Ilyushin Il-86
Encyclopedia
The Ilyushin Il-86 (NATO reporting name
: Camber) is a 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 second to last Soviet-era airliner to be designed (preceding the Il-96, which flew for the first time in 1988). Developed during the Leonid Brezhnev
era, which was marked by stagnation in many sectors of Soviet industry, the Il-86 had engines more typical of the 1960s, spent a decade in development and failed to enter service in time for the Moscow Olympics, as originally intended. Only 106 were built. The type was used by Aeroflot
and successor post-Soviet airlines and only three were exported. In service, it gained recognition as a very safe and reliable machine.
At the beginning of 2011, just 6 Il-86s remained in service, four of them with the Russian Air Force
.
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 . 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.)
First to respond was OKB-153
, the bureau led by Oleg Antonov
. It proposed a 724-seat version of the An-22
airlifter. The project was promoted until 1969, ultimately with a 605-passenger interior (383 on the upper deck and 223 on the lower). It did not go ahead due to fears that it would be old-fashioned and because the Kiev
-based bureau was close to the deposed Nikita Khrushchev
.
Many Soviet airports also had surfaces too weak for "aerobuses". The Soviet solution again favoured adapting aircraft to existing conditions, rather than reconstructing airports. The aerobus thus had to match the ground loadings of existing airliners. This called for complex multi-wheel landing gear
.
Taking suitcases into the cabin, as in trains, was studied, but necessitated a 3 m fuselage extension with a 350-seat capacity. To avoid this, passengers were to deposit their luggage in underfloor compartments as they entered the airliner.
Ideas similar to the "luggage at hand system" were briefly addressed in the West. Airbus
studied such an arrangement in the mid-1970s,. Lockheed
implemented it into the L-1011 TriStar in 1973 at the request of Pacific Southwest Airlines
(who used the baggage compartment as an entertainment lounge) and possibly also to suit potential Soviet buyers (see below).
s) with a 40-tonne
payload or 5,800 km/3,100 nmi with seats taken but no freight. The airliner had to operate from smaller airports (classified as Klass "B" and "V" [Russian: класс "Б", "В"] or "Class B/C" by the Soviets) 2,600 m (8,500 ft
) runways.
In the second half of the 1960s, OKB-240 (as the Ilyushin bureau was formally known) was restoring positions lost (with Yakovlev, in favour of Tupolev and Antonov) during the Khrushchev era and was well placed to secure design of the aerobus. When the Soviet cabinet's defence industry committee promoted the Aeroflot specification on September 8, 1969 to a preliminary project, (Russian: аванпроект; transliterated: avanproyekt), it entrusted it to Ilyushin. The bureau received specific operational requirements for the aerobus on February 22, 1970.
In developing the concept which had been agreed, Ilyushin faced four challenges: configuration (layout or "shape"), powerplant, automation (avionics) and manufacturing capacity.
(the Il-62-250) would have had a 30-tonne payload, 259 seats and a 6.8 metre/22 ft longer fuselage
: a virtual analogue
of the Douglas
DC-8 "Super Sixty" series. Other proposed Il-62 modifications involved double-deck and "two fuselages side-by-side" developments. There was also a project to "civilianise" the Il-76
.
From March 1970 the bureau developed all-new designs under the Il-86 designation. Instead of the "appropriate technology
" approach of the Il-62, these designs were to have powered controls, complex high-lift device
s and advanced automation which would reduce the number of flightdeck crew.
An early avanproyekt was shown to the Soviet leadership at an exhibition of civil aviation innovations at Vnukovo-2 Airport near Moscow on May 17, 1971. A scale model with the designation of "Il-86" showed the "self-loading" concept with integral boarding stairs, below-deck luggage stores, and below-deck midships galley
. It had a twin-aisle interior with nine-abreast seating in a "3-3-3" layout. Ilyushin considered it politic to make the interior wider than any planned airliner except the Boeing 747. The 6.08 m (19.9 ft) fuselage diameter was partly dictated by the need to provide standing room in the underfloor luggage compartments. It remained the second-widest airliner interior until the Airbus A380
.
On this basis, on 9 March 1972, the bureau was asked to proceed with detailed design. The difference between the 1971 model and the eventual Il-86 was in configuration: the model had looked like an Il-62. At that time, the Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI
) favoured the clean-winged, rear-engined, T-tailed configuration for airliners. The BAC Three-Eleven and BAC
/CASA
/MBB
Europlane projects had similar configurations.
jet aircraft was a politically sensitive issue in the USSR. Aircraft designer Leonid Selyakov states this of the underwing-engine US-pioneered layout which gradually became standard for jet airliners: "The configuration of the В-47
, taken on strength by the US Air Force ... brought forth a veritable storm of critical opinions from [Soviet] aviation scientists. Responsible TsAGI officials and industry leaders robustly called that aircraft 'utter nonsense' (similar opinions were expressed of the Boeing 747)."
Similar controversies were known in Western aeronautical circles but typified Soviet dogma
tism which held that problems had immutable, "scientifically-correct"
solutions.
Ilyushin therefore had to stress that it had first in the world used podded engines suspended from pylons beneath and ahead of the wing, on the experimental Il-22
four-engined jet bomber of 1946 (first use of this designation). Having thus been presented the Il-86's ultimate configuration as indigenously Soviet, the bureau could at last show it in public in 1973, six years after publication of the aerobus specification and four years after the design assignment. A modern six-window flightdeck followed, in place of the 18-to-20 window glazing of the Il-18
, Il-62 and Il-76.
had turbofans with bypass ratio
s of 4 or 5 to 1. The first Soviet large turbofan, the Lotarev D-18T, did not appear before the mid-1980s. The Soloviev D-30
, originally intended for the Il-86, was the most advanced Soviet civil aeroengine
. It had a bypass ratio of 2.4 to 1 and aerodynamic clamshell thrust reversers. It failed to attain the required thrust, however: "only after the lapse of three years that were spent on preparing the advanced development project did it become clear that these engines would not provide the necessary take-off performance." The less-advanced Kuznetsov NK-8
series engine, adopted on March 26, 1975, had a bypass ratio of 1.15 to 1 and drag-inducing grilles over its cascade thrust reversers. Both these engines had high specific fuel consumptions and were noisy
. Being ultimate developments of smaller engines, they could not offer growth to future Il-86s.
nology principles (more automation, less human input), showed that Soviet science lagged behind in the development of avionics which would remove the need for navigators and radio operators. A programme of avionics development was mounted to enable the Il-86 to operate in most weathers with a three-member flight crew, matching Western technology of the time.
similar to the Li-2
deal of the 1930s. This would have delayed Il-86 development, since the programme would have been demoted to a reserve status. The second direction was to import individual systems and items. This would have speeded Il-86 development. The fact that Il-86 development was protracted indicates that for long periods the programme was pursued as backup insurance in case wholesale technology transfer failed.
had flown, a Ministry of Civil Aviation delegation visited the USA for a series of detailed sales presentations on the type lasting three days. At the 1971 Paris Salon, Ilyushin bureau head Genrikh Novozhilov and Boeing's Joe Sutter
are claimed to have arranged an informal technology trade-off
. Over supper in a Paris
restaurant, the Soviet side is claimed to have ceded information on titanium
technology to the Americans, while the latter, "sketching on the tablecloth," ceded information on "the structural and aerodynamic amity of the aeroelastic
wing." Soviet interest in buying the 747s continued until the end of détente
in the late 1970s.
At the peak of détente, on March 11, 1974, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar arrived in Moscow for three days of sales presentations and demonstrations. The TriStar matched the Il-86 in size and performance and had development potential. Negotiations to buy 30 TriStars of the L-1011-385-250 version and licence-produce up to 100 a year in a new factory employing 80,000 people continued until mid-1976. Any residual will to export TriStars was scotched when US President Jimmy Carter
made human rights a US foreign policy
factor. TriStar exports would have needed Coordinating Committee
clearance: the type embodied advanced technology banned from potential enemies. In 1978, the US Department of Commerce vetoed export of 12 General Electric CF6-50
engines ordered by the USSR for planned long-range Il-86s.
of the Tu-4
from the B-29 and the copying of the Rolls-Royce Nene
jet engine as the Klimov VK-1
. Oblique reference to this comes in an account of the An-124 by the then-powerplant head of the Antonov bureau, V. G. Anisyenko: "The MAP leadership wanted to have a uniform large engine also capable of civil aviation applications, such as the Il-86. The most suitable analogue from this viewpoint was considered to be the Rolls-Royce RB.211-22. To purchase it, in 1976 a MAP procurement party went to Great Britain, headed by engine construction deputy minister Dondukov ... Our ultimate task was to copy the RB.211-22
, for which purpose we had to buy not fewer than eight examples ... The English ... would only sell us the engine in quantities ... to power no fewer than 100 aircraft. As a result, we did not get a sample ... "
The prototype flew at Khodynka
airfield (where Ilyushin's experimental factory was) on December 22, 1976 (Soviet airliners often flew before the close of calendar years due to the requirements of Five-Year Plans). It was announced that the type had a patented electromagnetic pulse deicing
system. which used 500 times less energy than conventional deicers. It is claimed that over 50 new technological processes were introduced into Soviet practice as a result of the Il-86 programme.
The initial test programme was flown by Ilyushin staff, ending two months ahead of schedule on October 20, 1978. Other sources claim that these tests were completed on 22 September 1978. (According to a faster schedule announced at the time of the first flight, Ilyushin tests were to have ended in time for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 1977.) In-house testing involved speeds up to Mach 0.93 and bank angles up to 11 degrees greater than specified.
