Ilyushin Il-86
| Il-86 | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| An Aeroflot Il-86 at Sheremetyevo International Airport in 2003 | |
| Role | Wide-body airliner |
| Design group | Ilyushin |
| Built by | Voronezh Aircraft Production Association |
| First flight | December 22, 1976 |
| Introduction | 1980 |
| Retired | 2011 (Civilian) |
| Status | Only military service |
| Primary users |
Aeroflot (Former) Siberia Airlines (Former) Kras Air (Former) Donavia (Former) |
| Produced | 1976–1995 |
| Number built | 106 |
| Developed into | Ilyushin Il-96 |
The Ilyushin Il-86 (Russian: Илью́шин Ил-86; NATO reporting name: Camber) is a short/medium-range wide-body jet airliner. It was the USSR's first wide-body and the world's second four-engined wide-body. Designed and tested by the Ilyushin design bureau in the 1970s, it was certified by the Soviet aircraft industry, manufactured and marketed by the USSR.
The Il-86 was the penultimate Soviet-era airliner to be designed (preceding its sister model the Il-96, which first flew in 1988). Developed during the Leonid Brezhnev era, which was marked by stagnation in many sectors of Soviet industry, the Il-86 used engines more typical of the 1960s, spent a decade in development, and failed to enter service in time for the Moscow Olympics, as was originally intended. The type was used by Aeroflot and successor post-Soviet airlines and only three of the total 106 examples were exported. In service, it gained recognition as a safe and reliable model with no fatal incidents during three decades of passenger-carrying operations.
At the beginning of 2012, only four Il-86s remained in service, all with the Russian Air Force.
In the mid-1960s, the United States and Western Europe planned airliners seating twice the then-maximum of some 200 passengers. They were known as airbuses at the time. The Soviet leadership wanted to match them with an aerobus (Russian: аэробус). Alongside the propaganda motive, the USSR genuinely needed an aerobus. Aeroflot expected over 100 million passengers a year within a decade (the 100th million annual passenger was indeed carried on 29 December 1976.)
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