also had to accommodate the fact that many of these airports had little to no infrastructure for the service of large jet airliners including air stairs gate and baggage handling facilities the result was a somewhat unique self-loading system whereby a hydraulically powered set of stairs extended out of its own door in the lower fuselage and connected directly into the passenger cabin while beneath the cabin floor was a self-service baggage area in which items of luggage could be stowed by the passengers themselves thereby circumventing the problem of airports where no baggage handling or gate facilities existed while the il-86 is extremely wide fused large diameter of 19.9 feet wider even than the boeing 747 meant passengers were allowed full standing headroom within the underfloor luggage compartment the airliner having the second widest fuselage on a passenger aircraft behind the boeing 777. satisfied with the concept the bureau was allowed to proceed with the project on march 9 1972 although debate existed as to the configuration of the aircraft including the potential for a clean winged rear engine t-tail configuration that matched the likes of the vickers vc-10 and illusion il-62 as well as the unfinished bac311 concept while other proposals including a high wing monoplane with engines in pods akin to the boeing b-47 stratojet strategic bomber and low-wing monoplane with pod engines like the boeing 747 were dismissed on grounds of political inconvenience while the attitude of the soviet government forbade high-ranking party members from openly expressing their true thoughts on western aeronautical designs in reality soviet engineers had been quietly meeting with american and european designers in paris during the late 1960s including most notably joe sutter chief project engineer for the boeing 747 and bob whittington a senior engineer who was deeply involved in boeing's supersonic transport or sst program these meetings being undertaken as part of a government-sanctioned technology exchange between boeing and the soviet union where in design aspects for the 747 including the engine configuration were traded for information from soviet engineers as to the processing and use of titanium in airframes which would help inform the development of the proposed boeing 2707 sst based on these trade meetings the overall direction of the il-86 project was to have a low wing monoplane design with four pod mounted engines although this gave rise to another issue as to an appropriate power plant the western aviation industry having developed has an improvement over the smaller turbojet engines used on the initial batch of transcontinental airliners like the boeing 707 and douglas dc-8 power units which had a larger cross-section that could adequately provide cruising speeds and climb rates regardless of the aircraft's increased size and heavier payload for the soviet union no such power plant existed the most advanced engine available in their arsenal being the salaviyev d30 from the illusion il-76 which was originally intended for the il-86 but was found to have insufficient thrust thereby forcing the design team after a three-year period of unsuccessful testing with the d30 to utilize the more archaic kuznetov nk8 series engine from the il-62 this power plant much like the d-30 sporting incredibly high fuel consumption and noise subsequently the soviet union's drive to input the highest levels of technology into the il-86 only serve to illustrate how far behind the west the communist nation was with contemporary airliners which were in themselves considered advanced having a five-man flight crew including two pilots a flight engineer a radio operator and a navigator thereby forcing the il-86 project to develop new forms of flight instrumentation and avionics which would allow for a three-man operation akin to western rivals a time-consuming process which delayed the overall project completion the biggest problem though was a lack of manufacturing space as with the soviet union being almost exclusively a militaristic regime determined to place all of its resources and materials into armed forces that could match the western powers in the event of war there were few if any possible facilities where the il-86 could be manufactured in suitable numbers to meet any potential customer demand eventually forcing the design team to look outside their native ussr and instead call upon the production floor space of factories in poland as the nation illustrated the most advanced aircraft building facilities within the eastern bloc initially the soviet government had wanted the il-86 to be delivered for 1980. as controversially in october 1974 moscow had been announced to have won the bid to host the summer olympics during that year with the new wide-body jet airliner expected to be the star attraction of the ussr's technological might when compared to its rivals in the west but despite this ambitious completion date progression of the il-86 project continued to be sluggish as the nation's own lack of advanced tooling and avionics tracked it down fearing that the entire scheme may never see completion hope potentially came in march 1974 when as part of a promotional world tour the lockheed l-1011 tristar arrived in moscow and through a discussion with lockheed's management who were desperate to get their delayed and commercially struggling try jet into the fleets of airlines the soviet government agreed to purchase 30 l-1011s for national carrier aeroflot while also allowing for 100 tri-stars to be built under license within the soviet union that would be sold among the states of the ussr but before any of these proposals came to pass in 1976 newly elected american president jimmy carter placed an embargo on the sale of advanced technology by the united states to countries involved in human rights violations and with the soviet union being the perceived main culprit lockheed was forced to scrap the deal at the same time illusion's design team attempted to develop a suitable power plant through western technology in order to improve the performance of the il-86 including the reverse engineering of a captured rolls-royce mean power unit and the possibility of buying rolls-royce rb-211 power plants before eventually being forced to sign a deal to import 12 general electric cf-650 engines from the mcdonnell douglas dc-10 although once again under jimmy carter's new foreign policy against the ussr this deal was dissolved in 1978. in the end the first il-86 prototype made its maiden flight on december 22nd 1976 during which the many underperforming aspects of the design were brought to bear and thus required the potential implementation of western technology in order to allow the gigantic airliner to fly in a manner that was competitive with u.s and