Initial certification flying by pilots independent of Ilyushin ended on June 6, 1977. State acceptance trials began on April 24, 1979 and ended on December 24, 1980. Certification by Gosaviaregistr SSSR [the USSR State Aviation Registry] was granted under certificate number 10-86. The Il-86 entered Aeroflot service on 26 December the same year. The service-entry deadline of summer 1980, announced by Minister of Civil Aviation Boris Bugayev in 1977 had passed, however, and the Il-86 missed the Moscow Olympics in the summer of 1980.
Overall development of the Il-86 occupied over a decade. The length of this period was due to the sensitivity of the airliner's configuration, problems with its powerplant, prolonged avionics development and the low priority of civil as opposed to military aircraft. In its earlier stages, the Il-86 programme was also held back by hopes of US airliner imports. Certificating the Il-86 to the very demanding set of Soviet and Comecon
standards called NLGS-2 also delayed progress; it was the first Soviet aircraft to undergo a full certification programme since certification was introduced in the USSR in 1967 and became mandatory five years later.
Beyond these initial examples, Ministry of Aircraft Manufacture ("MAP," "Minaviaprom") Factory 64 at Voronezh
(today VASO
) was tasked with building more than half of each Il-86 and performing final assembly. Three aircraft were assembled at Voronezh by 1979. The first (flown on October 25, 1977) was built largely by hand, subsequent machines making increasing use of production equipment. These aircraft were used in certification and development flying before handover to Aeroflot. Voronezh factory production engineers conducted a "redesign cycle" of over 50 areas, cutting some 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) of airframe weight.
to Poland: PZL
Amalgamation Mielec factory Director Jerzy Belczak said it involved “… a radical retooling of our enterprise” involving “over 50 new processes.” Observers noted that "work on the Il-86 will bring Poland's ... WSK-Mielec to a new level of capability ... in the manufacturing processes involved with an aircraft of this size, including titanium structures, chemical milling and the machining of integral panels."
By the mid-1980s, PZL was planned to produce half of the Il-86, including the entire wing, and also to work on Il-86 developments (“Now we are preparing to manufacture units for the next model of the Il wide-body plane,” according to Belczak). From May 1977, the Polish factory manufactured entire empennage
s including tailplane
s and the fin
, all control surfaces, high-lift devices and engine pylons for the Il-86, representing "about 16 per cent of these aircraft." Amid labour and political unrest in Poland from 1980, the Voronezh factory retained wing manufacture.
The Five-Year Plan in force when the USSR ceased to exist called for 40 more aircraft to be manufactured by 1994, but the manufacturing facility closed in early 1992.
Cantilever three-spar structure of modified trapezoid planform. Centre section integral with fuselage. Inboard sections, outboard sections and detachable leading and trailing edges. High-lift devices comprise full-span six-segment leading edge slats
(contiguous at engine pylons) at up to 17.5% of chord (drooping to 35°), two-segment fixed-vane double-slotted trailing edge flaps
occupying some 75% of the span (deploying to 40°) and five-segment spoilers (outboards used as spoileron
s at high speeds, inboards used as lift dumpers on the ground). Two-segment outboard ailerons for low speed roll control. Boundary layer
fences over pylons. Engines suspended from the wing on pylons act as anti-flutter weights. Trim range is 16-33% of mean aerodynamic chord.
and air-conditioned
with "earphones for music or on-board cinema."
main gear legs (centreline and two outers). Track is 9.9 m (/32 ft 5.5 in).
hourly fuel consumption per engine is 7.7 t (16,975 lb) at maximum continuous rated thrust, 6 t/13,230 lb at nominal maximum thrust, 5.1 t (11,243 lb) at 85% thrust, 4.2 t/9260 lb at 70%, 3.6 t (7,937 lb) at 60%, 2.45 t (5,400 lb) at 40% and 1 t (2,205 lb) at idle. Overall hourly fuel consumption at long-range cruise and 190 t (419,000 lb) is 9.75 t (21,495 lb) reducing to 7.79 t (17,174 lb) at 140 t (308,650 lb). Outboard engine pylons on the latter two-thirds of all Il-86s are marginally extended to cut drag.
A VSU-10 APU
generates power and heats/cools the interior on the ground, provides engine start air.
driven. An SAU-1T-2 automatic flight control system
offers assisted manual or automatic flight, with no manual option. Four independent hydraulic systems power all flight controls and the built-in airstairs. Fluid is to the NGZh, rather than AMG, formula.
inputs. GPS transceiver
s and TCAS fitted retrospectively during the 1990s. Pizhma-1 can be used throughout the flight from departure terminal area to landing and taxy to stand. Pizhma-1 has full-time roll and yaw dampers.
Airfield approach aids enable instrument landing system coupled approaches to ICAO Category II weather minima.
Other radio aids include VOR
and DME
receivers, a weather radar
and Warsaw Pact
identification aids. Cockpit voice recorder
s and flight data recorder
s standard.
Four GT-40PCh6 engine generators, the APU or ground sources supply 200/115 V, 400 Hz current to the primary system or two secondary systems (36 V/400 Hz AC and 27 V DC). Consumers include high-lift devices, tailplane trim, deicing, galley lift and interior services.
via Shannon
and Gander
, "perhaps with limited payload or with additional tankerage." Other scheduled long range services flown by the type were to Buenos Aires
, Montevideo
and Lima
, Rio de Janeiro
and Sao Paulo
, all via Sal Island.
in 1991, national airlines emerged in the 15 successor republics. Il-86s serving with Aeroflot administrations ("Directorates") in these nations accrued to their airlines and many were traded.
From April 2002, the European Union, the USA and much of the rest of the world banned noisier aircraft, including the Il-86. On October 23, 2006, Aeroflot Deputy Director General Igor Desyatnichenko said that the Il-86 was to be withdrawn from service starting November 15 that year as it operated for just two or three months in the summer."
In 1987 Radio Moscow reported that Aeroflot "resisted the change" to a three-person crew. Vul'fov, A, ibid., reports that the type continued to be operated by four-member crews. Navigators, occupying the observer seat (devoid of instrumentation), stood unsecured on final approach to oversee the pilots’ instruments and read-out indications (despite voice synthesizers being fitted). Soviet operations of the Tu-154 airliner similarly employed four or five flightdeck crew, despite foreign operators using three-person flightdeck crews.
In the event, four airframes (c/n 042, 043, 046 and 048, carrying quasi-civil registrations SSSR-86146, '7, '8 and '9) were delivered to the 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division at the Chkalovsky air base near Moscow. These are variously claimed to be designated Il-80, Il-82, Il-87 or Il-86VKP (Russian: “ВКП” for “воздушный командный пост”; transliterated: "vozdushniy komandnyi post" “veh-kah-peh” and meaning "aerial command post"). This version has the NATO reporting name
Maxdome.
and Gossnab
which controlled the entirety of planning and distribution in the USSR (except the black market). Built aircraft were allocated to Aeroflot regions and Soviet Air Force units as follows (in order of first acceptance): the Vnukovo Aviation Entreprise, 21; the TsUMVS Administration of International Air Communications centred on Sheremetyevo Airport, 22; the Tashkent
Air Enterprise, 9; the Sheremetyevo Air Enterprise, 10; the Pulkovo
Air Enterprise, 8; the Alma-Ata Air Enterprise, 8; the Chkalovsky
Soviet Air Force
Base 8 ADON (or 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division), 4; the Kol'tsovo Air Enterprise, 6; the Tolmachevo Air Enterprise, 6; the Erevan Air Enterprise, 2; the Yemelyanovo
Air Enterprise, 3.
Selling the Il-86 commercially (which under the Soviet system meant solely exports) was the job of the Soviet foreign trade organisation
V/O Aviaeksport. The division of responsibilities between the influential TsAGI research establishment, design bureaux (acting like naval architects) which designed aeroplanes, factories (independent of the bureaux) which constructed them, independent service facilities which repaired them and an independent organisation which marketed them alongside designs by all other bureaux, has been seen as diluting responsibility for the fate of a product.
As part of supply provisions within the Comecon, Lot
was allocated four Il-86s as barter
for component manufacture; the airline deferred deliveries which were cancelled by 1987. In 1988 the East German airline Interflug
is said to have prepared to take delivery of two Il-86s and to have allocated them the registrations DDR-AAA and DDR-AAB. Instead, that same year the airline took delivery of two Airbus A310
s. The sole export order for the Il-86 − and the sole commercial transactions involving factory-built rather than secondhand examples − was by China Xinjiang Airlines
which received three aircraft in 1990.
in 1977. It was noted that its interior used patented fire-resistant materials and hydraulics employed a fire-resistant fluid. At that time a version without the "luggage at hand" system was offered, seating 375 or alternatively weighing 3,000 kg (6,600 lb) less and having longer range. This version offered 7% lower seat-mile operational costs. The type was again displayed at Paris in 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1985, the Farnborough Air Show
in 1984 and other world air events.
records for flying payloads of 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 and 65 tonnes over a 2,000 km closed circuit at an average of 975.3 km per hour. Two days later, the same crew and machine set FAI records for flying payloads of 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75 and 80-tonne payloads over a 1,000 km closed circuit at an average of 962 km/h. Of these 18 records, one was broken by a Tu-144 in 1983, five were superseded or discontinued and 12 still stood in 2010.
, followed by calls in July 1983 on Hungary
and Czechoslovakia
. Potential buyers received no hard information on the type in advance. Little solid information was given during the sales calls: "constructor Novosilov side-stepped all questions [on fuel consumption] ... [the] chief pilot ... provided a measure of veiled explanation: 'The consumption of the Il-86 is not higher than that of the Il-18,' he said." While welcomed as “proof of friendship with the USSR,” these sales calls failed to attract orders. Observers tacitly noted that the aircraft marked a 10/15-year lag by Soviet civil aviation compared with the West.
engines. Designated Il-86V (second use of this designation), this would have had a range of over 9,000 km (4,860 nmi) and/or increased payload. Another 450-seater Il-86V powered by RB211-524G
engines was also projected. Amid the disintegration of the Soviet economy these versions did not progress.