european wide-body jets the aircraft sporting a cruising speed of 541 miles an hour and a range of 2 700 nautical miles while the rival boeing 747 200 had a cruising speed of 583 miles an hour and a range of 6560 nautical miles the douglas dc-10 had a cruising speed of 584 miles an hour and a range of 5200 nautical miles and the airbus a300 had a cruising speed of 517 miles an hour and a range of 4050 nautical miles where the aircraft was competitive though was with its passenger accommodation its wide fuselage giving rise to nine abreast seating which in a single class configuration could carry 350 passengers while the rival 747 200 could carry 498 passengers the dc-10 could carry 399 passengers and the airbus a300 could carry 345 passengers notwithstanding this while certification flights for the il-86 ended in june 1977 followed by the conclusion of test flights in october 1978 acceptance trials didn't begin until april 1979 lasting until december 1980 four months after the end of the moscow olympics and after over a decade of planning development and fine-tuning the aircraft's sensitive mechanics the first commercial flight of an illusion il-86 took place on boxing day of that year flying from moscow to tashkent in uzbekistan before a full deployment of the il-86s began from february 1 1981 with soviet national carrier aeroflot however due to the il-86's inherent problem of range this wide-body champion of soviet aeronautical engineering would end up being essentially a glorified domestic airliner unable to operate on aeroflot's long-range flights to asia and other regions in the heart of the ussr without requiring stopovers the airliner instead being put to work on high-intensity commuter corridors between moscow and leningrad volgograd alma atta in kazakhstan warsaw in poland and shernafeld airport in east berlin at the same time despite the icy relations between the soviet union and the western powers the il-86 was no stranger to operating into the catalyst nations of europe including greece france the netherlands finland and sweden while in order to allow for multi-lake flights between soviet russia and the communist resort of havana cuba il-86 is operated via shannon in western ireland and gander in newfoundland with additional holiday flights being added to buenos aires montevideo lima rio de janeiro and sao paulo or via sal in the cape verde islands as mentioned due to a lack of building capacity in russia itself work was outsourced to the polish aircraft industry in order to build the il-86 but production of these airliners was sporadic at best with only one aircraft produced in 1980 followed by no new units during 1981 and then 11 units in 1982 the overall assembly of the aircraft being split among poland's many aircraft building companies including wsk milec and pzl although due to labor and political unrest in poland from 1980 onwards work to construct the wings that was originally to be outsourced to pzl was done by the voronez factory in moscow regarding the il-86's potential sales prospects due to the centralized nature of the soviet union's asset supply and allocation airlines such as aeroflot lots of poland interflog of east germany and the soviet air force were allocated a set number of units by the council for mutual economic assistance or comic-con the government body tasked with providing both russia itself and its soviet states with economic assistance and therefore rather than being allowed to purchase the il-86 as corporate bodies independent of the soviet government comic-con would supply units directly with aeroflot examples being divided among the many regional aspects of the wider authority while eastern bloc carriers such as lot and interflog were allocated a set number of il-86s each of these carriers deferred the delivery of these aircraft until such time as they could purchase more advanced alternatives from the west lot taking on the boeing 767 200 er from 1989 while interflog purchased two airbus a310s the only successful exports of the il-86 being in 1990 when three were purchased by china xinjiang airlines in the end only 106 il-86s were constructed by the time the soviet union was dissolved at the end of 1991 and although a five-year plan by the newly formed russian federation demanded that at least 40 additional aircraft be produced by the middle of the decade the assembly plant in poland was shut down in early 1992 and with more advanced western models now openly available for use there was little to no incentive to restart production of this severely flawed aircraft this isn't entirely the end of the story for russia's wide-body airliners though as despite the poor reputation of the il-86 developments in higher performance turbo jet engines to replace the archaic low bypass units of the 1950s and 60s which have been fitted to the underperforming illusion have regressed to the point that power units were now available that could match western equivalents the loratev d18t of 1980 being the earliest example which made its debut on the antonov an-124 ruslan military transport and later the antonov an225 maria outsized cargo aircraft as work in the ussr for modified power units continued a design bureau was established to create a long-range variant of the il-86 called the il-86d the concept of which had begun as early as 1972 without much progress due to the lack of a suitable high bypass turbofan engine the il-86d being designed to include a marginally extended wingspan an enlarged fuel tank and an improved range of 4600 nautical miles although a later 1975 proposal fitted with modified loratev d18 engines could potentially have extended the range to 5500 nautical miles falling dormant in the latter half of the 1970s the il-86d project was revived in 1985 as the il-96 which essentially took the il-86's overall platform and fitted it with experimental aviar vigatel ps92 shaft turbofan engines while the fuselage of the aircraft was shortened by 5 meters giving it a capacity of 300 passengers in a 9 a breast seating configuration although unlike the il-86 the aircraft would not sport its own air stairs or self-service luggage handling system which in practice had been rarely used on the il-86 taking its first flight in september 