In 1991, there were moves to fit the Il-86 with Franco-American CFM56-5C2 engines. Finances precluded progress. In 1995, International Aero Engines
offered the V2500 engine to five Il-86 operators with proposals to re-engine 25 aircraft. The offer was not taken up.
Former civil operators:
Former military operators:
The following are all significant recorded safety events involving the Il-86 to date:-
Following the Moscow crash in July 2002, the MAK Interstate Aviation Committee withdrew the Il-86's certificate of airworthiness, temporarily grounding the type. The certificate was rapidly restored in stages by early 2003. The accident prompted the Egyptian civil aviation authorities to attempt to ban Il-86 operations to Egypt. Amid continuing negotiations, by 2007 the intention had lapsed, with intensive Il-86 operations to and from Egypt continuing.
Sources:
NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...
: Camber) is a medium-range
Range (aircraft)
The maximal total range is the distance an aircraft can fly between takeoff and landing, as limited by fuel capacity in powered aircraft, or cross-country speed and environmental conditions in unpowered aircraft....
wide-body
Wide-body aircraft
A wide-body aircraft is a large airliner with two passenger aisles, also known as a widebody aircraft or twin-aisle aircraft. The typical fuselage diameter is . In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers...
jet airliner
Jet airliner
A jet airliner is an airliner that is powered by jet engines. This term is sometimes contracted to jetliner or jet.In contrast to today's relatively fuel-efficient, turbofan-powered air travel, first generation jet airliner travel was noisy and fuel inefficient...
. It was the USSR's first wide-body and the world's second four-engined wide-body. Designed and tested by the Ilyushin
Ilyushin
Open Joint Stock Company «Ilyushin Aviation Complex» , operating as Ilyushin or Ilyushin Design Bureau, is a Russian design bureau and aircraft manufacturer, founded by Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin. Ilyushin was established under the Soviet Union. Its operations began on January 13, 1933, by...
design bureau in the 1970s, it was certified by the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
aircraft industry, manufactured and marketed by the USSR.
The Il-86 was the second to last Soviet-era airliner to be designed (preceding the Il-96, which flew for the first time in 1988). Developed during the Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
era, which was marked by stagnation in many sectors of Soviet industry, the Il-86 had engines more typical of the 1960s, spent a decade in development and failed to enter service in time for the Moscow Olympics, as originally intended. Only 106 were built. The type was used by Aeroflot
Aeroflot
OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year...
and successor post-Soviet airlines and only three were exported. In service, it gained recognition as a very safe and reliable machine.
At the beginning of 2011, just 6 Il-86s remained in service, four of them with the Russian Air Force
Russian Air Force
The Russian Air Force is the air force of Russian Military. It is currently under the command of Colonel General Aleksandr Zelin. The Russian Navy has its own air arm, the Russian Naval Aviation, which is the former Soviet Aviatsiya Voyenno Morskogo Flota , or AV-MF).The Air Force was formed from...
.
Background
In the mid-1960s, the USA and Western EuropeWestern Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
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 . 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.)
First to respond was OKB-153
OKB
OKB is a transliteration of the Russian acronym for "Опытное конструкторское бюро" - Opytnoe Konstructorskoe Byuro, meaning Experimental Design Bureau...
, the bureau led by Oleg Antonov
Oleg Antonov
Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov was a Soviet aircraft designer, the founder of Antonov ASTC, a world-famous aircraft company in Ukraine, later named in his honour.-Early life:...
. It proposed a 724-seat version of the An-22
Antonov An-22
The Antonov An-22 Antei was the world's heaviest aircraft, until the advent of the American C-5 Galaxy and later the Soviet An-124. Powered by four pairs of contra-rotating turboprops, the design remains the world's largest turboprop-powered aircraft...
airlifter. The project was promoted until 1969, ultimately with a 605-passenger interior (383 on the upper deck and 223 on the lower). It did not go ahead due to fears that it would be old-fashioned and because the Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
-based bureau was close to the deposed Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
.
Concept
Many airports had terminals too small for "aerobuses". In the West, the solution to this involved constructing greater airport capacity. By contrast, Soviet aviation research institutes addressed ways of increasing passenger throughput without the need for additional airport capacity.Many Soviet airports also had surfaces too weak for "aerobuses". The Soviet solution again favoured adapting aircraft to existing conditions, rather than reconstructing airports. The aerobus thus had to match the ground loadings of existing airliners. This called for complex multi-wheel landing gear
Landing Gear
Landing Gear is Devin the Dude's fifth studio album. It was released on October 7, 2008. It was his first studio album since signing with the label Razor & Tie. It features a high-profile guest appearance from Snoop Dogg. As of October 30, 2008, the album has sold 18,906 copies.-Track...
.
The "Luggage at hand" system
The Soviet solution to the airport capacity issue involved passengers loading and unloading their own luggage into and from the aircraft. This was eventually called "the luggage at hand system" . Soviet aviation journalist Kim Bakshmi described it (at its ultimate) thus: "One arrives five minutes prior to departure, buys oneself a ticket on board the aircraft, hangs one's coat next to the seat and places one's bag or suitcase nearby.".Taking suitcases into the cabin, as in trains, was studied, but necessitated a 3 m fuselage extension with a 350-seat capacity. To avoid this, passengers were to deposit their luggage in underfloor compartments as they entered the airliner.
Ideas similar to the "luggage at hand system" were briefly addressed in the West. Airbus
Airbus
Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....
studied such an arrangement in the mid-1970s,. Lockheed
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
implemented it into the L-1011 TriStar in 1973 at the request of Pacific Southwest Airlines
Pacific Southwest Airlines
Pacific Southwest Airlines was a United States airline headquartered in San Diego, California, that operated from 1949 to 1988. It was one of the first large discount airlines in the United States and is considered a precursor to Southwest Airlines...
(who used the baggage compartment as an entertainment lounge) and possibly also to suit potential Soviet buyers (see below).
Formal aerobus programme launch
In October 1967, the Soviet government approved a Ministry of Civil Aviation (Aeroflot) specification for an aerobus. This called for 350 seats and a range of 3,600 km (1,900 nmiNautical mile
The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...
s) with a 40-tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
payload or 5,800 km/3,100 nmi with seats taken but no freight. The airliner had to operate from smaller airports (classified as Klass "B" and "V" [Russian: класс "Б", "В"] or "Class B/C" by the Soviets) 2,600 m (8,500 ft
Foot
The foot is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of one or more segments or bones, generally including claws...
) runways.
In the second half of the 1960s, OKB-240 (as the Ilyushin bureau was formally known) was restoring positions lost (with Yakovlev, in favour of Tupolev and Antonov) during the Khrushchev era and was well placed to secure design of the aerobus. When the Soviet cabinet's defence industry committee promoted the Aeroflot specification on September 8, 1969 to a preliminary project, (Russian: аванпроект; transliterated: avanproyekt), it entrusted it to Ilyushin. The bureau received specific operational requirements for the aerobus on February 22, 1970.
In developing the concept which had been agreed, Ilyushin faced four challenges: configuration (layout or "shape"), powerplant, automation (avionics) and manufacturing capacity.
Conceptual development
Ilyushin began work on the aerobus in late 1969, initially by assessing the development potential of existing aircraft. An enlarged Il-62Ilyushin Il-62
The Ilyushin Il-62 is a Soviet long-range jet airliner conceived in 1960 by Ilyushin. As successor to the popular turbo-prop Il-18 and with capacity for almost 200 passengers, the Il-62 was the largest jet airliner when it first flew in 1963. It entered Aeroflot service on 15 September 1967 with...
(the Il-62-250) would have had a 30-tonne payload, 259 seats and a 6.8 metre/22 ft longer fuselage
Fuselage
The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage which in turn is used as a floating hull...
: a virtual analogue
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
of the Douglas
Douglas Aircraft Company
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer, based in Long Beach, California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas...
DC-8 "Super Sixty" series. Other proposed Il-62 modifications involved double-deck and "two fuselages side-by-side" developments. There was also a project to "civilianise" the Il-76
Ilyushin Il-76
The Ilyushin Il-76 is a multi-purpose four-engined strategic airlifter designed by Ilyushin design bureau. It was first planned as a commercial freighter in 1967. Intended as a replacement for the Antonov An-12, the Il-76 was designed for delivering heavy machinery to remote, poorly-serviced areas...
.
From March 1970 the bureau developed all-new designs under the Il-86 designation. Instead of the "appropriate technology
Appropriate technology
Appropriate technology is an ideological movement originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr...
" approach of the Il-62, these designs were to have powered controls, complex high-lift device
High-lift device
In aircraft design, high-lift devices are moving surfaces or stationary components intended to increase lift during certain flight conditions. They include common devices such as flaps and slats, as well as less common features such as leading edge extensions and blown flaps.-Purpose:Aircraft...
s and advanced automation which would reduce the number of flightdeck crew.
An early avanproyekt was shown to the Soviet leadership at an exhibition of civil aviation innovations at Vnukovo-2 Airport near Moscow on May 17, 1971. A scale model with the designation of "Il-86" showed the "self-loading" concept with integral boarding stairs, below-deck luggage stores, and below-deck midships galley
Galley (kitchen)
The galley is the compartment of a ship, train or aircraft where food is cooked and prepared. It can also refer to a land based kitchen on a naval base or a particular formed household kitchen.-Ship's kitchen:...
. It had a twin-aisle interior with nine-abreast seating in a "3-3-3" layout. Ilyushin considered it politic to make the interior wider than any planned airliner except the Boeing 747. The 6.08 m (19.9 ft) fuselage diameter was partly dictated by the need to provide standing room in the underfloor luggage compartments. It remained the second-widest airliner interior until the Airbus A380
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. Due to its size, many airports had to modify and improve facilities to accommodate it...