1988 continued testing and the fallout of the soviet union's collapse meant the airliner's entry into service was delayed until december 19 1992 whereupon the first models began work with national airline aeroflot on long-haul flights to new york but also across the vast russian nation serving destinations such as petropavlos kamchatki on the remote kamchatka cry of the pacific rim and vladivostok near the chinese border the il-96 however despite being a far more advanced aircraft than the il-86 still failed to truly sell in profitable numbers due to its performance being comparatively lackluster against western equivalents like the airbus a340 and boeing 777. the il-96 presenting a range of 6200 nautical miles a cruise speed of miles an hour and a capacity of 300 passengers while the boeing 777 200 had a range of 7065 nautical miles a cruise speed of 587 miles an hour and a capacity of 313 passengers and the airbus a340 300 had a range of 7 300 nautical miles a cruise speed of 567 miles an hour and a capacity of 335 passengers to try and improve the performance and capacity of the il-96 to make it more attractive a selection of derivative designs were made including a stretched variant dubbed the il-96m which extended the fuselage by 10 meters to accommodate 340 passengers and was fitted with highly advanced avionics supplied by boeing and pratt whitney pw 2000 engines from the boeing 757 to improve performance and range the il96m giving rise to a freighter variant based off the same platform dubbed the il96t however the development of the il96m and 96t variants sparked a major controversy in june 1995 where pending approval for a financing package by the u.s export import bank a contract worth 1.5 billion
was signed for the acquisition of 10 il-96ts and 10 il-96ms between 1996 and 1999 by aeroflot but upon the approval for this loan in early 1996 boeing who intended to sell brand new boeing 737 400s to aeroflot strongly objected to the deal due to a conflict of interest regarding the use of boeing technology within the il-96m resulting in a class-action lawsuit that saw the deal revised to replace 10 of the il-96s with 737 400 at a cost of 440 million dollars while also being granted a tax exemption by the russian government although the proposed financing deal was blocked again in 1998 when four boeing 767 300 ers also ordered by aeroflot were not included in the accorded exemption and was subsequently added stripping down the il-96 order by aeroflot to just five units overall with this production of the il-96 regardless of its improved variance was vanishingly small with at most three units being produced per year while sales for the airliner were exclusively among the nations of the former soviet union and its allies national carrier of communist cuba giovanna de aviation taking on five units with the option of an additional three in order to work transatlantic flights to moscow and madrid amid the sluggish sales of the il-96 and the aged and underwhelming technology of the il-86 aeroflot opted to retire the latter in 2006 and the former in 2014 replacing them with airbus and boeing models while the il-86 as once the proud face of soviet airliner technology has practically disappeared from the skies with only three units known to still be airworthy with the russian air force as for the il-96 this aircraft is still technically in production despite the last unit having been delivered in 2017 with plans in the works to introduce a highly efficient twin jet variant of the type from 2025 although in terms of working examples only 15 of these airliners are known to be airworthy the only commercial operator of the type being kubana while the rest are either in service with the russian government or aircraft building and technology firms like illusion and vaso nevertheless while the il-86 and il-96 were machines largely overlooked for their archaic technology and fragmented production as of 2021 no passenger lives have been lost aboard either of these aircraft although so far 10 il-86s and one il-96 have been involved in accidents five of which resulted in hull losses and cumulatively caused the deaths of 23 non-passenger occupants the first fatal accident involving the il-86 took place on march 8 1994 at delhi indira gandhi international airport in india when as an aeroflot il-86 was parked at the main terminal a sahara india boeing 737-200 under the command of a trainee pilot performing touch and go maneuvers lost control shortly after takeoff banked sharply and slammed into the apron next to the terminal building resulting in the deaths of all four crew aboard that airliner while flaming debris from the crash 737 ignited the il-86 which caused the death of two aeroflot employees a russian ground engineer and an airport worker when the airliner burned down the second and latest fatal crash of the il-86 occurred on july 28 2002 when pulcovo aviation enterprise flight 9560 a repositioning flight from moscow to st petersburg with only the flight crew aboard crashed shortly after takeoff due to the trim toggle button on the control column causing a spontaneous re-trimming of the tail plane rapidly transitioning to a nose-heavy trim and sending the plane into an unrecoverable dive killing four flight deck crew two ground support staff and ten cabin crew aboard while two injured cabin crew members survived for the il-96 while there have been no fatal accidents involving this airliner in 2005 russia indefinitely grounded the il-96300 variant after transport inspectors pointed out malfunctions in the jets braking systems coming just weeks after a technical glitch aboard the russian presidential aircraft of premier vladimir putin was withdrawn at the last minute during a state visit to finland while the only il-96 to be written off occurred following a fire aboard a retired aeroflot example in storage at moscow sheramtievo airport on june 3 2014. to summarise the il-86 and il-96 were aircraft that had many endearing features to their concepts and could indeed have been successful airliners equivalent to the american and european models had the soviet union matched its counterparts in terms of technology the economic malaise of the ussr during the 1970s and 80s combined with its fanatical drive to match the western powers in military might meaning that any hope for these two airliners as commercially viable alternatives was lost before it had even begun bringing about a short and inauspicious career for the soviet union's wide body jetliners you
2022-02-01