.
On this basis, on 9 March 1972, the bureau was asked to proceed with detailed design. The difference between the 1971 model and the eventual Il-86 was in configuration: the model had looked like an Il-62. At that time, the Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI
TsAGI
TsAGI is a transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for Центра́льный аэрогидродинами́ческий институ́т or "Tsentralniy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut", the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute....
) favoured the clean-winged, rear-engined, T-tailed configuration for airliners. The BAC Three-Eleven and BAC
British Aircraft Corporation
The British Aircraft Corporation was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs , the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Hunting Aircraft in 1960. Bristol, English Electric and Vickers became "parents" of BAC with...
/CASA
Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA
Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA , was a Spanish aircraft manufacturer. It became EADS CASA the Spanish branch of EADS in 1999, but was absorbed by Airbus Military in 2009...
/MBB
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm was a German aerospace company formed as the result of several mergers in the late 1960s. Among its best-known products was the MBB Bo 105 light twin helicopter...
Europlane projects had similar configurations.
The configuration issue
The configuration of heavyHeavy (aviation)
When talking to air traffic controllers, pilots will add the term Heavy to the end of the flight call sign on flights involving very large aircraft.For example you might hear this : "United 341, heavy, ready for departure"....
jet aircraft was a politically sensitive issue in the USSR. Aircraft designer Leonid Selyakov states this of the underwing-engine US-pioneered layout which gradually became standard for jet airliners: "The configuration of the В-47
B-47 Stratojet
The Boeing Model 450 B-47 Stratojet was a long-range, six-engined, jet-powered medium bomber built to fly at high subsonic speeds and at high altitudes. It was primarily designed to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union...
, taken on strength by the US Air Force ... brought forth a veritable storm of critical opinions from [Soviet] aviation scientists. Responsible TsAGI officials and industry leaders robustly called that aircraft 'utter nonsense' (similar opinions were expressed of the Boeing 747)."
Similar controversies were known in Western aeronautical circles but typified Soviet dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...
tism which held that problems had immutable, "scientifically-correct"
Propaganda in the Soviet Union
Communist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very efficient...
solutions.
Ilyushin therefore had to stress that it had first in the world used podded engines suspended from pylons beneath and ahead of the wing, on the experimental Il-22
IL-22
IL-22 or IL 22 can refer to:* Interleukin 22* Illinois' 22nd congressional district, an obsolete district* Illinois Route 22* Ilyushin Il-22, a Russian jet bomber aircraft...
four-engined jet bomber of 1946 (first use of this designation). Having thus been presented the Il-86's ultimate configuration as indigenously Soviet, the bureau could at last show it in public in 1973, six years after publication of the aerobus specification and four years after the design assignment. A modern six-window flightdeck followed, in place of the 18-to-20 window glazing of the Il-18
Ilyushin Il-18
The Ilyushin Il-18 is a large turboprop airliner that became one of the best known Soviet aircraft of its era as well as one of the most popular and durable, having first flown in 1957 and still in use over 50 years later. The Il-18 was one of the world's principal airliners for several decades...
, Il-62 and Il-76.
Powerplant issue
The main problem facing the Il-86 project was the lack of a suitable engine. It was never resolved. By the close of the 1960s, the USA and the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
had turbofans with bypass ratio
Bypass ratio
The term bypass ratio relates to the design of turbofan engines, commonly used in aviation. It is defined as the ratio between the mass flow rate of air drawn in by the fan bypassing the engine core to the mass flow rate passing through the engine core....
s of 4 or 5 to 1. The first Soviet large turbofan, the Lotarev D-18T, did not appear before the mid-1980s. The Soloviev D-30
Soloviev D-30
- External links :* * * *...
, originally intended for the Il-86, was the most advanced Soviet civil aeroengine
Aircraft engine
An aircraft engine is the component of the propulsion system for an aircraft that generates mechanical power. Aircraft engines are almost always either lightweight piston engines or gas turbines...
. It had a bypass ratio of 2.4 to 1 and aerodynamic clamshell thrust reversers. It failed to attain the required thrust, however: "only after the lapse of three years that were spent on preparing the advanced development project did it become clear that these engines would not provide the necessary take-off performance." The less-advanced Kuznetsov NK-8
Kuznetsov NK-8
The NK-8 was a low-bypass turbofan engine built by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau, in the 20,000 lbf thrust class. It powered production models of the Ilyushin Il-62 and the Tupolev Tu-154A and B models.-External links: - NK-8...
series engine, adopted on March 26, 1975, had a bypass ratio of 1.15 to 1 and drag-inducing grilles over its cascade thrust reversers. Both these engines had high specific fuel consumptions and were noisy
Aircraft noise
Aircraft noise is noise pollution produced by any aircraft or its components, during various phases of a flight: on the ground while parked such as auxiliary power units, while taxiing, on run-up from propeller and jet exhaust, during take off, underneath and lateral to departure and arrival paths,...
. Being ultimate developments of smaller engines, they could not offer growth to future Il-86s.
Automation issue
The appropriate/intermediate technology principles to which most Soviet airliners before the Il-86 had been designed meant that they had typically five-member flight crews. The design and entry into service in 1972 of the Tu-154, an airliner built to high techHigh tech
High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...
nology principles (more automation, less human input), showed that Soviet science lagged behind in the development of avionics which would remove the need for navigators and radio operators. A programme of avionics development was mounted to enable the Il-86 to operate in most weathers with a three-member flight crew, matching Western technology of the time.
Manufacturing capacity issue
The shortage of manufacturing facilities for the Il-86 was a problem from the outset: "The rapid modernisation of the Soviet Air Force ... has left limited scope for the expansion of commercial production ... the lack of production capacity is being remedied partly by ... international cooperation." This meant involving the Polish aircraft industry in the project.Interest in foreign technology
The Soviets tried to import technology to solve the powerplant (and to an extent the avionics and manufacturing capacity) issues. The attempts took two directions. First was wholesale technology transferTechnology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
similar to the Li-2
Lisunov Li-2
The Lisunov Li-2, originally designated PS-84 , was a license-built version of the Douglas DC-3. It was produced by the GAZ-84 works at Moscow-Khimki, and subsequently at GAZ-33 at Tashkent-Vostochn. The project was directed by aeronautical engineer Boris Pavlovich Lisunov.-Design and...
deal of the 1930s. This would have delayed Il-86 development, since the programme would have been demoted to a reserve status. The second direction was to import individual systems and items. This would have speeded Il-86 development. The fact that Il-86 development was protracted indicates that for long periods the programme was pursued as backup insurance in case wholesale technology transfer failed.
Interest in alternative foreign aircraft
Before the Boeing 747Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
had flown, a Ministry of Civil Aviation delegation visited the USA for a series of detailed sales presentations on the type lasting three days. At the 1971 Paris Salon, Ilyushin bureau head Genrikh Novozhilov and Boeing's Joe Sutter
Joe Sutter
Joseph F. "Joe" Sutter was an engineer for the Boeing Airplane Company and chief engineer for the development of the Boeing 747 under Malcolm T. Stamper.-Early life:...
are claimed to have arranged an informal technology trade-off
Trade-off
A trade-off is a situation that involves losing one quality or aspect of something in return for gaining another quality or aspect...
. Over supper in a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
restaurant, the Soviet side is claimed to have ceded information on titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
technology to the Americans, while the latter, "sketching on the tablecloth," ceded information on "the structural and aerodynamic amity of the aeroelastic
Aeroelasticity
Aeroelasticity is the science which studies the interactions among inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces. It was defined by Arthur Collar in 1947 as "the study of the mutual interaction that takes place within the triangle of the inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces acting on structural...
wing." Soviet interest in buying the 747s continued until the end of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
in the late 1970s.
At the peak of détente, on March 11, 1974, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar arrived in Moscow for three days of sales presentations and demonstrations. The TriStar matched the Il-86 in size and performance and had development potential. Negotiations to buy 30 TriStars of the L-1011-385-250 version and licence-produce up to 100 a year in a new factory employing 80,000 people continued until mid-1976. Any residual will to export TriStars was scotched when US President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
made human rights a US foreign policy
Jackson-Vanik amendment
The Jackson–Vanik amendment is a 1974 provision in United States federal law, intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies that restrict freedom of emigration and other human rights...
factor. TriStar exports would have needed Coordinating Committee
CoCom
CoCom is an acronym for Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. CoCom was established by Western bloc powers in the first five years after the end of World War II, during the Cold War, to put an arms embargo on COMECON countries.CoCom ceased to function on March 31, 1994, and the...
clearance: the type embodied advanced technology banned from potential enemies. In 1978, the US Department of Commerce vetoed export of 12 General Electric CF6-50
General Electric CF6
The General Electric CF6 is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines produced by GE Aviation. A development of the first high-power high-bypass jet engine available, the TF39, the CF6 powers a wide variety of civilian airliners. The basic engine core formed the basis for the LM2500, LM5000, and...
engines ordered by the USSR for planned long-range Il-86s.
Attempts at illicit technology acquisition
By analogy with other aircraft programmes, a third direction in the efforts to acquire foreign technology may have involved illicit action along the lines of the reverse engineeringReverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
of the Tu-4
Tupolev Tu-4
The Tupolev Tu-4 was a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid 1960s...
from the B-29 and the copying of the Rolls-Royce Nene
Rolls-Royce Nene
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Bridgman, L, Jane's fighting aircraft of World War II. Crescent. ISBN 0-517-67964-7-External links:* *...
jet engine as the Klimov VK-1
Klimov VK-1
-Bibliography:* Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9-External links:* *...
. Oblique reference to this comes in an account of the An-124 by the then-powerplant head of the Antonov bureau, V. G. Anisyenko: "The MAP leadership wanted to have a uniform large engine also capable of civil aviation applications, such as the Il-86. The most suitable analogue from this viewpoint was considered to be the Rolls-Royce RB.211-22. To purchase it, in 1976 a MAP procurement party went to Great Britain, headed by engine construction deputy minister Dondukov ... Our ultimate task was to copy the RB.211-22
Rolls-Royce RB211
The Rolls-Royce RB211 is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines made by Rolls-Royce plc and capable of generating 37,400 to 60,600 pounds-force thrust. Originally developed for the Lockheed L-1011 , it entered service in 1972 and was the only engine to power this aircraft type...
, for which purpose we had to buy not fewer than eight examples ... The English ... would only sell us the engine in quantities ... to power no fewer than 100 aircraft. As a result, we did not get a sample ... "
Design, testing and certification
The design process at Ilyushin was managed by Sergey Ilyushin's successor as head of the bureau, Genrikh Novozhilov. The timescale announced in 1973 envisaged first flight in 1976 and service entry in time for the Moscow Olympics in 1980.The prototype flew at Khodynka
Khodynka
Khodynka Field is a large open space in the north-west of Moscow, at the beginning of the present day Leningradsky Prospect. It takes its name from the small Khodynka River which used to cross the neighbourhood...
airfield (where Ilyushin's experimental factory was) on December 22, 1976 (Soviet airliners often flew before the close of calendar years due to the requirements of Five-Year Plans). It was announced that the type had a patented electromagnetic pulse deicing
Deicing
For snow and ice control on roadways and similar facilities, see Snow removalDe-icing is defined as removal of snow, ice or frost from a surface...
system. which used 500 times less energy than conventional deicers. It is claimed that over 50 new technological processes were introduced into Soviet practice as a result of the Il-86 programme.
The initial test programme was flown by Ilyushin staff, ending two months ahead of schedule on October 20, 1978. Other sources claim that these tests were completed on 22 September 1978. (According to a faster schedule announced at the time of the first flight, Ilyushin tests were to have ended in time for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 1977.) In-house testing involved speeds up to Mach 0.93 and bank angles up to 11 degrees greater than specified.
Initial certification flying by pilots independent of Ilyushin ended on June 6, 1977. State acceptance trials began on April 24, 1979 and ended on December 24, 1980. Certification by Gosaviaregistr SSSR [the USSR State Aviation Registry] was granted under certificate number 10-86. The Il-86 entered Aeroflot service on 26 December the same year. The service-entry deadline of summer 1980, announced by Minister of Civil Aviation Boris Bugayev in 1977 had passed, however, and the Il-86 missed the Moscow Olympics in the summer of 1980.
Overall development of the Il-86 occupied over a decade. The length of this period was due to the sensitivity of the airliner's configuration, problems with its powerplant, prolonged avionics development and the low priority of civil as opposed to military aircraft. In its earlier stages, the Il-86 programme was also held back by hopes of US airliner imports. Certificating the Il-86 to the very demanding set of Soviet and Comecon
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
standards called NLGS-2 also delayed progress; it was the first Soviet aircraft to undergo a full certification programme since certification was introduced in the USSR in 1967 and became mandatory five years later.
Manufacture
Production of the Il-86 began in 1976 and continued until 1991. There was no prototype. The first two machines were hand-made by Ilyushin at the bureau's own Moscow facility in 1976 and 1977. One was used for flight testing and the other for static ground testing.Beyond these initial examples, Ministry of Aircraft Manufacture ("MAP," "Minaviaprom") Factory 64 at Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...
(today VASO
Vaso
Vaso is a village located in Gujarat, India. The zip code is 387380. Area code is 02682585/86....
) was tasked with building more than half of each Il-86 and performing final assembly. Three aircraft were assembled at Voronezh by 1979. The first (flown on October 25, 1977) was built largely by hand, subsequent machines making increasing use of production equipment. These aircraft were used in certification and development flying before handover to Aeroflot. Voronezh factory production engineers conducted a "redesign cycle" of over 50 areas, cutting some 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) of airframe weight.
Polish co-production
Capacity at Voronezh was insufficient and the Polish aircraft industry was involved in the Il-86 project from the start. The arrangement involved significant technology transferTechnology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
to Poland: PZL
PZL
PZL was the main Polish aerospace manufacturer of the interwar period, based in Warsaw, functioning in 1928-1939...
Amalgamation Mielec factory Director Jerzy Belczak said it involved “… a radical retooling of our enterprise” involving “over 50 new processes.” Observers noted that "work on the Il-86 will bring Poland's ... WSK-Mielec to a new level of capability ... in the manufacturing processes involved with an aircraft of this size, including titanium structures, chemical milling and the machining of integral panels."
By the mid-1980s, PZL was planned to produce half of the Il-86, including the entire wing, and also to work on Il-86 developments (“Now we are preparing to manufacture units for the next model of the Il wide-body plane,” according to Belczak). From May 1977, the Polish factory manufactured entire empennage
Empennage
The empennage , also known as the tail or tail assembly, of most aircraft gives stability to the aircraft, in a similar way to the feathers on an arrow...
s including tailplane
Tailplane
A tailplane, also known as horizontal stabilizer , is a small lifting surface located on the tail behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplanes...
s and the fin
Vertical stabilizer
The vertical stabilizers, vertical stabilisers, or fins, of aircraft, missiles or bombs are typically found on the aft end of the fuselage or body, and are intended to reduce aerodynamic side slip. It is analogical to a skeg on boats and ships.On aircraft, vertical stabilizers generally point upwards...
, all control surfaces, high-lift devices and engine pylons for the Il-86, representing "about 16 per cent of these aircraft." Amid labour and political unrest in Poland from 1980, the Voronezh factory retained wing manufacture.
Production totals
After certification in 1980, annual Il-86 outputs were: 1980, one; 1981, nil; 1982, 11; 1983, 12; 1984, 8; 1985, 9 (including the four for 8 ADON); 1986, 11; 1987, 10; 1988, 10; 1989, 9; 1990, 11 (including the three for export to China), 1991, 3. Of the 106 examples built, one never flew (being used for static tests) and three were exported.The Five-Year Plan in force when the USSR ceased to exist called for 40 more aircraft to be manufactured by 1994, but the manufacturing facility closed in early 1992.
Configuration and wing
All-metal low-wing land monoplane with four wing-mounted jet engines.Cantilever three-spar structure of modified trapezoid planform. Centre section integral with fuselage. Inboard sections, outboard sections and detachable leading and trailing edges. High-lift devices comprise full-span six-segment leading edge slats
Leading edge slats
Slats are aerodynamic surfaces on the leading edge of the wings of fixed-wing aircraft which, when deployed, allow the wing to operate at a higher angle of attack. A higher coefficient of lift is produced as a result of angle of attack and speed, so by deploying slats an aircraft can fly at slower...
(contiguous at engine pylons) at up to 17.5% of chord (drooping to 35°), two-segment fixed-vane double-slotted trailing edge flaps
Flap (aircraft)
Flaps are normally hinged surfaces mounted on the trailing edges of the wings of a fixed-wing aircraft to reduce the speed an aircraft can be safely flown at and to increase the angle of descent for landing without increasing air speed. They shorten takeoff and landing distances as well as...
occupying some 75% of the span (deploying to 40°) and five-segment spoilers (outboards used as spoileron
Spoileron
In aeronautics spoilerons are flight control surfaces, specifically spoilers that can be used asymmetrically to achieve the effect of ailerons, i.e. to roll an aircraft by reducing the lift of one wing but unlike ailerons not increasing the lift of the other wing...
s at high speeds, inboards used as lift dumpers on the ground). Two-segment outboard ailerons for low speed roll control. Boundary layer
Boundary layer
In physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is that layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a bounding surface where effects of viscosity of the fluid are considered in detail. In the Earth's atmosphere, the planetary boundary layer is the air layer near the ground affected by diurnal...
fences over pylons. Engines suspended from the wing on pylons act as anti-flutter weights. Trim range is 16-33% of mean aerodynamic chord.
Fuselage
Circular-section structure of frames and stringers with a continuous main deck and lower decks fore and aft of the centre section. Rectangular windows in most interframe bays, eight ICAO Type 1a passenger doors on the main deck and three more on the lower deck portside; two freight hold doors and a galley supply door on the lower deck starboard. The main deck houses the flightdeck, two wardrobes, eight toilets, two pantries and a three-section passenger cabin. The lower deck houses three entry vestibules/luggage stores with hydraulic boarding stairs to ground level and fixed stairs to the main deck, a midships galley linked with the main deck by an electric lift, two freight holds (fore and aft of the passenger facilities), an avionics bay and two technical bays. The entire accommodation is pressurisedCabin pressurization
Cabin pressurization is the pumping of compressed air into an aircraft cabin to maintain a safe and comfortable environment for crew and passengers when flying at altitude.-Need for cabin pressurization:...
and air-conditioned
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
with "earphones for music or on-board cinema."
Empennage
Cantilevered trapezoid planform swept-back surfaces. Two-segment elevators and rudder. Tailplane area 96.5 m² (1,039 ft²); incidence adjustable between 2° and 12° by electric motors commanded by yoke trim thumbwheels and console trim wheels. Fin area 56.06 m² (603.4 ft²). Landing gear of near-conventional layout, with a twin-wheeled nose leg and three four-wheel bogieBogie
A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...
main gear legs (centreline and two outers). Track is 9.9 m (/32 ft 5.5 in).
Powerplant
Four Kuznetsov NK-86 two-spool turbofans. Five-stage LP compressors, six-stage HP compressors, annular combustor cans, single-stage HP turbine, two-stage LP turbine. Cascade thrust reversers canted 15° from the horizontal. Pneumatic starters (airborne relights use the windmill effect). Forward-facing ejectors blow away detritus during taxi. International Standard AtmosphereInternational Standard Atmosphere
The International Standard Atmosphere is an atmospheric model of how the pressure, temperature, density, and viscosity of the Earth's atmosphere change over a wide range of altitudes. It has been established to provide a common reference for temperature and pressure and consists of tables of...
hourly fuel consumption per engine is 7.7 t (16,975 lb) at maximum continuous rated thrust, 6 t/13,230 lb at nominal maximum thrust, 5.1 t (11,243 lb) at 85% thrust, 4.2 t/9260 lb at 70%, 3.6 t (7,937 lb) at 60%, 2.45 t (5,400 lb) at 40% and 1 t (2,205 lb) at idle. Overall hourly fuel consumption at long-range cruise and 190 t (419,000 lb) is 9.75 t (21,495 lb) reducing to 7.79 t (17,174 lb) at 140 t (308,650 lb). Outboard engine pylons on the latter two-thirds of all Il-86s are marginally extended to cut drag.
A VSU-10 APU
Auxiliary power unit
An auxiliary power unit is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft, as well as some large land vehicles.-Function:...
generates power and heats/cools the interior on the ground, provides engine start air.
Controls
HydraulicallyHydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...
driven. An SAU-1T-2 automatic flight control system
Autopilot
An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles...
offers assisted manual or automatic flight, with no manual option. Four independent hydraulic systems power all flight controls and the built-in airstairs. Fluid is to the NGZh, rather than AMG, formula.
Avionics
Pizhma-1 navigational system with OmegaOmega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
inputs. GPS transceiver
Transceiver
A transceiver is a device comprising both a transmitter and a receiver which are combined and share common circuitry or a single housing. When no circuitry is common between transmit and receive functions, the device is a transmitter-receiver. The term originated in the early 1920s...
s and TCAS fitted retrospectively during the 1990s. Pizhma-1 can be used throughout the flight from departure terminal area to landing and taxy to stand. Pizhma-1 has full-time roll and yaw dampers.
Airfield approach aids enable instrument landing system coupled approaches to ICAO Category II weather minima.
Other radio aids include VOR
VHF omnidirectional range
VOR, short for VHF omnidirectional radio range, is a type of radio navigation system for aircraft. A VOR ground station broadcasts a VHF radio composite signal including the station's identifier, voice , and navigation signal. The identifier is typically a two- or three-letter string in Morse code...
and DME
Distance Measuring Equipment
Distance measuring equipment is a transponder-based radio navigation technology that measures distance by timing the propagation delay of VHF or UHF radio signals....
receivers, a weather radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
and Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
identification aids. Cockpit voice recorder
Cockpit voice recorder
A cockpit voice recorder , often referred to as a "black box", is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flight deck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents...
s and flight data recorder
Flight data recorder
A flight data recorder is an electronic device employed to record any instructions sent to any electronic systems on an aircraft. It is a device used to record specific aircraft performance parameters...
s standard.
Four GT-40PCh6 engine generators, the APU or ground sources supply 200/115 V, 400 Hz current to the primary system or two secondary systems (36 V/400 Hz AC and 27 V DC). Consumers include high-lift devices, tailplane trim, deicing, galley lift and interior services.
Service life
Twenty years (up to 25) or 10,000 landings (up to 20,000) or 30,000 flight hours (up to 35,000) prior to major servicing.Operational history
An inaugural service from Moscow to Tashkent was flown on December 26, 1980 but services-proper commenced after February 1, 1981. Aeroflot first operated the Il-86 on peak domestic routes. Foreign services began in June 1981 to Eastern Europe. Services to larger West European cities began with the winter timetable starting in October that year. Charter flights to European points followed, with services on high density medium/long range routes within the Soviet Union coming last.Long-range operations
Though the Il-86 was a medium-range airliner, from 1982 Aeroflot put it into scheduled service from Moscow to HavanaHavana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
via Shannon
Shannon Airport
Shannon Airport, is one of the Republic of Ireland's three primary airports along with Dublin and Cork. In 2010 around 1,750,000 passengers passed through the airport, making it the third busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland after Dublin and Cork, and the fifth busiest airport on the island...
and Gander
Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador
Gander is a Canadian town located in the northeastern part of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately south of Gander Bay, south of Twillingate and east of Grand Falls-Windsor...
, "perhaps with limited payload or with additional tankerage." Other scheduled long range services flown by the type were to Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
and Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and Sao Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, all via Sal Island.
Post-Soviet operations
After the collapse of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1991, national airlines emerged in the 15 successor republics. Il-86s serving with Aeroflot administrations ("Directorates") in these nations accrued to their airlines and many were traded.
From April 2002, the European Union, the USA and much of the rest of the world banned noisier aircraft, including the Il-86. On October 23, 2006, Aeroflot Deputy Director General Igor Desyatnichenko said that the Il-86 was to be withdrawn from service starting November 15 that year as it operated for just two or three months in the summer."
Unused facilities
The Il-86's "luggage at hand" carry-on luggage facility was rarely used. Vul'fov (ibid.) notes: "Thank God no civil servant got it into his head to refuse the parallel opportunity offered to passengers of electing to drop their luggage when checking-in at airports. Otherwise, the loading of luggage into the aircraft by passengers would have turned into a proper nightmare lasting hours."In 1987 Radio Moscow reported that Aeroflot "resisted the change" to a three-person crew. Vul'fov, A, ibid., reports that the type continued to be operated by four-member crews. Navigators, occupying the observer seat (devoid of instrumentation), stood unsecured on final approach to oversee the pilots’ instruments and read-out indications (despite voice synthesizers being fitted). Soviet operations of the Tu-154 airliner similarly employed four or five flightdeck crew, despite foreign operators using three-person flightdeck crews.
Military operations
With its built-in stairs and below deck holds, the Il-86 was widely expected to serve in the personnel transport role with the Soviet air forces: "The wide-bodied Il-86 can perform not only as a troop transport ... but may also in the future form the basis for a command and control aircraft for airborne coordination of Warsaw Pact forces."In the event, four airframes (c/n 042, 043, 046 and 048, carrying quasi-civil registrations SSSR-86146, '7, '8 and '9) were delivered to the 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division at the Chkalovsky air base near Moscow. These are variously claimed to be designated Il-80, Il-82, Il-87 or Il-86VKP (Russian: “ВКП” for “воздушный командный пост”; transliterated: "vozdushniy komandnyi post" “veh-kah-peh” and meaning "aerial command post"). This version has the NATO reporting name
NATO reporting name
NATO reporting names are classified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc...
Maxdome.
Marketing
Il-86 provision to Aeroflot did not constitute a sale: it was part of the centralised Soviet supply and allocation system coordinated by offices called GosplanGosplan
Gosplan or State Planning Committee was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu...
and Gossnab
Gossnab
Gossnab of USSR, State Supplies of the USSR was active in 1948-1953, 1965-1991. It was the state committee for material technical supply in the Soviet Union...
which controlled the entirety of planning and distribution in the USSR (except the black market). Built aircraft were allocated to Aeroflot regions and Soviet Air Force units as follows (in order of first acceptance): the Vnukovo Aviation Entreprise, 21; the TsUMVS Administration of International Air Communications centred on Sheremetyevo Airport, 22; the Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
Air Enterprise, 9; the Sheremetyevo Air Enterprise, 10; the Pulkovo
Pulkovo Airport
Pulkovo Airport is an international airport serving Saint Petersburg, Russia. It consists of two terminals, Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo-2 , which are located about and south of the city centre, respectively. The airport serves as a hub for Rossiya Airlines , and as focus city for Nordavia...
Air Enterprise, 8; the Alma-Ata Air Enterprise, 8; the Chkalovsky
Chkalovsky Airport
Chkalovsky Airport , is a military airport base near Shchyolkovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia. It is located 31 km northeast of Moscow.Chkalovsky provides air support for Star City, Russia, Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, and other elements of the Soviet space program and Russian Federal Space...
Soviet Air Force
Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Force, officially known in Russian as Военно-воздушные силы or Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily and often abbreviated VVS was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces...
Base 8 ADON (or 8th Special Purposes Aviation Division), 4; the Kol'tsovo Air Enterprise, 6; the Tolmachevo Air Enterprise, 6; the Erevan Air Enterprise, 2; the Yemelyanovo
Yemelyanovo Airport
Yemelyanovo International Airport is a major airport in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia located 37 km northwest of Krasnoyarsk. It opened for operations in 1980. Presently, Yemelyanovo makes regular cargo and passenger flights of over 40 Russian and overseas carriers...
Air Enterprise, 3.
Selling the Il-86 commercially (which under the Soviet system meant solely exports) was the job of the Soviet foreign trade organisation
Foreign trade of the Soviet Union
Soviet foreign trade played only a minor role in the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and...
V/O Aviaeksport. The division of responsibilities between the influential TsAGI research establishment, design bureaux (acting like naval architects) which designed aeroplanes, factories (independent of the bureaux) which constructed them, independent service facilities which repaired them and an independent organisation which marketed them alongside designs by all other bureaux, has been seen as diluting responsibility for the fate of a product.
As part of supply provisions within the Comecon, Lot
LOT Polish Airlines
Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT S.A. , trading as LOT Polish Airlines, is the flag carrier of Poland. Based in Warsaw, LOT was established in 1929, making it one of the world's oldest airlines still in operation. Using a fleet of 55 aircraft, LOT operates a complex network to 60 destinations in Europe,...
was allocated four Il-86s as barter
Barter
Barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
for component manufacture; the airline deferred deliveries which were cancelled by 1987. In 1988 the East German airline Interflug
Interflug
Interflug was the state airline of East Germany from 1963 to 1991, when it ceased operations following German reunification...
is said to have prepared to take delivery of two Il-86s and to have allocated them the registrations DDR-AAA and DDR-AAB. Instead, that same year the airline took delivery of two Airbus A310
Airbus A310
The Airbus A310 is a medium- to long-range twin-engine widebody jet airliner. Launched in July 1978, it was the second aircraft created by Airbus Industrie,a consortium of European aerospace companies, Airbus is now fully owned by EADS and since 2001 has been known as Airbus SAS. the consortium of...
s. The sole export order for the Il-86 − and the sole commercial transactions involving factory-built rather than secondhand examples − was by China Xinjiang Airlines
China Xinjiang Airlines
China Xinjiang Airlines was an airline based in the People's Republic of China owned by CAAC. In 2003, the airline was acquired by China Southern Airlines.The airline had been founded in 1985...
which received three aircraft in 1990.
Displays at international air events
The Il-86 prototype was displayed at the Paris Salon International de l'AéronautiqueParis Air Show
The Paris Air Show is the world's oldest and largest air show. Established in 1909, it is currently held every odd year at Le Bourget Airport in north Paris, France...
in 1977. It was noted that its interior used patented fire-resistant materials and hydraulics employed a fire-resistant fluid. At that time a version without the "luggage at hand" system was offered, seating 375 or alternatively weighing 3,000 kg (6,600 lb) less and having longer range. This version offered 7% lower seat-mile operational costs. The type was again displayed at Paris in 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1985, the Farnborough Air Show
Farnborough Air Show
The Farnborough International Airshow is a seven-day international trade fair for the aerospace industry which is held in even-numbered years in mid-July at Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire, England....
in 1984 and other world air events.
Setting records
Setting records was a traditional Soviet way of promoting aviation products. On Tuesday September 22, 1981, an Il-86 flown by Commander G Volokhov and Second Pilot A Tyuryumin set Fédération Aéronautique InternationaleFédération Aéronautique Internationale
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records. Its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. This includes man-carrying aerospace vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles...
records for flying payloads of 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 and 65 tonnes over a 2,000 km closed circuit at an average of 975.3 km per hour. Two days later, the same crew and machine set FAI records for flying payloads of 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75 and 80-tonne payloads over a 1,000 km closed circuit at an average of 962 km/h. Of these 18 records, one was broken by a Tu-144 in 1983, five were superseded or discontinued and 12 still stood in 2010.
Sales demonstrations
In September 1982 the type made a sales call on BulgariaBulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, followed by calls in July 1983 on Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. Potential buyers received no hard information on the type in advance. Little solid information was given during the sales calls: "constructor Novosilov side-stepped all questions [on fuel consumption] ... [the] chief pilot ... provided a measure of veiled explanation: 'The consumption of the Il-86 is not higher than that of the Il-18,' he said." While welcomed as “proof of friendship with the USSR,” these sales calls failed to attract orders. Observers tacitly noted that the aircraft marked a 10/15-year lag by Soviet civil aviation compared with the West.
Undeveloped versions
Only the base version of the Il-86 and a small batch of military derivatives entered service. Further versions were mooted but none entered service. Freight or combined passenger-freight versions are not known to have been proposed.A proposed long-range version
On June 26, 1972, a long-range version of the Il-86, the Il-86D (for Russian: "дальний"; transliterated: "dal’niy"; meaning "long-range"), was ordered into development by the Soviet cabinet. Design was completed in June 1976. The Il-86D would have had a marginally extended wing span, carried additional fuel, and had a range of some 8,500 km (4,600 nmi). Later announcements stated that a version of the Il-86D with Lotarev D-18 engines had entered development in March 1975. This version would have had a 147,500 kg (325,000 lb) empty weight, a 300,000 kg/660,000 lb maximum take-off weight, a fuel capacity of some 150,000 kg (330,000 lb), a wing area of 325 m² (5,300 ft²), and a range of 10,200 km (5,500 nmi). It evolved into the Il-96.A proposed high-capacity version
A "minimum-change" development of the Il-86, stated to have been designated Il-86V, was test-flown on 1 June 1982 and was ready for service by 27 April 1985. It was said to have 450 seats, with the underfloor vestibules fitted with seats and possible changes to main-deck seating. The version is not known to have entered passenger service but may have been used by the military.Proposed re-engined versions
In the 1980s, there were moves to fit the Il-86 with RB211-22Rolls-Royce RB211
The Rolls-Royce RB211 is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines made by Rolls-Royce plc and capable of generating 37,400 to 60,600 pounds-force thrust. Originally developed for the Lockheed L-1011 , it entered service in 1972 and was the only engine to power this aircraft type...
engines. Designated Il-86V (second use of this designation), this would have had a range of over 9,000 km (4,860 nmi) and/or increased payload. Another 450-seater Il-86V powered by RB211-524G
Rolls-Royce RB211
The Rolls-Royce RB211 is a family of high-bypass turbofan engines made by Rolls-Royce plc and capable of generating 37,400 to 60,600 pounds-force thrust. Originally developed for the Lockheed L-1011 , it entered service in 1972 and was the only engine to power this aircraft type...
engines was also projected. Amid the disintegration of the Soviet economy these versions did not progress.
In 1991, there were moves to fit the Il-86 with Franco-American CFM56-5C2 engines. Finances precluded progress. In 1995, International Aero Engines
International Aero Engines
IAE International Aero Engines AG is a Zürich-registered joint venture manufacturing company formed in 1983.- Ownership :Current shareholders are:* Pratt & Whitney of the United States * MTU Aero Engines of Germany...
offered the V2500 engine to five Il-86 operators with proposals to re-engine 25 aircraft. The offer was not taken up.
Civil
As of 28 May 2011, no civilian Il-86s were in service.Former civil operators:
 Armenia |
Armavia Armavia Air Company "Armavia" is an airline with its head office on the grounds of Zvartnots International Airport in Zvartnots, Armenia, near Yerevan. It operates international passenger services from Yerevan to destinations in Europe and Asia... , Armenian Airlines Armenian Airlines Armenian Airlines was the state-owned national airline of Armenia.- History :Armenian Airlines was established shortly after independence in 1991 from Aeroflot's Armenia directorate, and was the sole carrier in Armenia until 2002, when private companies Armenian International Airways and Armavia... |
 Mainland China |
China Xinjiang Airlines China Xinjiang Airlines China Xinjiang Airlines was an airline based in the People's Republic of China owned by CAAC. In 2003, the airline was acquired by China Southern Airlines.The airline had been founded in 1985... |
 Georgia (country) |
AJT Air International |
 Kazakhstan |
Air Kazakhstan Air Kazakhstan Kazakhstan Airlines was the national airline of Kazakhstan. It ended operations in 1997. It operated domestic and international services. It had its head office in Almaty.-Code data:*IATA Code: K4*ICAO Code: KZA *Callsign: Kazakh-History:... , Kazakhstan Airlines |
 Pakistan |
Hajvairy Airlines Hajvairy Airlines Hajvairy Airlines was based in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Hajvairy Airlines started its operations in 1991. It operated leased Russian Ilyushin Il-86 jetliners. The airline suspended its operations in 1993 due to bankruptcy.- Code data :*IATA Code: -... |
 Russia |
Aeroflot Russian/Russian International Airlines Aeroflot OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year... as successors to the aforementioned units below, Aerolicht, Continental Airways Continental Airways Continental Airways was a scheduled passenger airline based in Moscow, Russia. It was established in 1995 and operated out of Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, using a fleet of three Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft. In 2007, Continental Airways was shut down.... , Donavia Donavia JSC "Donavia" , formerly Aeroflot-Don is an airline based in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. It operates scheduled domestic and international passenger flights network as well as passenger and cargo charters, most of which to the Middle East... , East Line Airlines East Line Airlines Russian Sky Airlines is an airline with its head office on the grounds of Domodedovo International Airport in Domodedovsky, Moscow, Russia. It operates scheduled and charter cargo services to Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. It also operates passenger services and VIP transport... , Krasnoyarsk Air KrasAir KrasAir or Krasnoyarsk Airlines was a Russian airline with its head office on the grounds of Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo Airport in Krasnoyarsk. It operated scheduled regional and international passenger services, freight transport, cargo handling and charter services from the main base is Krasnoyarsk... , Moscow Airlines, Orient Avia, Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Pulkovo Federal State Unified Aviation Service Company was an airline with its head office in Moskovsky District, Saint Petersburg, Russia. It operated the Pulkovo Airport and was 100% state owned. It was the third largest airline in Russia... , Russian Sky Airlines, S7 Airlines S7 Airlines OJSC Siberia Airlines , operating as S7 Airlines, is an airline headquartered in Ob, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, with offices in Moscow. S7 Airlines has been Russia's fastest-growing airline and recently passed Aeroflot as Russia's largest domestic airline.S7 has operated scheduled passenger... , Tatarstan Airlines Tatarstan Airlines Tatarstan Airlines is an airline based on the grounds of Kazan International Airport in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia. It was founded in 1993, and is the regional airline of the Republic of Tatarstan, part of the Russian Federation.-Destinations:... , Transaero Airlines, Transeuropean Airlines Transeuropean Airlines Transeuropean Airlines was an airline based in Russia.-Code data:*IATA Code: UE*ICAO Code: TEP*Callsign: Transeurline... , Vnukovo Airlines Vnukovo Airlines Vnukovo Airlines is a defunct Russian airline based at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow. It was created as a spin-off from the Vnukovo Airport division of Aeroflot in March 1993 and operated until 2001, when it was bought by Siberian Airlines.... >, Atlant-Soyuz Airlines Atlant-Soyuz Airlines OJSC Moscow Airlines was an airline based in Moscow, Russia, operating domestic and international passenger flights out of Vnukovo International Airport. It operated from 1993 to 2010.- History :... |
 Soviet Union |
Aeroflot Soviet Airlines Aeroflot OJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines , commonly known as Aeroflot , is the flag carrier and largest airline of the Russian Federation, based on passengers carried per year... units: the Vnukovo AP, the TsUMVS, the Tashkent Tashkent Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:... AP, the Sheremetyevo AP, the Pulkovo Pulkovo Pulkovo may refer to:*Pulkovo Heights marking the southern limit of Saint Petersburg, Russia*Pulkovo Airport serving that city*Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise, a former state airline based in Saint Petersburg, Russia... AP, the Kol'tsovo AP, the Tolmachevo AP, the Erevan AP, the Yemelyanovo Yemelyanovo Yemelyanovo may refer to:*Yemelyanovo, Krasnoyarsk Krai, an urban-type settlement in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia*Yemelyanovo, Tver Oblast, a village in Tver Oblast, Russia*Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo Airport, an airport in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia... AP |
 Uzbekistan |
Uzbekistan Airways, IRS Aero, Jana Arka Airlines |
Military
As of 21 March 2010, four Il-86VKPs (Il-80s; Il-87s) remained in service:| Russian Air Force Russian Air Force The Russian Air Force is the air force of Russian Military. It is currently under the command of Colonel General Aleksandr Zelin. The Russian Navy has its own air arm, the Russian Naval Aviation, which is the former Soviet Aviatsiya Voyenno Morskogo Flota , or AV-MF).The Air Force was formed from... , 4 |
Former military operators:
| Soviet Air Force Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Force, officially known in Russian as Военно-воздушные силы or Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily and often abbreviated VVS was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces... |
Accidents and incidents
The Il-86 is seen as one of the world's safest airliners; only one accident involving fatalities had taken place by 2008. A 2006 ICAO paper stated: "There were no fatal accidents in passenger-carrying operations involving a wide-body IL-86, for all periods of operation." The first deputy minister of transport of Russia and head of the State Civil Aviation Service Aleksandr Nyeradko said in 2003: "the Il-86 was and remains one of the world's most dependable airliners."The following are all significant recorded safety events involving the Il-86 to date:-
- On an unknown date during the 1980s, an unknown Il-86 on approach to Mineralnye VodyMineralnye VodyMineralnye Vody is a town in Stavropol Krai, Russia, which lies along the Kuma River and the main rail line between Rostov-on-Don and Baku . Population:...
, Russia, suffered a hydraulic failure resulting in asymmetrical deployment of the high-lift devices. The flight crew brought the machine to a safe landing without further incident. No casualties.
- On an unknown date in 1980, the aircraft registered SSSR-86004 (constructor's number 51483200002 ["002"]) experienced a fire in engine No 4 on departure from Vnukovo on an acceptance testing flight; the crew initially shut down No 1 in error, then No 4, but landed safely on the reciprocal runway to the one from which they had departed, after performing a 180° turn. No casualties. The investigation into this fire resulted in a modification to the engine.[ref]Vul'fov, ibid.[/ref]
- In 1984, SSSR-86011 (c/n 009) was found to have suffered a tail strike on landing at Simferopol. No casualties.
- On March 8, 1994, RA-86119 (c/n 087) parked at DelhiDelhiDelhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
airport was struck by a landing Sahara India Boeing 737Boeing 737The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...
(VT-SIA) flown by a trainee; both aircraft were destroyed. All 4 crew on the 737 were killed. Two Aeroflot employees, a Russian ground engineer and an airport worker were killed on the ground.
- In June 1998, RA-86080 (c/n 051) was found to have been overstressed, most likely by a recent heavy landing, and repairs were considered inexpedient in view of coming retirement. No casualties; aircraft stored pending retirement.
- On May 1, 2000, RA-86113 (c/n 081) suffered an apparent engine failure and fire on departure from Sochi. The flight crew brought the machine to a safe overweight landing. The failure and fire indications were found to have been spurious. No casualties.
- On August 26, 2000, RA-86066 (c/n 033) experienced a failure and fire in No 2 engine shortly after take-off from Moscow Sheremetyevo for BarcelonaBarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. The crew landed on the reciprocal runway with no further incident. No casualties.
- On September 21, 2001, RA-86074 (c/n 041) belly-landed at DubaiDubaiDubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
after a flight from MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, the flight crew having switched-off the ground proximity warning due to heavy workload on the approach and then neglected to extend the landing gearLanding GearLanding Gear is Devin the Dude's fifth studio album. It was released on October 7, 2008. It was his first studio album since signing with the label Razor & Tie. It features a high-profile guest appearance from Snoop Dogg. As of October 30, 2008, the album has sold 18,906 copies.-Track...
; no casualties; aircraft written-off.
- On July 28, 2002, RA-86060 (c/n 027) crashed shortly after departure from Moscow on a repositioning flight to Sankt Peterburg. The trim toggle button on the control column caused a spontaneous retrimming of the tailplane, rapid transition to nose-heavy trim and a dive. The four flightdeck crew, two ground support staff and ten cabin crew aboard the aircraft died. The two injured survivors were cabin crew members.
Following the Moscow crash in July 2002, the MAK Interstate Aviation Committee withdrew the Il-86's certificate of airworthiness, temporarily grounding the type. The certificate was rapidly restored in stages by early 2003. The accident prompted the Egyptian civil aviation authorities to attempt to ban Il-86 operations to Egypt. Amid continuing negotiations, by 2007 the intention had lapsed, with intensive Il-86 operations to and from Egypt continuing.
Specifications
| Powerplant | four Kuznetsov NK-86 Kuznetsov NK-86 The Kuznetsov NK-86 is a low bypass turbofan engine used on the Ilyushin Il-86 rated at 28,000 lbf thrust. It is made by the Soviet Kuznetsov Design Bureau. It is the upgraded version of the Kuznetsov NK-8... two-spool turbofan engines, up to 127.5 kN (13,000 kgf, 28,665 lbf); thrust-to-weight ratio at maximum takeoff weight 0.242; VSU-10 APU Auxiliary power unit An auxiliary power unit is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft, as well as some large land vehicles.-Function:... |
| Overall dimensions | span 48.06 m (157 ft 8 in), length 60.21 m (197 ft 7 in), nominal height 15.68 m (51 ft 5 in) |
| Wing | area 300 m² (3,229 ft²), sweep 35° at quarter chord, mean aerodynamic chord 7.57 m (24 ft 10 in), aspect ratio 7, dihedral 6°43’, incidence 3° root, -1° tip, loading at maximum takeoff weight 672 kg/m² (133.15 lb/ft²) |
| Undercarriage | track 9.9 m (32 ft 5.5 in), wheelbase 21.05 m (69 ft) to outboard gear; 22.32 m (73 ft 3 in) to centre gear, ground turning circle 22 m (72 ft 2 in) minimum pavement width, 36 m (119 ft) typical pavement width |
| Crew | flightdeck three (four in USSR and Russian service due to industrial practices), cabin 11 (service-typical) |
| Accommodation | all-economy 350 passengers, 9-abreast (3-3-3), 84 cm (34 in) seat pitch, mixed-class 320 passengers: 18 first, 56 business; 246 economy, freight capacity 16,000 cubic metres/565,035 cubic feet, three compartments |
| Weights | maximum ramp 216,950 kg (478,290 lb), maximum takeoff (MTOW) 215,000 kg (458,560 lb), maximum landing 175,000 kg (385,800 lb), maximum fuel 86,000 kg (189,630 lb), maximum payload 40,000 kg (88,185 lb) early, 42,000 kg (92,594 lb) developed, operational empty 117,500 kg (259,043 lb) early, 115,000 kg (253,531 lb) late |
| Field lengths | takeoff balanced field length in ISA International Standard Atmosphere The International Standard Atmosphere is an atmospheric model of how the pressure, temperature, density, and viscosity of the Earth's atmosphere change over a wide range of altitudes. It has been established to provide a common reference for temperature and pressure and consists of tables of... conditions 2,800 m (9,190 ft), landing in ISA conditions 1,200 m (3,940 ft) |
| Sea-level rate of climb | 15 m/s (2,950 ft/min) at 210,000 kg (463,000 lb); service-typical between 5 m/s (1,000 ft/min) and 10 m/s (2,000 ft/min) |
| Speeds | typical safe climb-out (V2) 295 km/h (159 kt), initial climb 550 km/h (297 kt), climb 510 km/h (275 kt), cruise (VNO) maximum 0.88 Mach Mach number Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure... at 11,000 m (36,000 ft) to 12,000 m (40,000 ft)(best cruise altitude 11,400 m [37,000 ft]), 0.82 M to 0.805 M on under-210-minute sectors service-typical, 0.782 M long-range , never-exceed (VNE) 670 km/h (362 kt, 416 mph) indicated air speed (IAS) to 8,200 m (27,000 ft) or 750 km/h (416 kt, 466 mph) IAS above that altitude Altitude Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used . As a general definition, altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The reference datum also often varies according to the context... , approach 410 km/h (254 kt), typical runway threshold (VAT) 270 km/h (146 kt at 175,000 kg (385,800 lb), stall Stall (flight) In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack increases. This occurs when the critical angle of attack of the foil is exceeded... 330 km/h (178 kt) clean configuration at 210 t; 250 km/h (135 kt) with 25° flap, 210 t; 234 km/h (126 kt) 40° flap, 210 t |
| Practical air ranges (full ICAO fuel reserves; MTOW) | maximum payload 3,400 km (1,835 nmi, 2,113 mi), full passenger load and full tanks 4,000 km (2,160 nmi, 2,485 mi), 300 passengers and full tanks 5,000 km (2,700 nmi, 3,106 mi), maximum still air (ferry) 8,200 km (4,428 nm, 5,095 mi) |
| Typical fuel consumption | 14,000 kg (30,865 lb) first hour, 12,000 kg (26,455 lb) per hour thereafter |
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